The Filer Farm

“My dad was really a farmer, he loved to farm.  He had two farms, one by Filer and we moved into one of the farms.  He rented the other one.  Then five years later we moved to town- to Twin Falls.  But while we were on the farm, one little thing that happened was when there was a meeting at the schoolhouse- I don’t know what it was but my mother and aunt went to it- the men were not involved.  It sounds like a PTA meeting but I’m not sure because of course, I was a baby then.

But they went, mother and my aunt, they went in a buggy and my Aunt was driving and my sister Wilma, over a year old, was standing holding onto the front of the buggy and I was in my mom’s arms.  We got almost to the school, the horse got scared, something got in the way and the horse started bucking and the buggy fell over and my poor mom- she was the only one that was hurt- and she got a big gash and she got a big scar and always had her hair combed with her hair over it.”

“My older sister was Wilma and my younger sister was Juanita and there was just the three and I remember once visiting, when Wilma went to school- it was just a little schoolhouse- one of those old school houses when they had the isles and this one was grade one and this one two, three, four, and it was like that, just a small school, and you could see it from our yard, the school was across the yard.  A sheep always followed Wilma to school.  My dad had to always go get the sheep.”

“It wasn’t a town, it was the country- Filer- there were only about 500 people, and it was very small.  The farm- they grew a lot of alfalfa and corn, and potatoes- now that I can remember, but maybe other things. They had chickens and pigs and we used to have to go over to my Aunts- she lived three miles over- and get the milk every night in a pail.  We rode on a horse- Wilma and I did.

I can remember going to visit Wilma’s school and I can remember the teacher would give me some blocks and I would sit in the same row she was in, I was about four and a half, and I remember piling them up and looking at her, piling them up and she would say ‘Now you are getting it too high and they will fall over’ and it did!  I remember that, that is very clear.  I was five years when we moved in town, and then when I was six I went into the first grade. 1917.”