Harvest Tales - Haskell County 02
Harvest stories submitted by Kansans for the online exhibit, Wheat People.
Submit your own at kshs.kansasmuseum@ks.gov.
Larry Stude
A Minor Harvest Mishap
My family and I moved to Copeland in April, 1929. My father, John Stude, had bought our home place . . . two years before, in early April, 1927. My uncle, Fred Stude, bought an adjoining quarter that reached to the eastern boundary of Haskell County, with the agreement that my father would farm that land, too. . . .
I remember my father teaching me to drive [our] Ford truck in early June, 1929, so I could haul the wheat of the harvest coming. I had just turned 13. When we had "come out" from Stafford in April, I had taken turns with my mother in driving the car (a nearly new Dodge). But driving the truck was a lot different. For one thing, if the extra transmission was taken out of gear, the truck had no brakes--it just coasted.
My father had me drive the truck hauling the wheat during the '29 harvest. I got along fine except for one minor mishap. There were always lines of trucks waiting to be weighed and dumped at the elevator. One morning I came up behind the last truck in line a bit too fast, and bumped into his truck bed. Damaged my radiator and ruined a radiator hose. I was able to get unloaded, went downtown and got a new hose, and went home. There we took a radiator off another old Ford, and it was "as good as new." My father always did think I had "let it get out of gear." I was sure I hadn't, but had just come up a bit too fast.
