A century of memories
On January 12, 1921, when it was still “horse and buggy days,” Irma Lindemann was born in her family’s home on Lindemann Road in Lodi Township.
“I weighed six pounds,” she relates in a memoir she wrote ten years ago, as she turned 90. “(In those days), the doctor came to the house to deliver babies. I think there was also a nurse there, even before the delivery. After delivery, she took care of the mother and the baby,” while a hired girl did the remaining housework during the mother’s confinement.
Irma was the first born of five children to Joseph and Emma (Stollsteimer) Lindemann, and is the only surviving member of her immediate family.
She recalls her childhood in detailed and simple words. Although the family farm did not have electricity for the first 13 years of Irma’s life, or indoor plumbing, there were many good times, as well as much hard work, for for the Lindemann children, as was common for most farm families of the time. Washing the glass globes of the kerosene lamps used in the home each Saturday, helping with laundry in a wringer washer and hanging it on the clothesline (even during the winter), and ironing most of the clothes the family wore, were just some of the chores Irma remembers doing.
About the same time as electricity came to the family farm, so did the telephone. “It was a party line,” Irma explains. “That is, six or more families would be on one line. If someone (else) was using their telephone, you couldn’t use it. Sometimes it was rather hard to hear what the other person was saying, as other people were listening in on your conversation.”
While indoor plumbing remained elusive, the Lindemann family had a well with a windmill that pumped water through a pipe into a large crock in the house, inside the cupboards, as well as another pipe that led into the barn. Mrs. Lindemann also had a pump and sink in the kitchen, that pumped rain water, directed from the roof into the gutter, from a cistern in the basement.
The washing machine was gas powered and Irma remembers getting her fingers caught in the wringer while helping with laundry one time. She recalled it also happened to her sister Irene once. Lessons learned.
A wood stove heated the living room and dining room in the winter time and a cookstove in the kitchen was going year-around. “In the dining and living rooms we burned large chunks of wood, but in the kitchen we burned smaller pieces that were split from the larger pieces … Mother used to carry the big chunks in the house and us girls carried in the smaller pieces that we put into a big wooden box by the stove.” The home never had a furnace.
Irma’s recollections of her childhood Christmas seasons: “On Christmas Eve we went to church. That’s when the children’s program was. We each had a few lines to say and we sang songs. We received a brown paper bag with an orange in it. It was very tart. We also had some hard candy in (the bag).
“Since church started at 8 pm it was late when we got home and we just went to bed. Santa Claus came to our house during the night and brought the Christmas tree. It was a small artificial tree and had some little candle holders on the edge of. the branches, that Mother put little candles in them. She would light them once during the Christmas season, only lighting them herself and blowing them out herself. We did get gifts under the tree.”
Each summer, Irma had a “vacation,” spending one week at her aunt Mabel and uncle Orwin Stollsteimer’s home. “One time Aunt Mabel sent me to the corner grocery store to buy 1 qt. milk for 10¢ and one loaf of bread for 10¢. I always enjoyed my vacations there. We usually went swimming (at) their cottage at North Lake.”
She also talked about the Depression and how it affected their lives even on the farm. “A lot of people were out of work and had very little to eat. Many people were on welfare, which was a disgrace to be on at that time. Many farmers lost their farms. I don’t remember of anyone that was wealthy then. There just wasn’t any money.”
The bank in Bridgewater, where the children had their small savings, closed. “We could not get our money for a long time and then only part of it. We never did get the full amount. Mother had just put the milk check of $75 in the Saline Bank and it closed the next day. That was a lot of money then. It was a long time until dad had even a small amount of money to buy us an ice cream cone which was only 5¢ a cone then. When we finally received one, we really enjoyed it.”
When Irma was 13 years old, she passed the eighth grade. Since there were no buses, she did not go on to high school, but instead stayed home helping with housework–cleaning, cooking, baking, canning, and laundry. She also ironed clothes while her sisters, Laura and Irene, did dishes. “I’ve always liked to iron clothes, but Laura and Irene didn’t really like doing the dishes. I don’t think I really liked doing them either,” she recalls.
Irma was confirmed at Trinity Lutheran Church in Saline on April 14, 1935, when she was 14 years old, in a class of 21 young people. This process had included three years of twice-weekly Bible School classes. The day after the service and subsequent family party, they went to a photographer in Ann Arbor to have a photo taken.
At the age of 15, Irma went to work as a maid for Dr. and Mrs. Porter in Ann Arbor, doing housework and taking care of their small children; when Dr. Potter got a job in California, Irma went to work for Dr. & Mrs. Kretzschmar for 5-1/2 years. She would have one weekend off per month, from Saturday morning to Sunday night. The other three weeks she would have Thursday and Sunday afternoons off. Irma would often take the bus to downtown Ann Arbor to shop on her Thursday afternoons off.
She also talked about visiting with other friends who were maids in similar situations around town. She and her sister Laura went ice skating, roller skating, and attended dances at the Grange Hall on Saturday nights, where she met Armin Weidmayer. “One Saturday night Armin asked to take me home and I said yes. Laura drove home alone that night. (We) dated for six months and World War II started that November.”
She worked up from $4 a week in the beginning to $18 just before she got married, and during that time she saved $1,000 with which she could purchase all her furniture and her wedding dress, which she purchased at Hudson’s in Detroit. She describes her wedding, which took place at home with 56 guests in attendance, and the weeks preceding it when there were showers and other gatherings to celebrate. There was no honeymoon, since there was a war going on and gasoline and tires were rationed.
While Armin was classified “No. A,” which meant he could be drafted any time, when he and Irma were married on February 21, 1942 he started farming full time, which meant he never was called for the draft.
For one month after the wedding, Armin and Irma lived with his parents while they prepared their home on Austin Road in Bridgewater Township, where her son Gary still resides. Life on the farm was similar to what she had grown up with—electricity, but no running water. A furnace in the basement burned wood or coal. The kitchen stove was also wood-burning. Irma continued to use a wringer washer and did not have a clothes dryer for quite some time. Ironing the clothes that had been dried on the line usually took between five and six hours per week. Making soap from wood ashes for the laundry, dishes, and cleaning was another chore she was used to.
There were funny stories as well. “We of course had an outdoor John and I scrubbed it faithfully every Saturday, even when the weather got cold, which Armin didn’t like one bit as once the water was still frozen on it when he sat on it. He did let me know about it.”
The couple joined Bethel Church and went to church “every Sunday except when a German service,” which ended a few years after they were married.
On the farm they raised heifers, and Irma raised chickens she bought one-day-old from the Klager Hatchery. Armin and his brother Elmer also sheared sheep for a couple of months every spring.
Three sons joined the family—Milton, Eldean, and Gary. “They were healthy and lively boys,” Irma relates. “Milton and Eldean (born 11 months apart) were like twins, but all three boys got along fairly well. They spent many hours playing together.” The boys attended the “Short School,” located nearby at the corner of Austin and Clinton roads. When Milton was in sixth grade, the country schools consolidated into the Manchester district, and all three Weidmayer sons graduated from Manchester.
She describes threshing bees and barn raisings, butchering time, canning and preserving, all common events during old-time farming days. The May 1950 barn raising at their farm was covered by the Ann Arbor News. The barn had been disassembled in the fall of 1949 from the Chelsea Proving Grounds property and transported to the Weidmayer farm on Austin Road. A crew of 84 men assembled that spring day in 1950 under the direction of Reuben Finkbeiner to rebuild the barn in one day. “After the barn raising, Armin served beer (to the men), but not during the barn raising,” Irma recalls.
Once their three sons were married, the family started growing again, eventually including eight grandchildren, twenty great-grandchildren, and three great-great grandchildren.
Armin and Irma were able to travel and enjoyed trips to Washington, DC to visit Irma’s sister Laura; they also attended Farm Bureau conventions with friends in Hawaii, Houston, New Orleans, and more. Armin passed away in 2000 but Irma has remained active surrounded by church, friends, family, and her many memories.
Over the past decade, Irma has lived a life of gratitude for her health and her family. Her daughter-in-law, Karen, commented that “she is always very gracious when we or someone else gives or does things for her—between family members we probably have million thank-you notes! Every time I send a meal over—back comes the dish and a note thanking me.”
Reflecting on the changes over the years, she says cars go much too fast these days, nothing like in the horse and buggy days! She recalled when her father got his first Model T while she was very young. “Dad didn’t take any driving lessons,” she says. “In those days, one just bought a car and learned to drive on your own.”
She also laments the fact that people don’t visit as much as they used to. Back in her day, they would visit siblings each Sunday and play a game of baseball as their entertainment.
Karen also notes that, “When Gary and I take her to church, she always dresses as if she is going … perhaps to the White House to see the president! Nice clothes, hair to perfection, and jewelry shining—everyone at Bethel Church always comments about how beautiful she looks!”
To wish Irma a happy birthday, or to send a card, please contact Karen or Gary Weidmayer at 734-428-8641.
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