Monday, Jan. 30, 1939

Pres. Birthday. Ball’s being held all over this eve, some were held Sat. & Sun. nite also. Some awful weather some places. Chicago 11 ins snow. St. Louis 5 ins snow 28 [degrees]. not so cold here, as in some places.

Thursday, April 7, 1938

Raining all day. Bert [Bertille] cleaned kitchen, painted coal oil stove etc. Mass Jos. Keller & lady friend came awhile this afternoon, about 1/2 hr. to get 10 doz. eggs. for themselves & friends. Awful ugly weather, suppose to be rain turning to snow & 32 [degrees]. At Chicago had a pretty severe snow storm the last days. In Birmingham Alba. [Alabama] had a cyclone, never heard from Ed Brand.

Sunday, May 2, 1937

Went to mass; Fr. Stern had it, but he isn’t so good he was invited to Ruma tomorrow on Pius Simpsons golden Wedd. anniversary, but he couldn’t go, says all he could invite us for his funeral, don’t think he will live to celebrate jubilee. Uncle Fred & Aunt Mary had dinner here, then went home. It rained again all afternoon & nite, it has rained every Sun. since Easter I believe & almost everyday.

Monday, April 6, 1936

Cloudy, & cold; In Alambama [sic] had a storm yesterday, 1 reported dead. In Georgia Tornado, 1,000 persons dead, & 4 houses burned this morning, from cyclones; terrible in other states. Pap & Rose took load wheat to Waterloo & went out to see Joe Freund’s to see his cow; but pap didn’t want it, but made trade anyway – $75 – cash – $75 note, coming to look & get it Thurs. morn. Leona is sick in bed with flu, – cold. Mr. Saliger of Horse Praire got the cultivator $35.00 this afternoon. Wm. C Voges was here wanted to buy oats, thought it was to high price but was going to tell his son Charles. Aaron Papenberg the assesor [sic] was here. We went out to Uncle Freds, for supper; & on business, paid interest of $300.00 note.

Wednesday, July 11, 1934

Went out threshing again, had them for lunch, carried it out, & had dinner & lunch again, then left for Levi Ganley’s. Papa & Rosalia were hauling wheat all day, taking it home in chicken house. Henry threshed 1085 bus. wheat, we got 361 bus.; one of his fields average 24 bus. to an acre. Uncle Fred & Aunt Mary had to leave & go threshing by Henry & Oscar Birkner. It got awful cloudy & rained a little, in Jacksonville, Ill: there was an awful Tornado $75,000 damage. & in Smithon [sic] it was pretty bad, trees all torned [sic] to pieces, houses over roofs off. It looked awful black in the north. Eggs were 9¢ but now up to 11.

Sunday, Feb. 25, 1934

We didn’t go to church today; snowing & sleeting all day. George Wagner & Steve Rennecker came over to sign hog papers for the processing tax, $2.23 for Jan. Steve stayed & we played cards, 4 games, he won 3. Monroe Co. C. W. A. are laying men off now till down to 6, stayed working: Osie Neff, Pete Watchel, all them are off, from Hecker, is only Jack Reagan, Hy. Meng, Hy. Braun working & there is Chas. Helfrich, Wilhelms, Leifer & some yet from Round Prairie working the snow plow went down & up, several times, but didn’t help much.