Roots in Coleman

The Fike children attended a one room country school, the Wise school which was three miles away. Dora said, “They told my dad they were going to build a school a mile away but they changed their minds and built it three miles away.”

Dora remembered being six years old and riding down the railroad tracks in a cart pulled by her brothers Lester and Dale after school let out. The day didn’t start out that way. Dora, Dale and Lester rode in the cart pulled by a mule and when the boys got to school, they tied the mule up across the road from the school in the church yard. During the day the mule managed to get untethered and walked back to the farm. The boys decided the only way to get the cart back home so they could ride back to school the next day was to pull the cart back home. They put Dora in the cart and decided that pulling the cart down the railroad tracks was easier than going down the road. Dora said, “I remember sitting in that cart jouncing all the way home.”

Ed and Carrie were members of the United Brethren Church so not too much emphasis was placed on Christmas although the family always got together for the day. Dora remembered the first time she saw Santa Claus. She was 3 and was in downtown Coleman by Smith’s Hardware Store with her mom and her Aunt Emma. Dora said, “I was so scared I tried to climb up my Aunt Emma’s leg to get away from that man in the red suit and white beard.”

Ed enjoyed his children coming back home for the holiday and everyone was treated to oyster stew. Christmas programs were always enjoyed with the children learning “pieces” and songs for the occasion. “All the parents came to see us the night of the program,” Dora said.

Farmers went into town on Saturday to buy groceries and anything else the family might need. It was their one night out each week.

One day Ed Fike came in and said to Dora, “Here, Sis. You feed this pig and it’s yours.” Dora kept the little pig in a box in the corner of the kitchen and when Dora went outside, the little pig followed her everywhere. Then one day a salesman came to the farm house and when he started back to his car the little pig followed him. He picked the little pig up, put it under his arm and left. Dora said “I never saw my little pig again.” Later she was given a sheep to raise but her dad sold it when it was full grown. Dora said, “I didn’t have much luck with pets.”

Her playhouse was the corn crib during the summer months but in the fall, the corn crib was full. Dora said, “Well, by then it was too cold to play outside anyway.” She paused for a moment and then continued, “It was a lot different then how kids played and how they do now.”

The Fike family always had the huge farm horses called Percherons. One day, Dora and some of her nieces decided they wanted to ride one of the horses but the horse had other ideas and walked under the clothesline in the yard and wiped them off. Dora said, “I guess he got tired of having us on his back.”

Ed Fike had a threshing machine and in the fall the neighbors all pitched in, going from farm to farm threshing grain using Ed’s machine. The women and children came too, with the women putting together huge meals for the hungry men. At noon when the men came in from the fields, a tub of water was put out so the men could wash the black grain dust from their faces. Dora’s daughter Connie remembers threshing times, too. Connie said, “The women would say to us kids, ‘Take this pail of water with a dipper back to the men in the fields.’”

Dora went to the tenth grade and then stayed home to care for her mother who suffered from what was then simply called “milk leg,” a condition that sometimes developed when a woman gave birth. Most of the time, “milk leg” lasted for a short time. In Carrie’s case, it didn’t.