Dad's Family History (Larry Dean Brown)

The recording is about the storyteller's family history. They discuss their mother's side of the family, the Watermans, and their father's side, the Hanks. They mention stories about their grandparents and great-grandparents, including a train robbery by Jesse James and the disappearance of their grandfather George. They also mention their ancestors' movements from Iowa to Nebraska and back. The storyteller acknowledges that some details may be uncertain or lost to history. I am making this recording of various stories regarding our family. She thought it should be passed on to future generations, and we discussed this two weeks before she passed away. She was amazed at some stories I told her. She asked me where I had learned all this. I told her Mom's soccer and Ed's soccer. She thought it was very interesting and should be passed on. Some stories she was aware of, some she was not. She did not know I was going to include some stories about me and her. Believe me when I say I'm no expert at this. I would probably not be doing this if not for Donna Jean. Some of you have family trees and will probably better understand it if you follow along with them. When I first started all this, I thought I would have two families to talk about. But I soon found out I would have to include two more with a total of four. I will take one family at a time and hope I get all the stories in there. If not, I will include at the end of the tape some stories that I might have forgot about or I might learn before the tape is done. When I first started this, I heard a lot of stories. Then I heard this and that from different people. Then I found written material on it and some of it didn't all match. So I pretty much went along with the written material. A lot of it came from Mom's soccer that kept records. I inherited a lot of her paperwork when she passed away and I got it out from there. I still haven't went through it all. The first family we're going to start with is the Waterman family. As far back as I can go with information or knowledge, this is John and Jane Waterman. In fact, regarding Jane, we're not even sure that's her name. Mom's soccer is the question mark behind it. I suppose from now on out through history, she'll be known as Jane. I understand they came from Keokuk, Iowa or at least they lived there for a while because they had two buildings by the name of George and Sam Waterman. George was born in Keokuk, Iowa and that's where I got that address from. Sam, I have no knowledge of where he was born nor do I have any knowledge of whether he ever got married or not, but we do have pictures of him and he was a very handsome young man. Both boys were pretty good-looking guys. Needless to say, George, he married a young lady by the name of Maude Hanks. With this union, there were two children. There was a boy and a girl, Clyde and Hazel May. Hazel May was my grandmother and your great-grandmother and so on down the line. George was a photographer and he was a traveling photographer and I understand that was a pretty good trade in its day. It was a relatively new field to be in during that time and when you figure it only took a year to train a doctor back in those days, he might have been looked at a little bit better than doctors. But I know they lived in Norfolk or Wayne County, Nebraska, for some time and just why they started to come back, I just don't know. Whether it was taking pictures of everybody in the area, because I doubt there was that many people out there at that time. But at any rate, they took a covered wagon and him and Maude and Clyde and Hazel May came back and they were coming back to Iowa. My mom had told me a story, my mom's uncle, about as they was coming across a prairie there, Clyde fell out of the wagon, out of the back end of it. And George and Maude were sitting up front driving the team and Mom said she ran up there to tell them that their brother Clyde had fell out the back and I guess they were talking, I don't know if they were talking business, we probably never will know, but it must have been pretty interesting because they didn't pay attention to it. And Mom, you know, Hazel May, me and Don Jean always called her Mom. Anyway, Mom kept hollering and shouting and finally Maude says, my lamb takes girl, what is your problem? And she listened to her while they stopped the team in the wagon right there in the prairie and George jumped down and ran back and died and there he was sitting in the prairie grass in the middle of the prairie. So that was quite a story to listen to, which is one that we're passing on at this time. I'll try to get these stories in order as it happens to the people. Mom Sackler also told me about a lady that she knew, an elderly lady that lived over there by Stewart or somewhere down around there south of Adair or Stewart. All these towns are fairly reasonably close to each other. You can look them up on the map. About Jesse James and his gang, Frank James and his gang, they had robbed a train up there just south of Adair. In fact, that was the first train robbery in the United States. Not the worst, possibly the worst, but at least it was the first. Just south of Adair, they'd stopped the train out in the country and robbed it and then took off and headed south back to Missouri. Mom Sackler said she knew the people that Jesse James, their farmhouse, he stopped at and they were expecting them. They knew they were robbing the train that was coming back and people fed the whole gang there and then they went on down to Missouri. I thought that was quite interesting. Now, what the people's names were, I don't know. Just where it was at, I have no idea. That's all lost to history. There came a time when George and Maude decided to separate. I don't know what the problem was. Maude never seemed to want to discuss that. I'm sure Hazel May would have told me, Maude, but she was probably too young to understand either. But at any rate, mudhangs, Hazel May and Clyde at the train station, they was taking a train back to Iowa. Now, what town they were in, I have no idea. Tell you what, I do not know. But she was holding Hazel May and Clyde by the hand and George was there to see them off. And just before the train departed, George grabbed a hold of Clyde and said, I'll be taking Clyde, I'll raise him, and also told Maude that he would be back later to get Hazel May. Well, he disappeared amongst a crowd of people with Clyde and was never seen again. I can about imagine what Maude was thinking. Her little boy was gone and she held on tight to Hazel May and got on the train and went back to Stewart. Well, they were terrorized thinking that he would come into town sometime and get Hazel May and take her too. And so whenever she went to school or came home, one of the members of the family would escort her so that Clyde couldn't slip up and kidnap her. And I can remember Mom telling me, what a child is that with being afraid someone was going to kidnap you? They never did see George in the town, but there was a couple of reports from people that thought they recognized him or a man answering to his description. And, therefore, it upset them all and they would build a security on him. Hazel May, to my knowledge, never ever saw her dad again. We found out later, or she did, that he had got remarried. The woman's name I do not know. But him and his second wife had six children, three boys and three girls. And at least Hazel May got to meet him and she got along real well with him. When George died, he was buried at Bridgesdale, Colorado. Now whether he lived there I do not know, but anyway that's where he was interned was in Bridgesdale, Colorado. And the three boys and three girls, I met one, Harriet, he lives in Oklahoma today, and he's a real nice guy. And there was another one they called Lucky. I have their names and addresses. Most of them, I don't know if they're recent or not, and I know Don Geno and that's where I got it from. But to my knowledge, Mom never did ever see her dad again. Maude and Mom were later reunited with Clyde. He was up in the St. Paul area. I understand he was in World War I, and after he got out of the Army, he opened up a plumbing and heating business, and he lived there until he died. He's married and had some children. But they did get to visit him, and Maude got to see him again, but by this time he was grown up. Continuing on, we'll go to the Hanks family next. Whether anybody recognizes that name or not, the Hanks come out from Illinois. What town? I don't know the name of the town they came from, but if you studied your history, you'll know that Abraham Lincoln's mother was a Hanks, and she is related to this Hanks family. Her name was Nancy Hanks. But we're more concerned right now with Duane and Melissa Hanks. They moved to Ames, Iowa from Illinois, and his brother by the name of George also came. Now, whether George was married, I do not know, but I do know George was in the Civil War. Now, whether he was in the Civil War before they came out to Iowa or after, this I do not know, but I have been told whether he fought with Illinois or whether he fought with Iowa, I don't know, but he was in Sherman's March to the Sea, as I understand. Now, that's just a rumor, so don't take me for sure on that. There's not a lot known on it, just what was passed down by word from word. But anyway, Duane and Melissa moved to Ames, Iowa. George went to Huxley, which is about eight, ten miles from Ames. And I do know George Farms. Now, I would imagine Duane Farms was there around Ames, too, because that's where Maude Hanks was born. Now, you recall Maude was born to Mary Georgia Waterman. She was born in Ames, Iowa. Now, Melissa and Duane, they had two boys and two girls, of course, one of the girls being Maude. For some reason, they packed up and left Ames, and so did George, he left Huxley, and they moved to Stewart, Iowa. Why, I don't know. I have no idea, but I know they farmed down there. Now, whether George had his farm and Duane had his farm, I would assume to say yes, but I'm not sure. Maybe they farmed the same farm, but this information is also lost. I do know that George donated a portrait of Abraham Lincoln to the city of Stewart. Now, whether it was to be hung in the town hall or courthouse, I don't know which one it was, but I was told this by Mom's father that George had donated this portrait of him. I have a couple of newspaper obituaries, one of George Hanks and one of Maude Hanks Waterman, where it's stated in there that they were related to Abraham Lincoln. I think I sent out some Maude's obituaries, but George, I haven't run across his yet, but it's stated he is related. Melissa Hanks, which everyone called her Grandma Hanks. She was known by this, Grandma Hanks to everybody. She lived to be a ripe old age. Duane, I have no idea how long he lived, but he farmed all his life and passed away. I don't have any stories on him for some reason. He must have been kind of a quiet person. But I do know this. Melissa Hanks, old Bible, that she brought with her out to Iowa from Illinois. Mom's father had that, and I gave this Bible to Terry Duke, my daughter. Hopefully she still has it. It's very, very old, and it's a valuable Bible. I have one picture of Melissa Hanks is all I have got in later years, and I'm taking very good care of that. It was stated Maude Hanks, as stated before, married George Hanks. Now I had a picture, maybe I've mentioned this before, if I'm repeating myself, forgive me. Terry has a wedding picture that was covered by George Hanks. There was no colored film in those days, and they would take it black and white, and then a photographer would color it. This is if he was painting a portrait, but that's what was being done with this picture, and my daughter Terry has that picture. At least I gave it to her, I will say that. Now the other daughter was named, this was Duane and Melissa's other daughter, Artabelle Hanks. The reason I mention her is because I knew her personally in her later years, and when I enlisted in the Air Force, I always used to write me letters in the Air Force, and was very friendly. She was a dear lady, and I loved her very much, and she didn't have a mean bone in her body. She was just good to everybody, and was really concerned with everyone. But anyway, Artabelle married a gentleman by the name of Franklin Brampton, and evidently from Stewart they moved to Canby, Iowa, there again just a short distance from Stewart, a small town. The only thing in Canby was a general store, a church, and Frank and Artabelle's house. Now everybody called Artabelle, they called her Auntie. She was known by Auntie to everybody, and that's what I always called her was Auntie. But she was a dear lady, and her husband was a blacksmith, and we used to go down there at times to have a big dinner, kind of like a family reunion. But a lot of people would go down there, and I can remember Frank taking me out to the blacksmith shop and showing me. I remember there was a bunch of horseshoes and what have you. It was in the latter years, and he wasn't doing that much at that time. But anyway, he showed me his shop, and I was kind of interrupted as a young boy. Another reason why I mentioned Artabelle, because it had to do with kind of a human interest story. One day, I don't know the time of the year when it was, but they heard a noise on the front porch. I think they were still in bed. Hadn't got up yet, but they were just shuffling out there to the front porch. Whether it was knocking or pounding, I don't know. But Frank got up to go look to see what was going on, because it's unusual for anybody that time of the day to be around. And when he opened the door, no one was there, but when he looked down, there was a little baby in a basket. And whether it was cold, hot, I do not know. But anyway, Frank could see no one, and he took the baby basket up and brought him into the kitchen and set him on the kitchen table, and Artabelle had come out. She came out and looked, and it was a little baby boy. The baby was crying, and the lady just took care of him and notified authorities the next morning. So therefore, they hung on to the baby and cared for him until someone could find out who the parent was. But they never did find out. At that time, they didn't find out, and both Artabelle and Frank kind of came attached to the little type. I guess he was a cute little baby, and they decided that they wanted to adopt him. If they couldn't find nobody that would adopt him, they wasn't going to let him go to an orphanage. Well, then the authorities, that be at that time, decided that Frank and Artabelle was too old to raise children, so they was going to take him to court to get the baby. Well, I guess it was quite a long, drawn-out legal battle, and understand Artabelle and Frank didn't have a lot of money. He was a blacksmith, but I guess people in the surrounding areas joined in with him and helped him out financially to get this baby. They knew him well. And as it turned out, Frank and Art got that baby, and they named him Vernon. And there again, Vernon was a nice looking lad, and I guess later years they met who the mother was. I don't have her name, I don't know who she was, but evidently the mother was not married, and in those days to have a baby out of wedlock was a terrible disgrace on a woman and her family. So therefore, she had the baby and decided to give it away. And she knew Frank and Art of Grantham, and she knew they were good people, and that's who she wanted to raise her baby. And I guess all this was found out later, after they had made the adoptions and what have you. And how they found out, I don't know. That's probably all lost to history. But at any rate, Vernon grew up to be a decent man, and he worked in the area around Stuart and Fontenelle, and he had a family, and he had two boys. I remember one boy was called Joe, and I can't remember the name of the other boy. The two boys were named after ballplayers, but Vernon died at a young age. I think he wasn't quite 40 when he passed away. What was the cause of his death, I don't know. Next family we're going to discuss is a Sacco family. And as far back as I can go is Juergen Sacco and Magdalene Jasper Sacco. Magdalene Jasper married Juergen Sacco, and they were both from Germany. As a matter of fact, they were both born and raised in Slice Lake, Holstein County, which is a lower area just north of Homburg, close to the Danish border. There come a time when Magdalene's parents wanted to come to America. And just what year this was, I don't know, but it's going back quite a ways. Napoleon was around at that time, and scaring everybody to death, that'll give you an entire idea. I believe that her and Jasper, or Juergen, excuse me, her and Juergen knew each other at the time. As the story gets in a little more detail, you'll understand where I'm coming from. At any rate, Magdalene Jasper and her parents moved to America, and they moved to a town, I believe it might have been Moline, Illinois. That's where most of the people from Europe or Germany came from. They were coming around the Moline area. Juergen was still in Germany. Now, he was trained, his trade was a wheelwright. In other words, a wheelwright made these wagon wheels, these spoke wheels, and I guess it was quite a art to learn how to make those. It took a lot of years to learn, it was apprenticeship. And I think he must have known some farming, because when he came to America, that's what he did, he farmed. But at any rate, at the time that he was in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, he was a wheelwright. Well, it was Napoleon, he said it was Napoleon, he was tired of wars over there. It was one war right after another. Evidently, Denmark and Germany fought over this Schleswig-Holstein area. They claimed it for themselves. And when Napoleon moved in, there was going to be another war, and I think Juergen said, and he packed up his bags and he came to America, where he came to Moline where he found Magdalene and her parents. Now, they were married in Moline. Now, how long they lived there, I don't know, but they had a boy there. I know one boy was born there, maybe more, but at least one I know for sure is John. He was born in Moline, Illinois. But there came a time when they decided, I would imagine he was probably working a wheelwright trade there. But anyway, there came a time when they decided to move on from there, and they just decided to come to Iowa. And as I understand it, they loaded up the family in a wagon and came east over into Iowa, and they settled around the Ottawa area. Now, just what he did there, I don't know, because there's a record that doesn't sound like they were there very long, because he homesteaded 160 acres just north of Adair, Iowa. I would imagine they probably knew someone around Ottawa, but then came there first, so they could go on from there. But at any rate, he homesteaded 160 acres in Adair, Iowa, north of Adair. And that's where they lived. And a story that was told to me by Eddie Salko, which is the son of Bill Salko, not my grandfather, not to be confused with Ed Salko. Eddie was a different person. He was younger than my grandfather. Eddie told me that people, when they come out, Jurgen and Magnum and all the pioneers, when they come out there to Iowa, live on prairie chickens. And that was their sole source of meat there for the first year was just prairie chickens. Today, there are no prairie chickens left in Iowa, so maybe he was telling the truth. But they built a home there and started farming and started raising their family, and I do know there was some more kids born. And an interesting little story that was told to me by Mom Salko, was one night they heard a bunch of noise down on the creek. There was a creek that runs through the farm, which Eddie picked me out and showed me this farm, and I've seen it. So there is a creek that runs down through there, which was essential to these farmers' waterways. But at any rate, they heard the noise down the creek. They got up, and I don't know how they found out, but they found out a bunch of Indians down there. And as it turned out, that's when they had all these Indians on a big move to the reservation. And it was very cold, evidently, in the middle of the winter. It was bitter cold that night. And Magdalene told Jordan that he would take some blankets down there and some straws, and the Indians were going to freeze to death because evidently there were babies. They could hear babies crying, so they're not going to sit down there and freeze to death. It was too cold out there. Jordan and I evidently were a little hesitant about doing it. I think he was a little afraid. But at any rate, he did go out and hitch the team up to the wagon and loaded some blankets and then got some straw out of the top of the barn and took it down to them. Now evidently nothing desperate happened because he returned. The next morning when they got up, the Indians were gone. And when they opened the door, there was a blanket all folded, laying on the front stoop, and also a pair of little Indian moccasins, children's moccasins. And evidently that was left as a thank you. And I have those moccasins to this day at the trunk that Mom Sackler left me. I think that is quite a human interest story. Jordan was very quiet about his family over in Germany. Mom Sackler used to tell me when anybody would ask him much about it, he would just kind of clam up, just like he didn't want to talk about anybody. And we know very little about the Sackler family in Germany. The only thing I do know is that in the United States they pronounced it Sack-oh. And I found out when I made a trip several years ago over to Germany with my daughter Carrie that the name was pronounced Sack-ow in Germany. But I got a bunch of names of the same spelling out of German phone books when I was going over to wherever they'd get them. I've never contacted anybody because I don't know how to speak German. But getting back to Jordan and his life down there in Adair, Iowa, it was common for people to write back and get, you know, friends and relatives to come over and settle next to him. So that's what they did back in Moline because a number of Germans moved out into the area to homestead some land around Adair. Well, in doing so, the Germans told him to come out and that he would guarantee that they would have enough to live on and eat for one year until they could get their crops in and get started on the farm. Well, getting back to Eddie Sackler again, he told me a story that his dad had told him, Bill Sackler, which is Bill was the son of Jorgen. They was driving some cattle down to Anita, that's where the train station was at, and he noticed that there was his dad and his dad had some tears running down his cheek and was really looking sad and hadn't acted good all day and he asked his dad what was wrong. And Jorgen said, well, it was the wrong time to be selling this cattle. He was just getting his herd built up to where it was really going to do good and now you've got to settle them. And Bill said, well, why do you sell them? Because he said, Jorgen said, well, I promised these people that they'd have plenty to do with and money to support for one year and he says, I need the money to give to them. And I thought, well, there's a good example of people keeping their word back in the old days. He was here, he was selling this cattle and was going to give the money to his friends and neighbors he had to move it. Eddie later told me a lot of those people or generations and all are still living on their farms and wouldn't even speak to Eddie Sacco when they saw him on the street to even say hello. So I guess that tells you what human nature is like. I hope I'm not confusing you too much with these stories. I hope I'm getting explained right. If not, you'll have to write me and ask me to further explain it if you are a little confused. Sometimes I get confused too, so it's nothing to be embarrassed about. Or you can also call me and use the phone. But at any rate, Jorgen Magdalen lived to be a ripe old age and he retired from the farm and moved into Denison. He returned to his old trade of being a wheelwright. He did that quite a while in Denison until he got too old to do it. Then he got in a little wagon and started going around the countryside selling fish. Now whether he caught this fish himself and sold him, I don't know, but he sold fish. And the team, one horse or two horses, whatever he had, moved their way home. So Jorgen, he could stay out until about evening when he couldn't sell no more and then he'd just tell the team to go home and he'd go to sleep. And the night, well, the thing was, one night they was crossing the railroad tracks and a train hit them. And killed Jorgen outright and the train didn't even know they'd hit a wagon until they got to the next town and they found a wreckage on the front of it. So when they went back, the horse was all right, but the horse or horses, but Jorgen was lying alongside the railroad tracks dead. So he was buried. I understand, I don't know if it was Oakland Cemetery or Oakland, Iowa. I would sooner say it's probably Oakland Cemetery in Denison there, but I don't know. They just said Oakland. And there is an Oakland, Iowa not far away. Maybe him and Magdalene are both buried there. I don't know, but Magdalene, she died at an old age at the moment. They say all the soccer's got their height from Magdalene Jasper because all her family was tall. Whereas the soccer's, they said, was notoriously short. So anybody that was tall in the soccer family, that came from the Jasper side of the house. Another little story, I thought I'd interject there. I just remembered it. But at any rate, children born to them are four boys and five girls. And we're going to go down through some of them, not all of them, but some of them had interesting stories to tell and some of them didn't. But at any rate, Jurgen, born by the old-fashioned German ways, said that the girls, they left school at sixth grade. He didn't feel that girls needed to be educated any further than that because they were for taking care of their families and raising kids and taking care of their husbands. The boys went to eighth grade. And that was as far in school as they went because if they was going to farm and work with their hands, that's all they needed to know was that they needed to know money matters, how to add and subtract. That was his philosophy and it was probably the philosophy of a lot of people back in those days. We think it was what it mean in our day to do it, but back in those days it was probably not talked too much of at that time. And of these four boys, John Sacco was the oldest. He became the town mechanic and blacksmith and a bear. Ed Sacco, the second oldest, that's my grandpa, we'll get to him in just a minute, but I want to go to the third boy first, which is Bill Sacco. And also there was another one, George Sacco, which died at a young age, but we'll go back to Bill Sacco. I'd like to cover his story first because it might not be quite as confusing if I do it that way. Bill Sacco was sheriff of Greenville County, which included Adair, Iowa. And there come a time when, now that's an electric post at that time, but there came a time in those days they had a lot of chicken feeds around and we kind of laugh about it now, but I guess it was a pretty good deal, a big deal back in those days. But he had a couple of them in the jail, I don't know if there was two or three of them in there in the jail, and at that time it was policy that the sheriff's wife fed the prisoners. She would cook it at home and bring it up, and they got paid for this. It was extra money for the sheriff. Well, just where Bill was at, I don't know. But I'm trying to think of Bill's wife, I can't remember. Anyway, she was taking the food to the prisoners up there, which were chicken feeds. Well, when she opened the cell door to give them the food, they attacked her and beat her up and left her laying on the floor. They ran outside, got into Bill Sacco's sheriff's car, and took off. Well, just where Bill was at, I don't know. But they located him, and somehow he got his hands whether he had his own car or whether he borrowed a car or what, went after him. Well, when he brought them back, I think there might have been two of them. When they brought them back, one was near death and had to go to the hospital, and the other, well, both of them had to go to the hospital, but one was evidently beat up pretty bad. He was the next thing to die, and the other one was close to it, so they went to the hospital on it. At any rate, it was a big scandal there in Adair, Iowa, that they would think that Bill Sacco would beat a human being up that bad, and Bill Sacco, his only excuse was, and only he would say, they resisted arrest. Well, a lot of people said, well, they made one mistake by beating up Bill's wife. That's a mistake they made. But at any rate, Bill only made one statement. He said, resisting arrest, which gave him the authority to beat him up. Well, I don't think they ever come back to Adair again. I know I was near death, but at any rate, there was nothing more said, but people sure kept it, especially the lady folks in the area, kept it at the back of their mind. They thought he was just a mean brute for doing that, and it was just a terrible thing. We'll get back to Bill Sacco later on in the tape, but right now I want to go into Ed Sacco. Ed Sacco was the second oldest son of Turpin and Magdalene, my grandpa. He grew up as a healthy young man and used to ride around with Jorgen. He was one that was appointed to do the business. Ed Sacco had a good mathematical mind. They said his brain was like a computer or a calculator. In those days, he could calculate math quicker than a calculator could, just as quick as his head. But he would go along. Plus, he also spoke English and high and low German, which Jorgen spoke both high and low German. But Ed Sacco, Jorgen never learned English to my knowledge. He might have learned a little bit, but he didn't know the language. But Ed Sacco did. He learned English growing up. Grandpa Sacco always told me he played football at Notre Dame. Now, I don't have any records of him going to college, but he said he played at Notre Dame College to play football there. My sister, Darlene Jean, also said, well, she's heard that story too. Now, I wonder, you know, football was relatively a new sport in those days, and I just wonder if they didn't pay people to play football at that college at that time. But we have no records of him going to college. Now, maybe he did. I don't know. But it's a mystery that will probably never get solved, but I'm passing it along to you as I know it. And he knew football very well because he used to discuss it with me when I was playing. For one thing, when I was playing football, they had the extra point, kicked the extra point. In his day, they didn't do that. They never had an extra point. That's what he explained to me. But at any rate, Ed Sacco was a confirmed bachelor. He had decided that he was never going to get married. And he worked on farms around for various people, and this one couple he worked over with was a hired hand for him, and the man up and died. Why, I don't know. But the lady decided to stay there, so Ed Sacco stayed there and worked, and she paid him a salary, and he farmed the whole farm and gave her the money, and then she paid him a salary. Now, I don't know that she died at the farm or whether she went back to Illinois where she was from or something, but at any rate, there would come a day when she died, and she gave the farm to Ed Sacco. So this is how Ed arrived at his farm there in Iowa. Evidently, Jurgen had sold his farm by then and moved on into retirement. But Ed Sacco inherited this farm from the lady, and so he continued farming there, and he would hire workers, you know, and then came along a lady by the name of Maude Hanks, which was married at this time to a fellow by the name of Joe Razor, and he hired her as a hired hand for Ed Sacco. So Maude Hanks and that old girl named, I guess she was a teenager, Hazel May Sacco, or Hazel May Hanks at the time, or Harvin at the time, excuse me. But that is how my grandmother met my grandpa, who was Joe Razor, being a hired hand on my grandpa's farm. Well, Joe Razor come a day got injured severely in a threshing machine. Evidently, it was a pelvic bone in the mechanism and tore him up pretty bad, and they tried to get him to Des Moines, Iowa. There was not too many hospitals around there that could handle it, and I guess he fell to death on the train en route into Des Moines, Iowa. So therefore, that just led Maude Waterman and Hazel Waterman, and I guess they decided to move, I don't know, to Stewart or Des Moines and afterwards. And anyway, but Hazel May kept in contact by mail with Ed Sacco, which, as we said, Ed Sacco determined he was going to be a back for the rest of his life. He was not getting married, but he must have took an eye to Hazel May because somehow they got back together and they got married. They got married and lived on that farm, and they had a name for it. It was a little woman's name that owned it, and they used to call it by that, such-and-such farm north of the Deer, and I have a lot of pictures of that farm. And they had three children, which was Buda Sacco, Glenn Sacco, and Dana Sacco. And there came a time when Ed Sacco got to drinking. Of course, I think he always did drink a little bit, but it was during the prohibition era, and it was illegal. And so Ed Sacco decided to make his own booze right there on the farm. Well, needless to say, he had a lot of friends and neighbors around there, and Ed Sacco never sold it. He'd give it away. Well, Mom Sacco would never allow booze in the house, so they would drink it down in the barn. His friends would stop in, neighbors, and they'd get out in the barn, they'd have a drink, and the women got to complaining that their husbands were coming home drunk. Well, Bill Sacco, Ed Sacco's brother was a sheriff, was kind of bothering him because they thought Bill Sacco didn't get by with this because they were brothers, and it was hurting Bill. Bill made a trip out there several times to talk to Ed, and Ed said he would do the damn lousy thing. And he says, if you keep doing it, he says, I'm going to come out here, and I'll find Ed Sacco, and I'll bust him up, and he'll go to jail. Ed Sacco says, you do whatever you want to do, but he says, you ain't stopping me from doing anything I want to on my own farm. Well, I guess he did pull a couple of raids, but he never found Ed Sacco's still alive. This inflamed Ed Sacco to think his own brother would do this to him. So they weren't in too good of terms at that time, especially after the two raids on the farm. I might interject here that all the crops and cattle and liquor, corn liquor, my grandpa Sacco also made excellent sauerkraut down on that farm. It was the best in the county, and he used to give that away, too. He used to make it in gallon jugs and give it away. Just to show you how good of friends everybody was, when it come harvest time, all the neighbors would come to your farm and help you harvest your crops, and then Ed Sacco would go with them, and they'd go from farm to farm all around the area, helping each other harvest the crops. And thrashing and what have you, and I can remember Mom Sacco saying the thrashers would come in 15 or 20 minutes. She had to cook meals for them. And she said they ate like hogs. They would work hard out in that field, and it was hot. They'd come in all dirty and everything, and she said she'd have to spend all morning cooking in there just to get the food ready for them. And then they'd come in and it'd all be gone, and she'd have to do it all again that night. She had to cook three meals a day for them, and she didn't have anything else. But it must have been hard, heavy work. It was about this time that Mom Sacco commented on Johnny Carson. And he was on TV at this time, and she told me about it. Well, I knew Johnny Carson was born in Orange, Iowa, which was south of there, close to Creston. Excuse me, it was not right. Iowa, Corning, Iowa. Excuse me, that was west of Creston and still south of there. But Mom recalled that his folks used to hold barn dances. They used to call them up because they wanted to play the fiddle, and I don't know what the other ones played, but they'd sing and play the fiddle, and Johnny Carson's folks. And they would call them around at the end of the harvest, and all the crops were in. They'd have a bunch of barn dances around the country, and everybody would have a good time partying. A lot of neighbors would get together and have food and everything. And she can remember Johnny Carson's folks doing this at the time, and they were from Corning, Iowa. It wasn't too long later that Maude Hanks passed away, and Mom went to her mother's funeral, and I guess Clyde was down there and everybody, and she was buried in Stewart, Iowa, next to her bed. It was in and around this time that a farm, just how far down the road from the Sacco farm, I don't know, came up for sale. So Ed DeSacco, times were good, and it was doing good on their crops, and I guess the farm was pretty reasonable in money. So Ed decided he wanted to buy this other farm. He was going to farm two farms. So he went to the banker, which he'd already bought the banker's car, a Carter car. The banker bought him a Cadillac, and Ed DeSacco bought his car, a Carter car. Went to the banker, and the banker said, Sure, I'll lend you the money to buy it. But he says, You're going to have to mortgage your farm. Well, that was all right, because Ed was making good money. So the bank took a mortgage on Ed's farm and sold him the second farm. Two years later is when the big catastrophe hit this country known as the Depression. Everybody lost all of their money, the banks. They had bumper crops, but nobody had no money. Nobody would buy the crops. They didn't know what they were going to do with all the crops. They were sitting in the green elevators on the farm, stumped on the ground, rotting. No one to buy any of their crops, and Ed DeSacco was as bad as it hit other people. And here he was stuck with two payments on two farms and couldn't sell his crops and didn't know what to do. Well, needless to say, the banker told him he's going to have to make his payments or they're going to repossess the farm. And that's how banks are. So there came a day when he couldn't make the payments, and the bank served him with the notice that they were going to come out and repossess the farm, but first they were going to have an auction to sell off all the machinery and all the livestock and everything else. Well, guess who had to serve these papers? Bill Sacco was the sheriff of Bexar County. He had to go out to serve papers on his own brother, and they weren't getting along too good anyway over the booze deal. And, of course, I guess that was over. It was legal now. You could drink. So I don't know whether Ed was making anything going on at that time. But at any rate, here comes Bill Sacco to serve papers. And Ed Sacco told the first man to step foot on my property, I'm going to shoot him. Bill Sacco evidently took him as serious and told the banker to hold off on that day for the auction. He was going to have to talk to Ed Sacco a little bit more and get him calmed down or somebody was going to get hurt. So finally, he talked to Ed Sacco and allowed it to happen. Ed allowed him to bring out the people and start auctioning off. Evidently, he just wore out, tired, and just couldn't fight it no more. And I can remember my mother stating that her and Glenn had to sit there and watch while their ponies were being auctioned off. And it was really a sad day for them because their own little ponies were sold, and Mom Sacco had a pony and her pony was sold, along with all the saddles and leather boots and everything else. It was really a sad day. They had to move from the farm, and they moved into a big house in town. And shortly after that was when Glenn became sick and got a mastoid in his ear. He was 12 years old, and Glenn passed away. So it was really sad times. And my grandfather, he started drinking again. And one thing led to another, and it was just about the last straw of my grandpa Sacco. He never recovered a bit from that. And they decided to separate Mom Sacco and Ed Sacco. They decided to separate. She couldn't take it anymore, his drinking. I don't think he was ever mean and ornery to her, but it was just the idea of drinking. Anyway, they went ahead and separated it, and I'll come back to that with more information later on. One other thing I forgot to explain in here that I have wrote down here. I have my notes. They used to have corn picking contests, and in those days they picked corn by hand. And they used to have contests at harvest time of the year, and men would go out and they'd pick a certain farm, or they'd pick it by hand and have contests. Anyway, my grandpa Ed Sacco won one contest one year. They started out at one end of the field, and who got down to the other end first was the winner. Well, at this particular meet or contest they had, they had to pick three rows. One man picking three rows, and they got down to the end of the field first won it. Well, he won one year, and he was picking three rows at a time. They had a leather fan that would strap on their wrists and their hands. It had a hook on it, and they would hook that ear of corn and pull it off of that. I used to have it, and I don't know what happened to it. It's gone now. But I did run in, interject that in. After Mom Sacco and Dad Sacco got divorced, my mom met a fellow by the name of Jimmy Lane. He was a farmer in the area. I think it was down around Fontenelle, Iowa. And my grandmother got married, and they moved out to his dad's farm. The dad was an older man and lived on the farm, and I guess he was quite a miser. He hid money in tin cans and jars all over the farm. He did not trust banks. He would not put any money in the bank. That was after the Depression. And I can remember my grandma saying, when they'd come in at night and do them chores, why, he'd pick up the radio to listen to it. It was a battery-operated radio. But he would hold it up to his ear. He didn't want no one else to hear it. Evidently, no one was going to gain off of his hard earnings, and that's just how stingy he was. So needless to say, that marriage didn't last very long. Her and Jimmy Lane separated. There was no children from that marriage. Ed Salker, he continued on. He worked from job to job in towns and odd jobs and this and that. He worked for the county for a while. He never did get back to farming on his own again. But he used to come and visit me and my sister and my mom when we were living in Preston. In fact, he finally moved to Preston after a while. I think the reason they did was so they could look after him because he was getting elderly. But I do remember he got me my first dog for my birthday. I named the dog Jig. He brought it down. And my grandpa Salker would always buy me a birthday present. And when it came to it, well, he bought me a kitchen table, one of these big round dining table, big round dining table he bought for me. Whenever we were getting a move once, they disassembled it and set the table on end up there and it rolled off the back of the truck and rolled down the street once when he was moving. So I just ruined it. So that was the end of that table. But he would always make sure that he'd get me a present of some kind. And me and him got along just great. I really loved Ed Salker. I'd rub his feet every chance I'd get. And don't ask me why, but that's the way I was. You want to know, he'd say, Larry, can you rub my feet? And I'd say, sure, I'd go over there. And he'd always done Lutheran, but he'd never joined the church. At this time, I think you'd better flip this tape over. At any rate, for Ed Salker to join the Lutheran church, he had to go through catechism lessons. And he had to memorize the Lord's Prayer, the Apostles' Creed, and the Ten Commandments, et cetera, et cetera. And so we sat down, took about a week and a half for him to learn the Lord's Prayer. And he finally got it learned. Well, actually, we did, because I didn't know it myself. And that's how I learned the Lord's Prayer, plus the Apostles' Creed and a few other things. He really never did get it all that good, but I think Pastor Marvin Maskey knew, due to his age and all, that he was doing the best he could. But anyway, Ed Salker got to join the Lutheran church after all these years of attending it. Well, I think we ought to move on to the next family now. I think there'll probably be some more stories about the Salkers come up, but it may have to be on the end of the tape. The next family we're going to talk about is the Brown family. And as far back as I can go is Royal O'Brown and M.C., which was his wife. Now, there's a couple of stories where they came from, and I'll tell you mine. Or maybe I should tell you what my sister Don Jean said. She heard that they had come from Oklahoma, but had no more information other than that. But I'll tell you what I heard. I heard they came out from Pennsylvania, and that Royal O'Brown had a hotel in Pennsylvania, and he traded that hotel for that Pennsylvania. I don't know where that was found. Anyway, he traded that Pennsylvania hotel for a hotel in Aspen, Iowa, which is just east of Corston, I believe. And how long he was in that hotel, I don't know, for a farm just outside of Aspen. And whether they had a couple of bad years, or whether the farm wasn't any good, I don't know. But they say he just walked away and left that farm in Aspen and went over to Greenfield, Iowa, on Whomstow with 160 acres. And that's where he stayed was in Greenfield, Iowa, him and Emma, where they raised their family. At the time of his death, he owned five farms, so it must have been pretty good. But there's a couple of stories on him that he was one of the first preachers in the area. And he had actually had no religious training other than going to church with his folks, and that he hadn't been educated. But they said he was the best talker. So therefore, there was a hill there in Greenfield, Iowa. That's where the hospital is sitting today, Greenfield, Iowa, on this hill. And that's where they had their Sunday services, on this hill, in the summertime until they could get a church built, was on this hill. But they said he was the best talker, so therefore they made him the preacher. Also, as a coincidence, on this same hill, after the sermons were preached there, the Ku Klux Klan started holding their meetings there on that hill, too, but this was later years. But today, if you ever go through Greenfield, Iowa, or if you ever visit his grave there at Greenfield, you'll notice the hospital is on that corner. It's right on the highway. Just as you're coming into Greenfield. And it'll give you something to look at if you ever go that direction. But this is where I had heard that they'd come out from Pennsylvania, and they were Pennsylvania Dutch, or at least he was. Emma C., his wife, I have no information on. I do not know her maiden name, where she came from, or anything about her. But at any rate, they had a number of buddies as well as Orlo and Emma C. It'll show on your family tree if you look at it. I'm not going to go into all of them. I'll just go to the ones that I have the stories on. We might want to start with Ed Brown. He grew up in Greenfield and went off to Omaha, Nebraska, to attend college. He wanted to be a lawyer, and that he did become. Also, he was secretary for the governor of the state of Iowa for a while. I can't remember his name. In fact, years ago, Ed Brown became quite a successful lawyer in Des Moines, Iowa, where his office is at, the royal union building. Bill Cairn, which owns Ed Brown's office now, is related to Ed's wife. Ed never had any kids. I believe Bill Cairn is the nephew to Kate Brown, Ed's wife. So they brought him into the office. But he had Ed Brown's office. His empire building. Did I say royal union? I meant empire building in Des Moines, Iowa. Smith Brown, he became a farmer in the area. Right outside was Greenfield. In fact, I think his family still has that farm. They might have sold it by now. He has two boys and a girl. But kind of an interesting story. My dad and his brother and my grandpa, Jay Brown, went to visit Spackle on Sunday. And this farmer over there, my dad and Harold Brown, dad's brother, went out behind the hay mound, where it was in the barnyard, played with matches and got the haystack on fire. And they got out of the house and threw water on it. But I guess my dad and his brother, Harold Brown, got a heck of a spanking that night. But whenever my dad would come around Speck's place, Speck would say, well, you got any matches on you today, Don? And Don would have to say, no, I don't laugh about it. And my dad could never say Speck. He always thought it was Spitz Brown. So that's one story my dad told me. I guess I'm getting ahead of my story a little bit. The next son we want to go to is Jay Brown, which is my grandpa, J.E. Brown. And of course, he was born and raised a farmer. But there came a time when he was a young man and he worked in town. And evidently, him and his boss were hauling wagon loads down somewhere. I don't know if it was a train yard or a trucking yard or wherever, shipping something. They were hauling wagon loads of this and that. And he noticed every time he'd go by this house, this young lady was sitting on the front porch. And so they got to the front where they started smiling. And then they started waving. And they found out this lady's name was Carrie Faye Poodle. And she was born in Wintershed, Iowa. And where they had come from, I don't know. But there again, my sister Donna Jean said that Carrie Faye Poodle had come from Oklahoma. And I don't know. But I do know her father, William Poodle, was born in Wintershed. So that's where she was born. At any rate, she was at this lady's house and was staying with this lady in Greenfield, Iowa, because this lady was quite a seamstress. And she was learning how to sew from this lady. And that's the reason she was staying there. In fact, being a seamstress, Carrie Faye Brown was a seamstress all her life and even opened up a shop in Preston later years. So she really knew how to sew. But at any rate, they got married. They got married, and they had two sons, Don Brown and Harold Brown. And the reason running that family, it seemed like, in the Browns, because I'll get to that a little later on. But at any rate, they had two boys. And they farmed down around Orange, Iowa. My grandpa bought him a farm down there. He was farming down there. But Carrie Faye was really fussy over her boys. They were going to marry schoolteachers, and she wasn't going to hear nothing other than marrying schoolteachers. Well, when my mother came into the picture, needless to say, she wasn't a schoolteacher. She wasn't old enough to be a schoolteacher. She was only 16 or 17 when she met my dad. But Carrie was proud against that from day one. But it didn't work, because my dad still married my mom and built a bird of soccer. And they met up in Adair, Iowa, I guess at a Fourth of July celebration. And I guess my dad and some of his friends were up there probably eyeing the girls and ran across mom in the city park. So anyway, they got married. And they rented a farmhouse just down the road from these folks in Orange, Iowa. And that's where Bob Jean was from. And needless to say, this was about the time the Depression hit. And there again, Jay Brown had troubles. He couldn't hang on to his farm. And he lost his farm during the Depression. And before he actually lost the farm, they had a big fire in a farmhouse that had turned clear to the ground. And they had to move into one of their farm buildings and remodel it in there and make a little farm so they could get the farmhouse built. But they couldn't, because about that time the Depression hit. And they lost their farm. Well, as luck would have it, the other Depression probably lost a lot of the horses as well. Jay Brown and Carrie Faye got divorced. And Carrie Faye moved to Creston. Jay Brown, he continued to work here, there, everywhere. And finally ended up and moved to Des Moines, Iowa. But before all this happened, Harold got married to a lady by the name of Doris Rose. And she wasn't a schoolteacher there either. I guess that there was a few problems there with Carrie, because she was as hard as being a zombie to marry a schoolteacher than Harold was to marry one. And he didn't either. But I think she got along with Doris a lot better than she did with my mom. I think my mom was a little bit more strong in the world. I do know Carrie Faye Fuller was a very, very strong woman. She wasn't afraid to tell you. She thought it. She usually said what she thought. At any rate, Carrie Faye, well, she went by the name of Faye, went on to Creston, and went to the building and opened up a seamstress shop and had people working for her. And she went on to marry a fellow by the name of Heights. He was an engineer on C, B, and Q Railroad, which is Burlington Railroad today. There was no children born of this union, but she lived with him until she passed away in the 1940s, 1943, 44, something like that. She passed away. But my grandfather, Jay Brown, he never did remarry. He never recovered from all that. He lived in Vermont in a rooming house and did odd jobs here and there and what have you, but he never remarried. But at any rate, Harold Brown, he went on to farm. He went down to Creston, Iowa and rented a farm and later on bought another farm down there in Creston. But he farmed there all his life. And my dad, farming was just not for my dad. And he was a good salesman, and he wanted to live in the city. So him and my mother moved to Creston, Iowa, and there was where I was born, in Creston on New York Avenue. So they had me and Donna Jean. And during the Depression, my dad had to go out. President Roosevelt had what they call the WPA, where men got bitches for a living, and that's what my dad did. And it wasn't just him, it was everybody, nobody. There was no work, there was no jobs, and nobody had no money. And so he got bitches, and they used to keep warm by those lighting bonfires. And that's how he supported the family there during the Depression. In fact, the war, that didn't last any longer than it did. But at any rate, while this was going on, there was a few things going on at home, too. Like Donna Jean upsetting me one day in the baby buggy. And Donna Jean had a girlfriend that used to come over and visit her. And one day they decided to play beauty operator. And that's when Donna Jean cut most of the girl's hair off. And when she went home, the mother was so upset, she came over there screaming and yelling, jumping on the mother. Of course, the hair was cut off, and there wasn't much my mom could do about it at the time. And please understand, these are stories that I don't remember because I was just a baby, but I was told about them. In fact, that deal was told to me in front of Donna Jean's presence, and Donna Jean just laughed about it. I can also remember her and Dana. Dana was a young girl at that time. He was older than Donna Jean, about five years older. I think he was in sixth grade, and Donna Jean was in first grade. And they had to go to the same school, Franklin School in Brooklyn. Donna Jean would pick fights because she knew Dana would get her out of them. And nine times out of ten, both of them had to come running home afraid of the bullies because Donna Jean had picked a fight and that her Uncle Dana would protect her. And of course, they'd go looking for him. With the depression over, things started improving, and there were a lot of jobs around. My dad got away from that and digged the ditches, and he went to work for a wholesale grocery farm as a salesman. He won a number of awards, L.O. Boggs, I think it was called, out of Creston. A number of awards. In fact, I still have an electric wooden clock, living room clock, that he'd won in a contest. I guess through neutrino feed or something. But he did real good at it, but about along this time, it became World War II. And Dad never had to go into the service because he worked for this grocery farm, and that was needed, something that was needed for the country. Anybody that had anything to do with food, worked with food, did not go to the war because they needed to. There was a number of occupations, but men never got drafted, but food was one of them. That's the reason my dad never had to go into World War II, which I think he was kind of happy about. He didn't bother him too much. There was too many people getting killed. So he worked at that all through World War II, and I can remember us buying a new car because Dad brought out a new Whistleblower, and he brought out a new Plymouth. They were both 1942s. And he said, if we don't buy this new car, there ain't going to be any cars through the war. You won't be able to buy one. So we ended up and bought a Plymouth, and instead of the old Plymouth, the dealer had both cars, and so we got the Plymouth. I think the dealer himself kept that old Plymouth because it was an automatic transmission. Dad was concerned about an automatic transmission, never heard of one before. So we had a 1942 Plymouth that we drove all through the war. Well, midway into the war, maybe not quite midway, farm machinery was becoming scarce and hard to come by. Dad located an output that made these wooden wagon boxes down in Arkansas. And he decided to go off on his own and start selling farm machinery. So he did. And it was quite successful because you couldn't get farm machinery then. And he was selling. He couldn't get them up into Iowa fast enough. He was hiring truckers, and he bought a truck of his own and bought a trucker a truck so he could do it. And they couldn't get him up here fast enough. But he made quite a bit of money, and that's when we built the new house in Creston up on 903 North Spruce Street in Creston, Iowa. The house is still there. I understand there's a superintendent of the school that the old boy did the last time I knew. But anyway, we bought the new home and moved into it. And we lived in a number of homes around Creston that were rentals in the old days. And he bought one and remodeled it down there. It's still there. But the new house was really the house that we liked living in. There again, I have some more stories to tell on my sister. I was involved too, but this is just on her. But I can remember one day coming home. And we used to have a laundry chute in the house. It was in our closet, the opening was. But me and Don Jean's closets were back-to-back. We had our own bedroom. But in between was that little hole where we could open the flap for our laundry and go down to the basement. Well, I had learned that I could crawl through that laundry chute and get into Don Jean's closet. And I just thought I'd listen to what her and her girlfriend talked about. One day she caught me over that old mail noise that was climbing through. Well, it was too late to climb back because it was a little hole and you had to wiggle your way through it. And I couldn't get back in her path. So I flew out the door. She was there for me and her friend Jean Westfall was there for me. We got down to the kitchen and I seen a pair of scissors cut through them. It's a wonder somebody didn't get hurt. It's good to show you what kids can do. And then they really got mad and I ran outside so they locked the door on me. Well, I went and got the ladder and climbed up on the roof and I was going to get in my bedroom window. But they was running around with all the windows shut and locking them. And about this time, a woman across the street, the neighbor of them, saw it. And my mom was up getting my dad's business answer in the phone. And since Dad was busy or something, she just had to answer the phone and take messages. So she heard the news. She had to lock the business up and come home and get me off the roof because the neighbor lady was afraid I was going to fall off. And she got it all settled down and everything else. And that ended that. That's the fighting on the roof incident, by the way. There had come another time when we had a walk-in attic upstairs. Upstairs was me and Valentine's bedroom. We were in this attic. But I was going there to mess around. It was interrupted in there. And I went in there and one day I was going through this box. And here I found a whole stack of sheets of paper with a rubber band around them. And I didn't know what they were. I started reading them. And here they were with notes that had been written to Donna Jean in school. And some notes that Donna Jean had written. They had passed them back and forth. Well, evidently she kept these notes and then hid them in this box in the attic. So I thought, man, what a gold mine this is. And so I started dropping hints around about this and that. And I noticed her from time to time. She looked at me kind of funny and wondered how I knew that. But she hadn't quite caught on until one day, how she found out, I don't know. But she found out I'd been in there on those notes and read them. And that's when she went to Mother and told Mother about it. And Mother got mad at me for getting into her notes. And I said, well, it was in the attic. That's open property to anybody. So, well, anyway, that deal kind of smoothed over. But she didn't like that a bit, Donna Jean. And I can't really blame her anymore. We'd go to the swimming pool and swim around. And I'd come walking by. And she'd be over there with her girlfriend. And she'd say, look out. Here comes my little brother. Don't say anything. And stuff like this. And then I would always spy on her and would go right back to Mother with everything that she was doing. And when we'd go to the car, I'd race to get in the front seat because I didn't want in the back seat. So I'd go sit next to Mother and tell her what I'd seen Donna Jean doing and various things. And Donna Jean would give me daggers looking at me. So I guess I was the mean little brother. I never will forget one day I came home. And this was after we had to move out of the new house and moved into a rental house. And Dad lost his business after the war. And I heard some talking in Donna Jean's bedroom. And they had the door shut. And I heard Jean whisper. But then I got to thinking. I think I smell cigarette smoke. And my bedroom was just across the hall from theirs. So I went and knocked on the door. And it was real quiet. I didn't want to answer. And I heard her saying, don't answer. It's probably him. And so I said, well, you better come out because I can smell cigarette smoke. And I'm telling you. Well, that's when they come out. And of course, Donna Jean pleaded with me not to say a word because we were in there smoking. And I said, no, I'm going to tell. So that's when we got into it. We got into a wrestling match and a fight. She got me down. And I got her down. And they both got after me. And then I didn't stand a chance. And I did tell Mother about her smoking. But I didn't tell my dad. My dad got a little too rough at times. He had a barber's razor strap. And he would pull that over. And that's what he used to use on me from Donna Jean when he'd get mad. And I thought that was just a little too heavy. So I never told my dad. But I did tell my mom about her smoking. But I think Donna Jean smoked from then on out. I don't think she ever quit until she got her cancer. I guess I should have left it to my dad. Maybe I would have got it stopped. She'd have been alive today. There's not a whole lot more information I have on the Brown family. I suppose some of you are wondering why the other family I have a lot more information on. Well, partly, I suppose, because I was closer to the Sacco side, Mom Sacco. When I was born, why, the Browns just thought, oh, another boy. And it kind of shut me off the corner where Donna Jean was one of the first girls. Her and Shirley Brown were one of the first two girls born in the family. And in a lot of generations, they really picked the girls. And so I think my sister Donna Jean probably had more information on the Browns than I would. But, you know, children always go to the ones that treat you the best. And I think that's the reason I went with Mom Sacco and Pen Sacco, because they always treated me real good. I can remember Mom Sacco, some of her remarks over the old days about how hard the work was. That they were always tired. It just seemed like it was a never-ending chore. That work was always so hard and back-breaking work. Today, it's a lot different today, I guess, with all the science and engineering that we've done with machines. That's the one thing that sticks out in my mind, how hard the work was and how tired they were at night. When Ed Sacco decided to go to bed, everybody went to bed. And I can remember my mom saying those nights that she wasn't tired and didn't want to go, but they had to go because that's our rule. When Dad went to bed, everybody went to bed. And that's the way it was in that household. So I guess they had their rules and we had ours. I'm not here to condemn any one person for anything they did. That's not my job. It's all over with and passed anyway. But I do know there's a lot of good people in the family. I don't have nearly all the information I would have liked to have. I wish I would have picked Mom Sacco and some of the other brains for more information, but I never felt this task would ever fall upon me. But I know I haven't even scratched the surface regarding stories to tell. But anyway, maybe this will give you some idea of where you came from and give you some kind of idea of why you are where you're at today. I know I didn't spend enough time on little Glenn Sacco. He used to make all his own toys. He had a little car. He was quite a mechanic, I guess, he liked to make. In fact, I've got one of his iron tractors that he made. But after he didn't make it, it was broken and he had to put a wheel on it. I have some paper here that is marked from the airplane crash that there I was. Evidently, Glenn had to go into town the next day to pick up some scraps from an old biplane that crashed. He got some of the paper that was on the wing and brought it home and all folded up. I understand Glenn was a good little boy. Everybody tore the Sacco family up very bad when he passed away. Had he been alive today, they had medication to take care of that. There's one other story that I completely eliminated. I probably shouldn't even say it, but I think I will. Regarding Don Brown, my dad. This was before he ever married my mother. I'm sure Don Jean was aware of it. Whether she's told everybody on your side, I don't know. There came a time when a girl claimed she was pregnant. And said that Don Brown was the father. And who this girl is, I don't know. It must have been around Orient or Greenfield somewhere. But dad said no, it was not his child. He did not make the girl pregnant. He was not going to marry her. And that was that. He said he bought her a book that runs with everybody in town anyway and he did not do it. But the girl was insistent that nothing could be done and proven. One thing, my grandma Brown, Carrie Faye Brown took the girl to Doc Bowers in Orient, Iowa. And I know the Brown family paid for the birth of the operation. It was a little boy. And Doc Bowers handled the adoption. And he adopted it out to a family where, I don't know, because he would never say. Grandma Brown was back once to decide to ask him where the baby was placed and he would not tell her. He said that you didn't want the baby at that time. You're not going to know where he's at today. But he's in a good home and that's that. And I always thought from time to time when my mom told me this story, because she knew about it, that I would like to run up to Doc Bowers and ask him myself. Maybe he would tell me. If I had a half-brother, I wouldn't mind meeting him. But my dad, to the day he died, denied that baby was his. But it kind of makes me wonder. Grandma Brown paid for the operation and everything. And having adopted out, why wouldn't her own folks do this? But needless to say, I'm just, all you can do is draw conclusions. And he would have been older than Donald Jean. How much older, I don't know. But probably three to five years older than Donald Jean would make him an elderly man today. But I would always like to have met him. And I know he probably wasn't that far away from around up there. Whatever, it's probably lost to history today. We'll never know. Before we get too much trouble, I would like to make one correction on the tape, on a statement I had made regarding Glenn Sacco. Earlier on the tape, I said that Glenn had passed away after they had moved into town. This was untrue. He passed away while he was still on the farm. So when they come to auction everything off of the farm and sell the farm to banks, why, the Sacco family had Glenn's dying on their mind at the same time, which couldn't help matters too much anyway. But I did want to state that Ted Sacco never talked to his brother Bill for years and years after that. It wasn't until Ted Sacco learned that he wasn't expected to live that he would finally talk to his brother Bill. My mom was his brother Bill and had him come up, requested to see Bill. And they finally shook hands and smiled at each other. It was years and years before he would ever speak to his brother over that particular incident. Also, I'd like to state, when I was talking about the Sacco boys, I said I had mentioned George Sacco and said I would get back to him later, but I never did. But George Sacco died when he was still at home. He was a young gentleman and never did get married. He was no more than a five-year-old son. What his illness was about, I don't know. What he died from before. I know doctoring in those days weren't the best thing going. So people died from a lot of diseases back in those days, but they don't today. And I guess that's the reason families had so many kids because our children, they knew a certain percentage of children wouldn't live, and this is what was told to me. So they had large families at the time. And I'd also like to make another injection about Bill Sacco. It's kind of an interesting story. When Bill retired as sheriff of Adair County, he moved down and became town marshal at Dexter, Iowa. Bill, him and his wife, lived till they died. Bill and his wife cared and loved children. And they took in a lot of children that were orphans and raised them until they were grown. I never will forget one day I was sitting in Joe's Two Lounge in Des Moines, Iowa, and this fellow sitting next to me on the stool which we'd struck up a conversation was talking. He was a cross-country trucker. And then I got to explaining where my family was from and he said he was from down around that area and we got to talking. He was one of the children that Bill Sacco had raised. He was an orphan. And we just couldn't hardly believe it. But you had nothing but praise for Bill Sacco because they had taken in a lot of the children that were orphans. And just to show you how good these people were, the Sacco family were all good people. They had little interpersyncrasies on some things but basically they looked down to earth. They were good people. In fact, there's an old saying that the tough gets good and the good gets tough, the tough gets good. Another saying they always had, right's right, wrong's wrong. So those two things always stuck with me. While I'm the subject of Bill Sacco, I have another story to tell. Evidently he led a pretty interesting life. But a long time ago when he was town marshal down near Dexter, a family came through that had been robbing banks and robbing and shooting and killing people in a rain of terror all through the Midwest from Missouri up into Iowa and Illinois and around. And they were named Bonnie and Clyde Barrel, the Barrel Gang. And they got word that Bonnie and Clyde and Clyde's brother and his wife were camped out in a field. And just to hear Bill got gathered there, I know there was quite a few men, there was farmers, there was shotguns and everything and they went out there. And the people were known killers. They weren't well liked by anyone even though the movie kind of dressed them up and everybody felt proud of them in the movie. They were deadly killers and nobody liked them, not even the other crooks liked them. So therefore everybody was afraid of them, they were deadly. So when they went out there with their guns they started shooting them up. And that's where Clyde Barrel's brother died was in that field and they captured Clyde Barrel's brother's wife and took her to the hospital with Bonnie and Clyde escaped. And the rumor was that he headed into Des Moines and stayed with a friend of theirs at a hotel in Des Moines and they stayed there until they got healed up and well and they went on down to Texas. But anyway, that's another story on Bertha Sacco. I was going to end the tape right there. I thought I'd run out of stories but I happened to think of a couple more that might be of interest. I talked a lot about the bullies. I thought I would talk about Bertha Sacco that was the daughter of Jurgen and Magdalene. Bertha Sacco was quite an attractive young lady. I have a picture of her, one picture, when she was younger. And one day for some reason, unknown, I don't believe she went out to California with a man but she decided to go to California. And as she did do, of course, the whole family was more or less upset with her and was kind of against it anyway. But after she was out there a while instead of calling herself Sacco, she changed it to Sashay. And I understand she went through the legal process and had it done legally and from then on she was known as Bertha Sashay. The spelling was the same. But the whole family got upset and no one would speak to her again. And whether they ever did, I'm unsure. But I do know this. In 1952, I went to California with my mom and dad that we had visited some relatives and it might possibly have been a daughter of hers or a granddaughter. I don't know. But it was out in Hollywood out there. I do know next door Clark Gable had a girlfriend. He was visiting there next door to him and I do remember that. But there's very little else that I do remember. Also, there's another story here about Ed Sacco. Ed Sacco was quite a horseman. He bred and raised a lot of horses and he was especially interested in workhorses. These are like the Clydesdale horses, the big old workhorses that get out in the field and pull plows and all. But the only thing he did, he raised Persharons. And I understand they were quite popular in Minnesota. And Persharons, of course the argument goes on and on and on to this day, but I think you'll find a lot of the people said the Persharon was a better horse than the Clydesdale. In fact, it was stronger and bigger. But at any rate, Ed Sacco specialized in the Persharons. In fact, he bred them and sold them and also had one male that he sold stud service to and I have one of the handbills on it yet today. But he was quite a horseman and everybody knew that around the area. And a lot of them sought his advice on horses when they needed it. Eddie Sacco, not to be confused again with my grandpa, but Eddie Sacco of Adair, that's Bill Sacco's son, told me there's a, which I have seen, a concrete bridge when you go into the main drag of Adair, Iowa. And they used to paint it white. It had kind of a fancy design along the side of the railing, but it was made out of cement. I understand that some of the Sacco boys had donated their time to the building of this bridge along with some other townspeople, and they'd worked on it for some time, but it was strictly donated time for the betterment of Adair, Iowa. So if you ever go in there to Adair someday and you drive down the main drag, past all the Jesse James restaurants and everything else, you might notice a concrete bridge. Now, I don't know if they're still using it today. Maybe they've torn it down. I don't know. But it's an old, old concrete bridge. I think it was built back in the 20s or before that. You might notice and know that some of your relatives donated their service and helped build that bridge. Another little interesting quote, if you're ever in the area. And I'm sure there's a lot more stories like that. I wish that I got. But right now, I can't think of any more. So, like I say, I'll add it on the tape if I can think of any more before I send these tapes out. But if not, I want to wish everybody good luck. I'd like to add on to this tape and inject here and now that I have a lot of ancient, I really shouldn't say ancient, but old pictures of the family. And I want to try to keep them all together and I want to try to keep them all together instead of splitting them up amongst all my children and relatives. I think it's much better to keep them all in one group, so to speak. And as of this time on the tape, while I'm making this tape, I've more or less decided to turn him over to someone that has expressed interest in this and in fact has asked for him. It is my daughter, Jacqueline. Unless something comes up that I'm unaware of, if something should happen to me, why, my daughter Jacqueline and Remus will have the pictures as they have been passed down from my grandmother to my mother and then on to me. As far as I'm concerned, they're more or less priceless. It's very hard to replace them. In fact, some of them are starting to fade out now. If anyone should desire copies, why, they would probably have to get a hold of Jacqueline. I don't know what it costs, but if she knows of a reputable photographer that wouldn't destroy the print or no negatives, the print would get destroyed. Why, that would be the end of that picture. We have very few of these pictures. Some of them, I used to have one a piece. Grandma Hanks, I have just one. Juergen Sacco, there is just one. By the way, Juergen, I might want to add this to it. Juergen is a nickname, a German nickname for George. So evidently his real name was George, but he didn't want anybody calling him that. Everybody called him Juergen. © transcript Emily Beynon