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"The Whorehouse" ---The Maxwell Farm, Lidgerwood, North
Dakota. The family moved in in 1908. |
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A big decision was leaving the homestead and moving. The big farm companies of the 18890s had failed and the properties were divided up and sold. Grandma wanted the boys near a good school and the Maxwell farm was close to the Lidgerwood High School. Grandpa must have been impressed with the big new barn. They bought the quarter section with the farmhouse and barn and moved in 1907 (Rudolph tells how the little boys all gathered and straightened nails before the move. The house had eight bedrooms and indoor bath and toilets (that didn't work). Two other quarter sections were later purchased and farmed. With the big barn Grandma went into the dairy business for the city of Lidgerwood. Each morning the boys would deliver the milk and eggs before school. When I visited the farm with Dad in 1937 the front part of the house only remained. Dad said the house had been bigger but when they moved and left the farm to Ed, Grandma sold the back part of the house rather than have it sit idle. |
Ed only used the kitchen for eating and sleeping, the rest of the house was dusty and unused. Ed's naval uniform hung in the closet along with his only suit (this uniform had the submarine emblem on it- and Dad said Ed drove submarines in the War). Dad took me out behind the house to show me the "coolie" that the boys had dug to water the cows but it was also their swimming hole. It was a big mud puddle with the dirt still piled around 3 sides. Ed no longer had cattle when we visited. He raised lots of turkeys and rented land for wheat. Dad and Ed went out and shot the 22 for about an hour; they gave me a few shots. The boys often teased Grandma in later years about buying Lidgerwood's whore house, They had many stories to tell. One was about the clothes that grandma's rich relatives sent (well used). One year a formal coat with tails was included. This went to John and they tell of him milking cows in tails and how proud he was delivering the milk in his new suit. Frank L. Koucky |
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