File:1892 - Martin A. Jaus Memories.jpg

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Martin A. Jaus was born in 1892. The people mentioned are the correct relationship to him. I believe he is likely the author. I don't know who this was written to.

You asked for my early recollections of the home farm and if you want to know how the buildings developed one by one by one I wish you would ask Lois <ref> Don't know which Lois. It could be a Bode. Could be the wife of Roman Jaus</ref>. I had to write a detailed history for her 2 years ago with dates as close as I could remember. I put a lot of work into it from the time on where Aunt Augusta (Uncle Simon Jaus’ wife ) gave me my first bath in 1892.

I gave her everything in detail as close as I could trace it and I don’t like to tackle the job for the second time whereas dad set foot on Moltke soil in about 1870<ref>1878</ref> and when he left his feed sacks standing outside the wild whooping crane would come early in the morning and eat holes into sacks and eat the feed. It was a bird a little less than a turkey<ref>Whooping cranes are on the endangered species list and stand 5 feet tall. I wonder if this was a different breed of bird or indeed a young Whooping Crane</ref>.

The way I first knew Moltke, they thought would all connect, unless a very dry season. Aunt Mandy Lieske’s Dad helped survey Moltke Township and he told me it was a continuous slue out of one and into the other, till before the change of the century a full ditch came thru and made a little runway for some of the water as long as it lasted this was a big plow directly drawn by a span of bulls, as many as they had.

My dad sold them and then as early as 1904 a bigger plow came along ?? pulled by ?? (able that would span over a share and 4 horses would wind it up on a spool to pull the plow prior to the bull ditch days.

The settlers had a big menace with prairie fires in fall when this vast miles of tall grass annually would catch fire and sweep the country and would consume many a building. I can still hear dad say, when he met friends “Was das Prarie fluer auch schon bei euch,”<ref> I think this means something like "Have you seen the prairie fire yet?"</ref> Grandma would stay dressed on dangerous nites, to be ready. When it would strike, especially on windy nights.

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source: Myrtle Jaus collection

Memories

• Susan Jones: Hard to imagine the tall grass. The sloughs I can believe since we have photos of when Grandpa- Winnie Glaeser would have duck hunting parties on our farm. We had at least 1 of those sloughs.
• Todd Buboltz: Excellent piece of history....we had a lot of water in that area before drainage occurred ...pictures taken somewhere around the turn of the century looking towards Buffalo Lake indicated many swamps/sloughs on the farms...many farms in the area appear to be on little islands of higher elevated land....they had kept the farm sites above the potential water lines that occurred in the spring, fall,and rainy summer months