Lyla Jaus/Memories
From CowTales
source:RN Baur estate
Contents
The life and times of Lyla Ruth Jaus Baur
by Lyla Jaus
There may be others who know something about the threshing season around August 8th 1930, but the only thing that I know is that I was born on that day. I missed all the busy activity.
According to the birth certificate I was born in New Ulm, MN. When applying for my passport a few years ago found that my recorded name was Lila (with an i) and my mother's name was also incorrectly recorded as Hanna Leiske (letter h missing on Hannah). With those other errors on my birth certificate, I guess I can continue to believe that it was spelling errors all around and my name was not really intended to be spelled Lila.
The first recollection that I have of anything at all is having some communicable disease, maybe measles.Mama was home for a very short time from somewhere, maybe a hospital, and my peeking around the corner in the kitchen/bedroom area at home and getting a glimpse of her. I knew she was someone special and yet a stranger to me. The next time I can remember seeing her was in the hospital in the Twin Cities at the time of her death.
My recollections are that a call or some message came to Tanta Anna's where I was staying. It was a bright sunny spring morning. Mama was on her deathbed and we had to hurry if we wanted to see her yet.
The next thing I recall is Buby and I kneeling next to her bed and saying our evening prayers, and then the weeping in the room; especially of Marvel and Myrtle. I don't think I really knew what had transpired. Seems to me that Tanta Polly was there also.
What I remember most of the funeral was that the four of us sat in front by the casket and that several times the funeral director lifted me up to look into the casket. Those are the only things I can recall that involve Mama.
If my memory serves me right, an empty chair in the dining room would have a black ribbon on it when we had guests. Dad kept Mama's clothes in the closet for many years. Also Mr. Andrew Lichty told me of Dad's great sorrow and feeling of loss, and his reading the Bible 10 times in its entirety that first-year.
Most of my free time in my youth was spent at Tanta Anna and Uncle Heinie. The Lord knew what he was doing when he did not grant them any children since they then had room in their hearts and home for people such as myself.
Willie Sabo lived with them and he also became a very special person, being a playful person even though he was much older than I. The dog Lucy, a police dog, and a mongrel named Schuzzlepuss, also added to the enjoyment of time spent there.
When we would be out in the car and Uncle Heinie would see horses in a field. he would be so enthralled with the horses that he would not be intent on his driving, but totally diverted his attention to seeing the horses. “Kuck, Anna kuck!” he would say, wanting to share that beautiful site with Tanta Anna.
It was at their home I experience life with fewer of the modern facilities. They had no telephone. A hand pump provided running water in the house. A path led to the toilet and Sears Roebuck catalog that had hard, heavy, colored, slippery pages. Bathing was in a wash tub in the middle of the kitchen floor with all of us using the same water in close succession. I got to go first because I was the youngest. Gas and oil lamps were used since there was no electricity. There was no refrigerator so food was kept cold by lowering it into the cistern. It was a way of life. A good life. Far richer than today’s wealth and empty homes offer.
During this period in time I had some dresses that Annie (later Uncle Otto's wife in 1941) made with beautiful workmanship. One of those dresses was a yellow chiffon which I wore for Putz and Vi’s wedding.
That was a special trip to Michigan with Tanta Lydia on the train. The porters on the train were black people which was something new for me to see. To begin with, there was a certain fear of them which soon turned to enjoyment since they showed so much kindness to Tanta Lydia, myself, and my “Nigger” doll Edgie. A doll I had until just a very few years ago, but because of the crazing, placed her into the garbage only to find out that I had quite a valuable antique.
My recollections of the wedding itself are few except that I carried a basket with red rose petals which I was to drop in front of the bride for her to walk on. Since the rose petals would be crushed in the process I put them off to the side a little so they would not get stepped on.
Time passed slowly in childhood and that recollection prompted me to ask my own children quite a number of times through their various stages whether or not time passed slowly for them. They seemingly did not experience that. Who knows. Maybe they were keeping something from me since I once heard Alan tell some of the other kids “Never say that you don't know what to do since Mom always has something for us to do (work).”
Uncle Otto and Uncle Herb were a part of the household. Grandpa Martin Jaus Sr. and Grandma Louisa Jaus, plus Tanta Lydia were in the other house just a few steps away so there was always someone around.
Uncle Otto had me roll cigarettes for him once a week. Uncle Herb would fill his coffee cup to overflowing with milk added to the coffee.
Marvel kept the house in excellent running order in every facet and had to take dictation from Dad during the noon meal so that the legislators would know his thoughts on various matters.Not only were the seven of us around the table for the evening meal, but H.G. Kaltenborn would also join us over the airwaves with news of the world events, much being of World War II.
For some reason or other fried potatoes or milch suppe for supper and Kaltenborn all fit together. When the war ended (Central Time Zone) and that news came over the radio we were just bidding goodbye to Alfred Lieske who had visited that Sunday.
I can remember relatives such as Uncle John Jaus (Unkle Johannes”) coming in his black perfectly shined Coupe to visit Grandpa and Grandma Jaus. (Within the past 10 years someone on the coast told us they grew up in the Hamburg area and could remember him in always clean car and bib overalls. Small world.)
Uncle Heinrich Jaus and Tanta Anna, who would come from Chicago bringing polished precious stones as gifts. He had a permanently stiff neck with his head always in a sideways position and Tanta Anna was a very prim and proper person. I can imagine he was possibly a colorful preacher.
Then there was some relative from the Harms side. “A man with a half black face” and I knew him just with that designation.
In the early forties a new Bible History was published and Grandpa Jaus (Dad) bought that for me. I still have it. It was 100 Bible Stories which is still in print, but has been revised with the pictures even having been changed somewhat. That book has always been special and have used the various editions through the years for many, many classes since the picture was on one side and the story across from it. It lent well to visual retention of the contents of the story.
In the first three years of school I had Armin C. Schmidt as teacher. he was a single, curly-haired fellow. in first grade someone dared me to call him by his first name, so I did out in the hall. He heard it. I had to “sit” after until I told him what I had said.
In fourth grade Herman Fehlauer came. For some reason or other he will always stand out as a very special teacher. Could it be that since I had two older sisters that were of interest that I benefited from that?
In the upper grades I had Teacher Dorn. Esther and I were close friends. After the blizzard in 1940 when I trudge through the snow banks and was the only one at school I got to play with her the whole day. When Mr. Paul E.A. Dorn put on end-of-the-year programs. They had all kinds of little things that seem special, such as walking from the school to the stand that had been erected out in the middle open area and we each could carry small flags. Plus wear little hats such as the modern-day party hats. Such things such as that were not a part of everyday life as they are today. Little party hats and even buying a tablet at school for $0.05 and being able to make a choice as to the pretty pictures on the front cover became special events.
Other things that must have been an irritation to the teachers such as dropping the German-English catechism when it had been so well worn that all the pages were loose and then having to put it all back together again. Or putting the wet mittens on the edge of the furnace and having them drip-drip-drip as the snow melted and the pst, pst, pst as the drips hit the hot furnace.
One day Mr. Dorn sat down to put on his overshoes to go home for lunch and had difficulty putting them on. We knew not all was well with him.
Mr. Radke came after Dorn had a nervous breakdown. We had a number of teachers from DMLC, each there for a 2 week stint.
On May 14th 1944 I was confirmed in a white, short dress just like Caroline Lehrkes. the Lieske aunts and uncles were there for confirmation dinner and this was a time when I got to sit in the dining room for a dinner. My recollection is that it was the first time and that when everyone was sitting down I was scheduled to sit in the kitchen. I think it was Tanta Rosie that felt I should be in the dining room. Tanta Yetta was my sponsor with whom I had the most sponsor contact. Mrs. Grewe, a friend of mama, was the other one. I do not recall much at all about her
In 1941 I became aware that Dad had a friend outside the family circle. Uncle Herb had taken ill at the Hutchinson Fairgrounds the year before and needed a special nurse to care for him.It turned out to be Mom Olivia Schilling. So that she could get to know us a little, we went to Yellowstone National Park that summer.
We saw Devils Tower and also the Black Hills. It was a most wonderful trip, seeing so very many new and wonderful things. That it has always been a highlight and I shall always see the special places through some of the same eyes with which I saw them the very first time.
In December of that year I was at Tanta Ana's one weekend when a call came. She had a telephone, but as yet no electricity nor inside plumbing.
It was either Uncle Otto or Marvel calling and saying that what had been thought may take place was taking place that afternoon at the Moltke parsonage with Pastor Leaker officiating. They went on a honeymoon somewhere on that December 21st, and then were back for Christmas Eve. Some weeks later they had a reception in Mankato, MN for all relatives and close friends.
Mom was still a nurse at the Union Hospital in New Ulm so she commuted weekends back to Moltke. She started and LPN program there and so was a teacher for a number of years.
Marvel continue to hold together as efficiently as always the home, until she got married on June 6th, 1944. I was a junior bridesmaid for her wedding. It was the day that Normandy Invasion took place, and Uncle Herb was still seeding corn.
Marvel had bought some of the first nylon stockings that ever came out, went to communion with Tony even though that was not necessarily the custom in those days, and also sat with him in church rather than be separated from him as was the custom with women on one side of the church and the men on the other. Guess one could say she was a part of the early liberation movement only hers was with the good sense.
During the years Myrt had left for nurses training. The day Mom took her to Abbott Hospital was a day of tears. At supper time Dad saw my red eyes. It was a time when I saw a softer side of Dad, with his placing his arm around me and said he felt just as I did. My freshman year was spent at the public high school in Gibbon.
The chicken barn burned down that spring with the thousand “pedigree” chicks dying in the fire. I remember waking up and seeing the red in the whole yard and my first thought was that the big barn was burning. The big barn also was special to me because it seemed to be special to other people who would come from miles around on a Sunday afternoon and look at it because it was so much larger than anything that had been built. I was so glad that is was not the big barn burning.
We carried milk cans of water to help the firemen fight the fire. All the buildings were saved, though the chicken barn and chicks were a complete loss.
Al Mills was with us for a number of years as a hired man throughout this time and we went baling in the summertime. I was very much a part of his bailing crew as we went out into the community to do custom baling. We were out bailing on a summer's day when I became ill and was taken to New Ulm for an emergency appendectomy. At that time it was almost two weeks before they would even permit a patient to get up. By the time I was to leave the hospital I was so stooped over I could barely walk. The present-day method of doing things is much better.
The next few years for my schooling were spent at DMLCHS and then DMLC. Those were wonderful years and I am so thankful for the Christian education I got there.
The summers were still spent bailing until the time that I continued my college education during the summer months. Finally, when I went out teaching . The bailing was totally behind me. I still cringe and clench my fists when I recall my hand being drawn towards the balers blade.
At the time that I attended DMLC there were quite a few of the Moltke congregation kids going to DMLC/HS. Many of them ended up very actively serving the Lord in the Wisconsin Synod. Some in the home mission fields and others in the foreign fields. Others in our institutions of learning and in providing a good, solid backbone for a congregational life. I have always felt that the Moltke congregation and school gave me a good, solid foundation from which to carry on, along with the training at DMLC with some very good congregational life. There were many things thru the years which had roots in Motle, such as our New Year's Eve watch etc. etc.
The Reuter’s Christmas service for choir, organ and spoken word was something we did with our parochial school children and that dated back to the DMLC Christmas concert which was always a special part of the concert.
My first call for teaching was to Bethesda Congregation in Milwaukee, WI to teach grade two with about 25 kids. It was a large school system and congregation. It was a two-story brick school building with a bowling alley downstairs for The Men's Club. I still have contact with one of the teachers, but the buildings have all been torn down since the freeway went through there. It is now a totally black neighborhood. I have not been able to find any trace of that looks familiar at all from when I was there.
In the spring that I was there, Ralph came for a congregation in NE to meet with the mission board to get funds to build a new church. He also came to see me. His cousins Daryl and Kathrine Hinderer were with us that evening. We went to a German restaurant in Milwaukee by the name Schwabenhof. A nice restaurant and very popular. A large rat ran across the floor while we were eating.
He got the loan for the new church from Synod and came to see me after I got home and before summer school started for me. He was attending convention in Minneapolis and had run down to see me. Dad said to him “komm mal wieder (come back sometime)” and was taken aback a little when Ralph told him that he was coming again in a few days when the convention was over with.
Dad was surprised I had accepted the call to Zion Lutheran Church, Monroe, MI. I went there in August to teach grades 3,4, and 5 and had 43 students. At Christmas I flew home after the Christmas Eve service, my first flight ever, and Myrt and Harvey met me at the airport.
Before the new year I went down to NE and then back to MI from there. I officially got my ring in March and we were married in June. My wedding gown was handmade by a woman in the Monroe area. I had taken various pictures from Brides Magazine and pieced them together for her to make a pattern for my dress.
Ralph came to pick me up Friday after school. He dropped me off at home and headed back to Nebraska for a few days. Long enough to do church work, have a Sunday service, and borrow a new pair of black shoes from a member so that when he knelt the soles would look new. He came back Monday in time for an evening wedding rehearsal. Buby was our best man and Kathrine Hinderer our maid of honor. Louis Lieske and Martin Janke were the ushers. We had a reception in the church basement with a full ham dinner. The night of the rehearsal Annie had added salt to the fresh strawberries instead of sugar, and even though it was something that happened and was not serious, she could she never forget that mistake and felt badly over it.
Mr. Albert Wandersee was the master of ceremony. Marvel and Myrtle ang a song in German about the various duties for each day of the week with lengthy repetition reviewing each day’s duties. Professor Meyer from the Seminary was there, as were so many wonderful friends, Profs, relatives, and members of Ralph's congregation.
We went to North Minnesota to an island for our honeymoon, and all the mosquitoes joined us there. When we got back and got all packed up Mom alerted the congregation in Nebraska that we would be arriving the following evening since they had requested of her to let them know. They had a chivery for us we enjoyed since the young people of Moltkey had not shiveread us. They did not know if they could do for us since Ralph was a preacher.
The members came into the house after the chivery and had with them candy etc. which they passed out. Everyone enjoy it, but they put the wrappers behind the davenport etc. I was wondering what type of people I had come among and only when we went to bed later that evening and found wrappers in our bed did I know we must be among fun-loving people.
Ralph had been assigned to Nebraska from the Seminary so had been in NE since 1947 upon graduation. Now it was 1951 and we would be in this good state for 4 more years. Years occupied with building a church. Kathryn and Martin were born here.
While at Synod convention in August of 1955 Ralph received the call to Washington State. We move there in October, just as the first snows were coming down in the Cascade Mountains we were crossing into Western Washington.
Compared to what that area is now, it was really quite different with Mountlake Terrace. This was the very first subdivision as a trial area for Seattle. The Northgate Mall have been opened a few years before. That as the very first mall experiment in the US with the network for the mall all beneath the stores. That concept has been repeated many times now throughout the nation and world.
Alan was born the February after we arrived. The months were busy that followed. In addition to all else, we were opening our parochial school that fall. We started with two teachers, kindergarten through 8th grade, with Kathryn being in kindergarten. We started a youth group and continued with the very active mission aspect of the congregation. Ralph was elected to the District Mission Board and started to travel hither and thither for meetings.
We had a taste of camping during the summer when members interested us in it. I did not see how anyone could be interested in sitting under trees and primitive plumbing. Ralph designed and built a trailer (I sewed the canvas on my old Singer sewing machine). Camping became a way of life for us for many summers, getting away whenever we could for a day or two.
We made our first trip to the Midwest from Washington in the summer of 1958 when Ralph had to go for a school visitors workshop for the Pacific Northwest District. We took our trailer on its maiden voyage, but had to wait for Martin to get over the mumps before we could leave. We must have carried some of the germs with us since after we left New Ulm, Dad came down with the mumps. He had always prided himself in not having had the children's disease. He had been at Rochester a year or two before for the removal of his tonsils and now came down with the mumps, being very sick
In 1961 the folks went to Alaska with Putz and Vi, coming back down with the ship into Vancouver. When they pulled in it looked as though they had been in Alaska. There were tires tied to the top of their vehicle and it was all as dusty and dirty as could be.
We went camping that summer for 3 weeks into the San Juan Islands, Vancouver Island, and them onto the Olympic Peninsula.
I often felt with the appetites of the kids that I should have had a cow tied on behind the trailer to take a slice off of every so often to help fill the hollow legs. We had the nicest vacation that we probably ever had. Marty surely scrounged a lot of different driftwood which we always tied onto the tongue of the trailer.
In 1963 we had the Seattle World's Fair and towards the end of that Claire was born. We had much company. I was going to teach kindergarten and preschool again so it was a busy time. This was the first time we ever had 14 sleep in our trailer. Ralph saw me cook for so many people when out camping with only the two burner stove. He gave me a 4 burner for my birthday.
When we were up in Mount Rainier with this gang we fortunately put our food into a pit for the night. The next morning we found huge bear tracks on the table.
That fall Claire was born. It was also the time when the Cuba Embargo took place so we saw to it that we had canned milk on hand and a supply of water in case we would find ourselves in a war. The idea of Russia being so close always troubled me in earlier years.
Then we went into the building program which involved the relocation from Mountlake Terrace to Edmonds. It was a lengthy process. We bought land and then first the parsonage, getting help from members and of course our own family was very involved. The church’s groundbreaking and parsonage dedication were on the same day in May of 1967. Then the two and a half year church building process began. Ralph ended up being the general contractor.
Paul was born that November, the day after I had gone down into Seattle to pick up a trailer load of cement blocks for the church's furnace room. It was a good thing I did not go into labor then, but did the following night when Ralph was down in Seattle’s Underground Seattle with the young people's group. When he got home we headed down to Seattle where Paul was born. Unlike another time, in a similar circumstance, we did not sit in the parking lot and wait for time to pass so that we would have a lesser bill to pay. We debated about a name. I wanted Timothy Paul and Ralph wanted Paul Timothy.
Our church was dedicated in the fall of 1969 and Ralph continued with all his mission board trips. Life was as busy as ever.
Having sent Kathryn off to school in 1966 we now in 1970 had our first family graduation. I could not go since Ron was due any day. Grandma Baur went, and of course Marty was there. Ron was born and we went camping a few weeks later at the ocean.
The following year Marty graduated from MLA and we went by train to be there. When we were getting ready to board in Willmar for the return trip, a passenger who also was going to board saw our baggage cart trailer full of luggage and ask Dad something about the baggage since he thought that was the load for the passengers and not just ours.
In 1974 we went for Kathryn and Alan's graduation, and then took Kathryn to Cibecue where she was assigned for teaching. Alan and Martin were out commercial fishing, so the rest of us went. Cibecue was listed as the most isolated spot in the US in 1977 in the Almanac of National Geographic.
Jim graduated in 1977 which meant another trip back. Paul Scharrer graduated from Sem in 1978 and I went back to help out for that. A trip for Claire’s graduation in 1980. A trip in 1981 for Marty’s graduation from Sem and marriage. Dad had died in 1980, the same year Mount Saint Helens erupted.
Claire got married in 1983 and I went to travel school. Since then have traveled extensively hither and thither. Paul graduated in 1986 and we went to Arizona and California following that.
Grandma Jaus died in 1987, Ron graduated from MLPs in 1988. We stop there on our way home from Europe. We retired to New Ulm in 1988.
The Minnesota climate is colder than our roots remembered, windier all year and hotter in the summer. We did not follow our own advice to others and that is to go and live for a year wherever it is that you plan to move, to see if that really is the place for you. We thought we knew, but we had changed and the area had changed to which we moved. We had just plain forgotten just how bad the climate is after having lived in so mild a climate for more than 33 years.
Seven kids later, 20 grandchildren, 41 years for Ralph's Ministry and one year of retirement, eight years in travel industry, so many years of Ralph being on the mission board, life has been full with an abundance of blessings that I had never dreamed of.
Christmas Memories
Claire had asked the other evening about the history behind the under the tree Nativity and was surprised that it did not begin with us. I grew up with that in my home and your dad was interested in carrying it on in our home.
The barn he built for our first barn was with roll-top desk pieces he had removed from his desk. They were like small logs.
The desk came from a bank in Milwaukee and is the desk he had all these years, the one downstairs. If you ever look closely at the underneath side of the desk you will see it has a cut on the back underneath area to be able to move it through doors.The roll top desk was about 2 ft high and had lots of areas with drawers and slots almost similar to Governor Reed. Alan has that barn now since we did not move it when moving to Minnesota.
I emailed Marvel to find out where the barn tradition began and if it went back to my grandparents. She said that after my mother died my dad built the barn for under our tree. It served both as a tree stand and barn for the Nativity pieces. Slowly the wiseman then were added as time went on. Now we continue that tradition in our home as I remember it being in my home. It is what made a tree a Christmas tree and all of you grew up with it. Some of you have carried on that tradition. When we moved here Dad built one temporarily, but it has remained the same for these 26 Christmases. So that is how that tradition came about.
More Memories 04-77
I grew up in a strong parochial school minded congregation in MN. In the summer before going into 8th grade and instructions, both the pastor and teacher accepted call. We were without both at the opening of the school year, even though the calls had been accepted and both would arrive in a month to 6 weeks.
We had the option of attending public school for those weeks, or remaining at home until our school opened. I decided to spend that time in the public school.
After attending on day, the difference between the two types of schools became only to vivid. No Bible History and Catechism study, no singing of our beautiful Lutheran hymns, no prayer, all these things so precious to me. Of course, I could not be part of that school and missed it immensely. I did not return, but rather waited out the time until our teacher arrived.
That was a special day. His zeal and active role in the congregation, both as a remarkable teacher in the classroom, and outside the classroom with the Young People, choir, organ and all else he did, I am sure were a great influence on many for going into the work of the church. (1 Sem Prof, 5 into teaching, 1 wife of missionary in Africa)
There were those in the congregation who felt it would be well to start a Sunday School, but since there was no mission potential for this, he diverted all energies towards the parochial school. From that time to this day (1977) there has been 100% attendance of the children in the congregation’s parochial school.
Our new pastor also arrived soon after this and with his arrival the instruction classes began for the 8th graders. Our class was the first to be instructed in the English language for which I have always been thankful since I had to memorize everything in English which previously had been memorized in German. It gave me a more versatile foundation.
We attended instruction 3 times a week around a pot-bellied stove. We never got too warm to become lethargic in that cool, 2nd floor room as we studied God’s Word that fall, winter, and spring.
Our examination and confirmation of the 6 in the class was on May 14th. I think this is the only class not to be confirmed on Psalm Sunday in the 80 year history of the congregation.
The verse chosen for me was Joshua 1:9 - “Be strong and of good courage. Be not afraid or dismayed, for the Lord thy God is with the whither soever thou goest.” What a wonderful promise of the Lord’s help and presence thru whatever befalls in my life.
The service brought aunts and uncles who also came to our home afterwards for the confirmation dinner. This was my first time for eating at the dining room table with company, an occasion special enough to remember.
I’m so very thankful for my years in parochial grade school, high school, and college. The older I get, the more precious all the these become.
The realization becomes greater too as the years pass, that instructions and confirmations are only the beginning and how much remains to be learned and gleaned from God’s Word. It’s a never ending joy to study and hear our Lord’s precious words.
With the confirmation promise from Joshua “for the Lord thy God is with thee whither soever thou goest,” the words of Romans 8:31 come to mind. “If God be for us, who can be against us.” All that really matters in life is that we remain faithful ro our Lord, as we vowed we would, on our confirmation day.