(1915-1995)
In writing this I wonder why I am doing it and get embarrassed by it. I came to the conclusion that I do it because I have known so little of my ancestors, never met most of them, and wish I had known more about them. I hope that this will someday be meaningful to our sons as some of the writings of my grandfather and grandmother have been to me.
Howard B. Test was born at or near Alburnett, Iowa on October 10, 1885. He was probably born on a farm between Alburnett and Whittier in Lynn County northeast of Cedar Rapids. Dad used to talk of both Whittier and Springville, but I never heard him mention Alburnett. His father was a farmer and a Quaker. His parents were of the simple life and dress, were very religious (his father became a minister) and did not believe in music. My father was caught and punished for playing the mouth organ behind the barn.
I suspect that his father (William Test) just rented farms because it seems that he moved around quite often. They apparently moved to Whittier, California when H. B. was but a very young baby. He had talked of having lived in Whittier, California and also of Whittier so I was never too clear on these Whittiers.
| My father was punished for playing the mouth organ behind the barn. |
William and Jennie (Patten) Test |
The following year my grandfather, William Test, remarried to Anna Roseland on 9-16-1894, H.B. being not yet nine years old. She was of Norwegian descent, and may have come from Norway as she spoke Norwegian. I don't know about English. She was from the Norwegian community of LeGrand, Iowa where William Test was at the Stavanger School.
House at Stavenger, Iowa |
They must have moved to the Whittier-Springville area of Iowa soon after their marriage. The people of the Whittier community were of English descent, also Quakers, having moved there from Ohio, probably. I'm sure they did not speak Norwegian which contributed to the new wife being unhappy there and wanting to move back to LeGrand. This they did in the spring of 1895, having lived at Whittier only a few months. I don't know what he had done at Whittier except to assume that he had rented a farm.
When he moved back to Legrand, he may have rented another one. While we were visiting the Tow cousins at LeGrand in August 1982, Kenneth took us to the Stavanger meeting house where I took pictures. The meeting house was originally on the west side of the road with the cemetery. It has been moved to the east side, remodeled and enlarged into a nice frame structure. A parsonage has been built on the same lot as the church. It is to be noted that at my grandfathers time no ministers were hired. The Sunday meetings were led by one of the congregation who had studied the religion and felt called upon to speak and lead. Although my grandfather was later recorded (or recognized -- Quakers were not ordained) as a minister, he was never paid as one. The Stavanger School was discontinued in 1912 and moved away. Kenneth and Corrine Tow are members of this church. Kenneth also took us by the farm and house where my father and grandfather lived while at LeGrand.
My father's sister, Cora, married Cyrus Tow in 1901. Dad often spoke of having worked for Cyrus at his farm at Norway, Iowa. I never knew when but Kenneth said it was right after the marriage. Dad would have been 15 at the time, and Cyrus only 20 which doesn't quite make sense. Cyrus raised purebred Hereford breeding stock. He had a large operation which then included a sales pavilion in which he held yearly breeding stock auction sales. I have a brochure advertising the 1916 sale which Kenneth gave me. This, of course, was long after Dad had married and moved to South Dakota. Cyrus showed cattle at many of the big livestock expositions such as the International at Chicago, The Royal at Kansas City, and State Fairs in surrounding states. Dad went along to many of the shows to help groom the cattle for the show.
Dad also worked as a carpenter out of Amarillo, Texas one winter--I think it was the winter of 1903-04. I have a draw knife and a try-square which he used at that time.
| Dad also worked as a carpenter out of Amarillo, Texas one winter--I think it was the winter of 1903-04. |
Grandfather William Test wrote in his notes that he was living at West Branch, Iowa in 1907. Dad would have been twenty-two or twenty-one in 1907. I don't know when they moved there but assume that Dad lived with him until 1905, that he lived in West Branch, and that he went to school sometime at Scattergood Boarding School which is two miles east and one half mile south of West Branch. It has grades through the high school level, and still operating in 1982. That is where my mother went to high school. Dad may have gone through high school there also. I don't know.
Dad said that his stepmother was very mean to him and literally drove him away from home. Again, I don't know how this ties in with his saying he lived with his father until the age of twenty years.
Dad also talked a great deal about the town of Marion which is not far from Whittier and Springville. I always had the impression he had worked there too, but don't know. Really, I always thought the store was at Marion.
Some way he was able to accumulate various items of equipment needed for farming. At least he had several horses and a buggy. The horses were mostly not plain draft horses, but were coach or carriage horses. These were tall and rangy with longer
| I remember several of these horses--a team of a mare and a gelding named Selim and Bonney. ...Selim was a red gelding, 17 1/2 hands high. When he died he was skinned and a horsehair robe was made. |
HB with sons William and Raeburn |
One of the interesting accumulations was the material for a barn which was rebuilt on his South Dakota Farm. The framing was of square timbers, about 10 x 10, cut with mortise and tenons which were pegged together with wooden pins. I don't know if the siding which was put on vertically was salvaged or not.
Enough material and equipment had been accumulated to require the use of a railroad "emigrant" car to transport it to South Dakota. Apparently a prior trip had been made to South Dakota and a farm rented--probably before his marriage. The usual farm lease starts March first and they were not married until the 18th. Dad went with the emigrant car. I suspect mother went later. The car was unloaded at Frederick and the stuff was hauled across country in wagons pulled by teams of horses to the new farm.
Mary with Eggs and Milk for Market |
Mary in the Front Yard |
H.B. and Mary In South Dakota |
The land was prairie sod which had to be broken. The first crop on sod in those days was always flax.
| The land was prairie sod which had to be broken. The first crop on sod in those days was always flax. |
The spring they moved, an artesian well was dug to 1,021 feet before they got water. In 1977 on a visit to the old place the well still flowed a trickle. Nearly all the buildings were gone.
I think they continued to rent the farm until 1917 when it was bought with the help of a State of South Dakota Rural Credit loan.
Although my mother returned to Iowa many times, and both her mother and stepfather visited South Dakota many times, there is no record of my father getting back to Iowa until 1917. In 1917 they traded their 1915 Model-T Ford for a 1917 Model-T. I have pictures of the 1917 car but not the 1915 one. In the new car the whole family of four drove to Iowa. There were practically no roads, no maps and inquiries had to be made as to how to get to the next town. Mother's parents were in South Dakota to care for the farm. I guess my father did not get back to Iowa at the death of his father who died in October the first year Dad was in South Dakota.
In 1919 the county Agricultural Agent persuaded my father to help organize township Farm Bureau organizations. According to newspaper clippings which I have, he was President of the Brown County Farm Bureau from 1922 to 1925. He was elected to the state board of directors in 1923, state Vice-President in 1925, and State President in 1929. At that time he was given the State
| ...He was given the State Farm Bureau award as the state's "Eminent Farmer". I have the medal which was given to him.... |
In 1933 the Roosevelt Administration passed a law creating an Agricultural Adjustment Administration. This was the beginning of the government sponsored farm programs. The program called for township, county, and state committees. The first two local committees were to be composed of farmers and were elected. The State Committee was made by appointment, by whom I never knew. My father was elected to the township committee, and to the county committee which elected him as County Chairman. He was reelected annually until he resigned at the same time he resigned from the Farm Bureau Presidency.
H.B. and Mary In 1931 at Brookings, S.D. |
At some time during these years he was selected by the Aberdeen Rotary Club to be its representative farmer member. He continued Rotary Club membership for 35 years, if I remember correctly.
During his tenure as the Farm Bureau State President he attended all the National Conventions of the American Farm Bureau Federation. Many of these conventions and conferences were in Chicago. While in Chicago he always stayed at the Sherman Hotel which is no longer in existence. In other years the annual conventions were held at Boston, Pasadena, and New Orleans. I think twice in Pasadena because I have a picture of Dad in a Night Club in Hollywood without mother but with persons from other states. I also remember mother telling they'd never been so cold in their lives as at Pasadena. Maybe there were others held elsewhere that I don't remember.
I was in Aberdeen and working in Sioux Falls when State conventions were held there. They had annual banquets at which Dad was Master of Ceremonies. I heard him speak and he was an excellent speaker. He always came up with good funny, appropriate stories and introductions. I also learned that my mother was an excellent dancer when dancing with her after the banquet.
My father was twice called to confer with President Roosevelt on farm problems. He came to disrespect the President who
| My father was twice called to confer with President Roosevelt on farm problems. He came to disrespect the President who wanted to do all the talking and would not listen to learn. |
 H.B. Test |
While [my wife] Elaine and I were on our way to active duty with the Air Force at Sacramento in November of 1941, we stayed over-night at a Motel at Rapid City, South Dakota. We went out for dinner and bought a local newspaper. We were much surprised to see the headline "Test Cites Agriculture's Double Goals". The South Dakota Farm Bureau was having its annual convention at the Alex Johnson Hotel there in Rapid City. After finishing dinner we went to the hotel and watched the last of his performance as the banquet M.C. from outside the meeting room door. When the session was over we paid him a surprise visit.
 Mary Dean Test |
| On this farm my brother William and I were both born and reared. |
He still owed $4,200 on the 1/2 section farm, so instead of buying it back he bought a full section, 640 acres nearby the old place. The farmhouse for the new place was 5 1/2 miles west of Barnard. This had a better house but poorer outbuildings. These he didn't need because he had about quit the livestock end of farming. With no sons at home, and he being away from home for both Farm Bureau and the County Committee work, daily caring for livestock was too much.
By 1945 my mother's health was very poor (she having cancer) so they bought a house in Frederick, and Dad resigned from both the Farm Bureau Presidency and the County AAA chairmanship. This was because he was no longer a farmer, but more to accept a political appointment to the South Dakota State Highway Commission. Whereas he had previously been away from home daily, the highway commission deal was but a few days every other week. When leaving home for more than a day he would take mother to the hospital in Aberdeen, then pick her up on his way home after his trip. This being right after World War II, they could not get possession of the house for six months. For the 1945-46 winter they rented the Frank Callaghan house in Westport. The Callaghans had gone to Arizona for the winter. We helped them move into the Frederick house on May 2, 1946. They had a farm sale on the machinery, etc. and their farm neighbors had brought all the household goods to Frederick, where they just unloaded it on the enclosed porch for us to clean house and move furniture.
One summer when I was home from college and had some time, I tried to talk the folks into letting me dig and install a septic tank and drain field for the original farm house. Thus they could at least have had an indoor water closet instead of the outdoor privy which had to be used even in the coldest weather. Mother said no that they could wait until they retired and moved to town. They wouldn't spend the money now. She lived in the Westport house for six months which had the indoor bathroom on the first floor (it was a one story house). The Frederick house bathroom was on the upstairs floor and she could never use it because her health was such that she could not get up the stairs. They did get a chemical toilet for her to use downstairs and she could take only sponge baths. It didn't pay to wait for the indoor bathroom.
Mother died in August 1946 having lived in her own house in town only three months. Dad served two terms on the Highway Commission, but turned down another appointment because one of the later members liked to drink and carouse when away from home, and Dad Test didn't go for this.
Dad continued living in Frederick, was elected town mayor and remarried to an old farm neighbor in 1951. There came a time [1962] when they could no longer take care of the house and yard so they moved to an apartment owned by his new wife's daughter and her husband in Ipswich. He soon sold the house in Frederick. He had already sold the farm in 1954 after having rented for a share of the crop for about nine years. His second wife, Laura, died in May, 1966.
Dad continued to live in the same apartment until 1969. Because he could no longer take care of himself, the daughter called my brother Bill in Elmhurst, Illinois. Bill and [his wife] Maude went to Ipswich, rented a U-Haul trailer to take him and some of his things back to live with them in Elmhurst, or until some other permanent arrangement could be made. Cost of nursing home care in the Elmhurst area was so much higher than it was in the Valley [Rio Grande Valley of south Texas] that I made a reservation for him in a McAllen nursing home. Bill was going to come to the Valley on business in January of 1970, so Bill, Maude, and Dad flew down. Dad stayed with Elaine and me a few days before we took him to the nursing home. He had become senile and very demanding and about impossible to please. He died on July 5th, 1970, having lived in the nursing home about seven months.
Elaine and I flew back with his body meeting Bill and Maude in Minneapolis for the flight to Aberdeen. Dad is buried in the Aberdeen cemetery beside my mother. The cemetery is a mile or two southwest of Aberdeen. My mother's mother and brother are buried in the same cemetery, but in a different part.