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Descendant and Surname Reports
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Family Group Sheet
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Marie and Earl, December 1960
Marie and Earl on their 55th wedding anniversary
This photo is from Aunt Marie's photo album. There are a lot of photos
that seem to be from the same time period. It looks like Marie and Earl
had a vacation (or a day trip) with another couple. I think the photo
above of them setting on a bridge is from the same group. There is no
context to this picture except the one I came up with: two young couples,
all four good friends, each couple very much in love, out on a lark together,
this scene captured the tranquility, beauty, and joy they were all feeling.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Earl's father, �Monie� as he was known, moved his family frequently during
the first twenty years of family life. Earl, the third of six children,
completed the eighth grade when the family was living at Crystal Springs, Harper
County, Kansas. This ended his formal education but he read extensively in areas
of his interest. His parents talked "Pennsylvania Dutch" at home during his
early years, so he was not fluent in English when he started school but he
quickly learned English and didn�t carry a Dutch accent.
When Monie moved the family on to Missouri for a second time around 1921 Earl
was 16 and stayed behind working for Mervin Berg and his wife on their farm
about five miles south and east of Crystal. He lived with them for a number of
years like a member of the family; they had no children. This not only provided
room and board along with modest pay, Mervin helped Earl become established as
an independent farmer before he was married. It was only natural that Earl
rented land near the Berg's. After he married, he and Mervin continued to help
each other with farm work.
Earl married Marie Barber in 1928. In 1936, with one son and another on the way,
Earl and Marie bought their own farm approximately one mile south of Crystal.
They traded a house in Crystal which Earl had bought several years before they
were married, at a time when he had decided the new car he had purchased was not
as good of use of his money as the investment in this house would be. It turned
out later to be not only his down payment on a farm, it was a house to which his
parents and family returned when Granddad needed to abandon his second attempt
to become established in Missouri.
The farm was 126 +/- acres with a two story house, barn, and various out
buildings. Earl augmented a farm income by grading township roads for a number
of years. He did most of his own repair and engine overhaul work, his skills in
mechanics having been enhanced with several winters of heavy equipment repair
work in St. Louis during the early 1930�s. He learned carpentry working with his
father and other carpenters and was self taught about electrical wiring, having
wired their home for DC. Electricity was made by a wind charger he installed and
later upgraded to a Delco gas powered generator before AC was brought to the
area. He taught himself to weld with both acetylene and electric welders,
repairing and adapting machinery, some of which was originally horse drawn, to
function better and more efficiently. He started farming with horses but as
tractors became affordable he switched, adding a second tractor as his sons and
the amount of land he farmed grew. Like all farmers, he upgraded and added more
modern equipment as farm technology advanced and became affordable.
His enterprising creativity led him to build a metal walled garage for a car,
truck and workshop from eight foot by four foot "recycled" drip pans from
railroad refrigerator cars. Sons one and two toned muscles one summer brushing
rust and painting it. The wood rafters were rough sawn from neighboring
cottonwood trees cut down by AT&T's new communication project which otherwise
planned to burn them. Fifty-some years later, the garage still looked good.
One of the more memorable projects of his ingenuity was when he and his brother
Roy converted a steel wheeled Case threshing machine from the steam engine era,
to a rubber tired self powered machine, towed from farm to farm by a pickup.
Although it was used only a few years, this was an efficient way of meeting a
decreasing demand for threshing bundled grain as combines made threshing
machines obsolete. Most farmers used combines to harvest their grain in the
1940�s and early 50�s, but a number still liked to bind and thresh oats (mainly)
for feed grain and bedding straw. A Ford V-8 engine with unmuffled exhausts was
mounted crosswise above the machine over the threshing cylinder. When an extra
large amount of bundles were forked into the feeder, the engine governors would
open wide to provide the necessary power. The pipes cackled, the cylinder
growled, and the whole machine shuddered in an unforgettable orchestration of
farm music to young ears.
Earl could always be counted on to help others when they needed it, so it was
very natural for him to volunteer in the work of the Mennonite Disaster Service
from its inception. After he retired, MDS work became a major focus. He and
Marie took various long term assignments at locations of disaster where he would
coordinate volunteer activities and Marie would usually cook for the workers.
They worked from South Dakota to South Texas and would live for months at a time
in their travel trailer on site. They made many friends from Mexico to Canada
through MDS work, some of whom stayed in close touch with them until Earl and
Marie both died.
The church was an important part of Earl's life. After getting married, he and
Marie attended the Harper Methodist church where she had joined as a teenager.
However, those were depression years and money was scarce. When the minister
made a house call one day, indicating how much he thought they should be giving
to the church, Marie decided they should find another church. They started
attending the Crystal Springs Mennonite Church and both joined. It was the
"family" church where his parents and siblings' families attended. Earl served
the local congregation in many capacities, most notably for 20 years or so as
Treasurer. He is buried next to his wife Marie, in the cemetery adjacent to the
Crystal Springs Church, across the road from the home place.
-Written by Hal Boyts, Earl and Marie's second son.
Updated: January 22, 2006