Velma and Ernest Gregory written by Park Gregory

Park in the sled his Dad made for him.... he writes: I think my Grandpa Park might have made the heavy wooden sled with iron strap runners that we had on the farm. Dad fastened a wooden box to it and I was pulled around in the snow, snug in the box. We had the sled when we moved to town and I used to try it for sliding down Washington Street hill,
but it had no speed and in fact it took good sledding to get to the bottom of the hill. Dad bought a raffle ticket on a used Flexible Flyer sled for a few cents about 1924 and won the sled. It would out run any other make of sled and would steer very well.



Velma, Ernest and Jack the dog.

Velma and Ernest's home was registered with the department of social services and twin boys Keith and Kenton Delano
(distant relatives of Franklin Delano Roosevelt) came to live with us for several years.
Velma is at the left, Ernest at the right, Ella Park has her back to the camera and the little boy is one of the Delano twins.

Going back now to the time when Ernest and Velma went to live on the west farm in Wright Township. There was an old two story house with a one story kitchen and shed addition on the back. There was a large L-shaped barn and some out buildings on the property which consisted of some 160 acres including a wood lot. The barn had a full basement with cow and horse stables in one section. In the other section sheep had been kept, but not cleaned out for years. Dad said he could not stand up in that part since the manure was so deep. He cleaned it all out and put it on the fields which may have accounted for the abundant harvests that followed. He raised potatoes, 600 bushel to the acre, that was praised far and wide. He had several horses, but one was believed to have suffered a sun stroke before Dad got him. At any rate he would not turn left unless hitched up as a team with another horse that would push him left. Right was ok anytime, Hudson was seven miles away and it was an all day chore to hitch, up a team to a wagon and make the trip into town and back. Dad used to tell, with a smile, how he had made the trip to town, but the weather turned threatening while he was there, so with. his team of Hamiltonians they started home just as the rain started. The Hamiltonians were fast, Dad said, and he kept just far enough ahead of the rain so that it rained into the back of the wagon all
the way home, but never got Dad wet. Winters were sometimes severe. The old house was drafty and mother has related how the wind would blow in around the foundation and lift the rug off the floor when it blew up between the floor boards.

They burned wood in a heating stove and the kitchen range that they cut from the wood lot, but it was difficult to keep the house warm. I was born in November of 1918 and lived on the farm until 1920 when we moved into Hudson. One winter I was very sick and Dr. Barnes of Hudson would come out to see me. He of course carried his medicines in a satchel, many of them; in liquid form which he would mix on the spot. His most unusual habit was to lick the end of each cork as he unbottled each ingredient. We felt that this was a double check on his part in case he had misread the label, his taste would tell him.
A dog they had on the farm was a large, somewhat long haired fellow named Jack. Jack was very helpful around the farm in rounding up cows, hunting, and protecting the property, Ernest and Velma dearly loved him and it really
broke their hearts the day Dad had to take Jack back in a field, tie him to a fence and kill him. Jack had started to chase and kill sheep. This is something that once started, can never be trained out of a dog. It means sure death.

The barn and house on the west farm were protected by lightning rods. Mother used to tell me about the day they were looking out the window during a lightening storm toward a field west of the house in which wheat had been shocked ready for threshing, when a bolt struck one of the shocks and burned it completely.

Mother was a good cook and made use of all sorts of home grown and wild foods. One of her "best pies was elder-berry which grew profusely in fence rows. Elderberries however are rather "bland and to make a pie good she would add a tablespoon of vinegar for a little tartness. When a group of neighbors came to help with a harvest, there would be a big meal and everyone expected mother’s delicious elderberry pies. One of the neighbors asked how she made them so good, his wife had tried elderberries and they weren't so good Mom told him about the vinegar, but on his
way home the tablespoon somehow grew to be one cup in his mind so he told his wife to add a cup of vinegar. Well needless to say her pie was something else. They all had a great time talking about that for years afterward.

After dad and mother came to Hudson in 1920, a share cropper and his family lived on the farm. His name was Barr. It was a good farm and Mr. Barr was a young and hard worker and he prospered, so much that about 1930
Mr. Barr was able to move on to a farm of his own. The next share cropper was lazy and dishonest. After being on the farm a few years he sold grain and cattle, failed to divide the money with grandma (Ella Park) who now owned the farm after her husband's death. He disappeared and she was not able to prosecute. Some of the cattle still on the farm needed milking and feeding each day. I can remember my dad getting up before daybreak each day, driving out to the farm and in winter weather milking by hand the cows, four or five I think, and feeding them, then doing it again after store hours each night. This might have continued for two .weeks until the next tenant moved in. His name was George Washington Craig, an elderly man. We always chuckled when we would see him come to town with his neighbor Abraham Lincoln Cramer, Mr. Craig was too old to farm. He couldn't get his corn planted soon enough, he couldn't harvest his potato crop because of the aches and pains and weariness of age. We went up to the farm, Dad, Mother, Grandma, Ruth Ann, and myself to pick up potatoes one summer evening. Grandma realized it was time to sell the farm and a neighbor Joe Siegel was happy to buy it.

Dad was active in Hudson City government. Elected a councilman about 1952 and a few years later was elected city treasurer which office he held for many years. When a councilman he was at one time welfare commissioner.