The following is a little background for a picture that a co-worker brought in to work today(12-22-05). His mother Shirley wrote this to go with the picture.. C Tucker (wd45@cis.net)
 
"The year was about 1942.  The place was the Yonker farm at Tigerton, in Shawano County, Wisconsin.  My dad, John Yonker, standing, had purchased this Allis Chalmers tractor.  This was all he could afford and felt it would do the job.  The young man at the wheel is my older brother, Arwell.  He thought it was just the most fun thing to make the front wheels do a pop up.  By the way, Dad bought this little machine in the city of Shawano, about 25 miles away.  Arwell drove it home.  Only thing is, it was dark when we came home and there were no lights on the tractor so we had to follow him with the car and provide light for him to see.  The little girl in the background is me, Shirley. I was about 7 at the time.    The load is a stack of manure that they are hauling to the field or garden.  We didn't have a spreader, only a "stone boat."  The stone boat was also used to smooth the gravel drive.  That drive was about 3/4 of a mile long and in the Spring, after the thaw, it was not easy going.  I remember riding the stone boat with my dad with one horse pulling it.    Guess that must have been before the tractor.  The house in the picture was created from logs with a roof of tarpaper.  Sometimes  when it rained we had leaks and had pots, pans, and buckets sitting around catching the drips.  The logs  were also seen on the inside of the house.  When dad chinked them he would have someone on the inside to catch the mortar, or whatever he used, as it sometimes went straight through.  My mother would paint and wallpaper those old logs to make them look as nice as she could.
The house consisted of a kitchen, a living room, my parent's bedroom and off the kitchen was a pantry and also the stairs to our bedrooms.  The kitchen and the living room became one room one day when my mother got tired of the rooms being so small.  She took a hammer and Waa-laa, we had the first "great room" in Shawano County!

 

Our house had a 'basement" also.  In the pantry, under the stairs, there was a hole with a sort of ladder that one could go down to this dugout hole.  We also had an outside entry with a real "cellar door."   It was so cool down there that Mother set a bowl of Jell-O on the earthen floor and it would set even in the summertime.  My parents raised sheep and if you look close you can see some of them on the hill in the background.  Take notice of the railing around the yard.  My dad made that for my mom so that she could plant her flowers and not worry about someone just driving onto the front yard and over her plants.  She had a lovely bed of flowers right in the middle and I guess she felt they were safe with this "fence."  The tree to the far left was one we (my little brother, Don and I) used to climb and thought we were pretty smart sitting on the lower limbs.  Years later I went back for a look and couldn't believe how big that tree had grown.  Well, I guess I have described everything in the picture except the grass in the fore ground and to be honest with you I don't know what kind it was--probably weeds.