THE FARM IS OURS!

 

Grandfather John Plucker died in 1957, so we had to make a decision about whether to buy our farm. We found a loan company (Costello) who would loan us the money. My father, M.E.J. Plucker, also lent us money. One of our older friends warned us that we’d “never make it.” All the more reason to dig in and do it! We bought the farm from Grandpa’s estate. We soon were able to pay back my father and in February, 1970 we paid the Costello Company in full. Hurrah!

Our next door neighbor, Elmer Plucker, quit the farming business and decided to rent out his farm. We got it, along with farm land from my parents. My father had several heart attacks and couldn’t handle it anymore. So now we had our own 160 acres plus 400 acres more. After acreages were sold on both farms, we had fewer acres.

My father (M.E.J.), died on October 19, 1968 (68 years old). His final heart attack was on a street in Sioux Falls.

The late 1960’s and 1970’s were productive in that we were able to purchase more equipment to make things easier on the farm.

 

Eddie & Dorothy making decisions.

When I think of all the things we purchased it is overwhelming. As I said before, I was married to an ambitious man, maybe even a workaholic.

The smoking habit began in his teenage years, his cousins and his friends smoked quite a bit. No one realized the harm that nasty, expensive habit did to their health. Later we found out that this habit took its toll on Eddie’s health because he had heart disease later in life. In fact, this probably triggered his stroke in 1982 and later, the need for by-pass surgery in 1991. Drinking was not a problem with us or our friends. Maybe a can of beer after a hard hot day of harvesting… We made our own root beer.

 

1969 Stacking Bales

1969 Eddie handling the huge snowfall.

1974 The corn was hail damaged that year.