Based on the Diary of Barbara Elizabeth Kroupa, 1954-1955
Written by Barbara Elizabeth Kroupa Levine in September 2024
📔 ❤️🔥 Preface 🐄🍒👩🌾
Words written in the moment are more authentic than memories recalled decades later. I recently found my diary written in 1954 - 1955 when I was 12-14 years old.
Although I never considered myself to be obsessed with boys, my diary reveals that I actually was fairly boy crazy. My diary also strongly confirms my memories of my hard work on the farm.
Two other main themes are my performance in school and caring for my siblings.
👩🌾 Introduction 🍒🐄
I was raised on a 110-acre cherry and dairy farm near Traverse City in the northern part of Lower Michigan. I am the eldest of 11 children, and the ninth one is born as I am writing my diary.
Before marrying my father, my mother was as a teacher in a one-room country school. When they were wed in 1940, Mom moved onto the farm where Dad lived. She took over the household duties, which included cooking and cleaning for him, his parents, and his three unmarried adult siblings. Can you imagine caring for seven adults from the day you married?
On the right is a page from my baby book that Mom created. I am shown with my grandfather (upper left), Mom (center) and Dad (lower right).
Dad and his father were the only ones working the farm. Mom continued teaching that fall while pregnant with me, walking over a mile to a one-room school until a few weeks before I was born the following May 1941. Mom and Dad planned on having 12 children when they were wed, but they didn't quite make it.
Mom teaches me how to read and write at the age of three. When I start kindergarten in a one-room country schoolhouse located over a mile from our farm, the teacher soon advances me to first grade. As a result, throughout my educational journey, I am always a year younger than my classmates because I skipped a grade.
December 1946: Above is a letter that I wrote at age 5 to my Aunt Clara, who lived with us all of our time on the farm. She was visiting her brother in Texas with her father (my paternal grandfather who also lived with us).
After spending six years at the one-room country school, I am bussed five miles to an elementary school in Traverse City for my 7th grade.
1948: My parents with their first six children. I am on the left at age 7. The other kids are Gary, Lillian, Frank, Mary and Elaine.
The following year, in 1954, I start 8th grade in Junior High at Traverse City High School (TCHS), which is when I start writing my diary.
Entries in my diary cover nearly two years during my 8th and 9th grades of Junior High School from January 17, 1954, to September 8, 1955, with occasional gaps when nothing is written for days or months. Each diary entry includes a few short comments. I find the entire diary fascinating to read.
I begin this missive with four sections, which expand on my diary's major themes:
👦🏻👨 Boy Crazy ❤️🔥💔
👩🌾🍒 Farm Labors 🐄🌾
🅰 Performance in School 🅱
🍼👩🏻🍼 Caring for Siblings 👦🏻👧.
I next include a transcription of all of my daily jottings titled,
📔 My Daily Diary Entries ✍️.
After my daily diary entries, I list the names of my 98 pals that I have in school – quite a few friends out of a class of ~300! ! For this missive, I include a summary of my friends titled,
👩🏻👨 Pals of '54 👦🏻👧.
At the end of my diary, I write a brief summary of my teenage love life, which is transcribed in my missive in the last section titled,
❤️🔥👨 Final Memoranda 👦🏻💔.
And lastly, don't forget to listen to one of my favorite songs in the
🎶🎸🎹 Epilogue 👩🌾🍒🐄
titled "Working Man" which relates to my hard labors down on the farm.
👦🏻👨 Boy Crazy ❤️🔥💔
Below are the photos of the boys attending my Junior High School that I like as I discuss in my diary. My diary also mentions several other boys that I am attracted to that I meet briefly at the county fair or in 4-H Camp.
Boys I Like in Jr. High in 1954-55 at Ages 12-14
* = living
# = deceased
+ = ahead of me a year in school (not included in the booklet described below)
Notes:
• The photos above are from the 1955 Traverse City High School (TCHS) Yearbook when I am 13 and a freshman. All of the boys are in my freshman class except Jim, who is a year ahead of me.
• The living or deceased status is based on information from a booklet created by a group of Traverse City High School alumni called TCHS Class of '58, which was published in 08/2023.
If I look like a young, naive farm girl in the photo above, it is because I am. I remind you that I am a year younger than the boys are because I skipped a grade. No wonder my loves are unrequited.
👩🌾🍒 Farm Labors 🐄🌾
My diary strongly confirms my memories of my hard work on the farm – especially during the summer months. My farm labors mentioned in my diary include:
* Picking Cherries
Our cherry picking season is in July and lasts for 3-4 weeks. This is the only farm labor that we kids are paid for, and it is measured by how many lugs we pick.
A cherry lug is a wooden crate used to transport cherries from orchards to factories or grocers. Our lugs are made of wood for strength.
A lug from my farm is sitting on a shelf outside of our stable in Rolling Hills, CA.
A lug of cherries weighs 25 pounds and yields 8 to 12 quarts. We kids are paid $1 for each filled lug – the same as hired cherry pickers earn. The most lugs that I can usually pick in one day is eight.
* Picking Peaches
* Hoeing Fruit Trees
Weeds in an orchard diminish the fruit output by competing for resources such as water and fertilizer. Dad weeds the large spaces between the rows of cherry and other fruit trees with a cultivator pulled behind his tractor, but he can only get so close to each tree. It is the job of the older kids to remove the remove the remaining weeds around the trees with a hoe.
* Putting Fertilizer Around Trees
* Shocking Grain
On our farm in the 1950s, our crop of grain (usually oats) is first cut and tied into sheaves (bundles) by a mechanical binder attached to our tractor. We then manually stack the sheaves vertically into an upright pile, or "shock". The shocks are left to air dry for several days or weeks to reduce the moisture content of the grain to a level that allows for storage. Drying is an essential step before threshing (see the next chore).
* Threshing Grain
A threshing machine is farm equipment used to separate grain such as wheat or oats from their chaff and straw. A farmer who owns a threshing machine in our area in the 1950s rents it out to his neighbors. All of the neighbors meet at each farm where the threshing machine is being used to help load the sheaves of grain from their shocks in the field onto a wagon and pass each sheave through the threshing machine.
On our farm, the threshing machine transports the grain by conveyor belt into several large bins in a separate granary building across from our barns.
This photo was taken of my farm in 1948. It shows our farm house on the left as well as the granary, straw barn, hay barn and other buildings. The initial cherry orchard is still quite young.
The straw byproduct is stored in our straw barn (which is attached to our larger hay barn. During the winters when the pasture is covered with snow, the cows are kept penned beneath the hay and straw barns. The straw is spread daily over the accumulating cow dung as bedding. By early summer, when the cattle are finally let out to pasture again, the manure (cow dung and straw mixture) has grown so deep that it is only a few feet from the high ceiling. Dad uses the scoop on his tractor to remove the manure from under the barns and loads it into the manure spreader, which then spreads it as fertilizer over our fields.
* Preparing & Serving Meals to Threshing Crews
While the men and boys are threshing, the women and girls cook all day and serve lunch and dinner to the threshing crew.
* Sacking Grain
We shovel our oats in the granary into sacks to take to a milling facility in town where it is ground into edible feed for our cattle. This grain feed augments their diet from our pasture grasses in the summer and the hay from the hay barn in the winter.
* Hauling in Hay Bales and Unloading Them in the Hay Barn
When the hay (alfalfa) crop is ready, Dad uses his mowing machine towed behind his tractor to cut it, leaving the cuttings on the ground. Later, he uses his baling machine, also hauled behind his tractor, to gather the dried alfalfa and form it into bales (rectangular blocks tied with cord).
Dad then attaches a large wagon to the tractor and drives my oldest brother Gary (2 years my junior) and me to the hay field. Dad lifts the 60-pound bales onto the wagon while Gary and I stack them until they are 3-4 bales high. Dad then drives the wagon into the hay barn, where Gary and I offload the bales and stack them in the hay barn. [Although my diary doesn't mention it, we do the same with straw bales, which weigh 90 pounds!!]
* Taking Cows to the Fair, Washing Them, Showing Them, Judging Them
When we are old enough, each of us kids buy our own newborn calf from our father at the going market rate. [I remember paying $100 for my first calf using money I earned picking cherries (our only paid labor).] My father provides the feed for our cattle and earns the money from the milk they produce. We earn any money from prizes and for any offspring or the cow itself that are sold.
At the end of each summer, we take our cattle to the county fair. We wash them and show them (lead them around a large circle where they are judged for prize money). We also learn how to judge cattle ourselves.
Below is a newspaper photo taken in 1955 of me (center) and my sisters Mary and Elaine with our cows when we each win second prize after showing them.
* Taking Cows to the Swamp and Bringing Them Back
At the beginning of each summer, we drive (guide) our dry cows* while walking them along the road for four miles to a pasture that my father rents from a neighbor (because we do not have enough pasture area to graze all of our cattle). We call it the swamp because it borders a swampy (marshy) area. Dad drives the car behind us and bring us home after we swim in a nearby creek. At the end of the summer, we drive the cattle back home again.
* A dry cow is a dairy cow that is not producing milk and is in a resting period before calving.
* Working in the House
There are various chores that I need to perform in the farm house, including house cleaning, making beds, food preparation & cleanup, and ironing.
We have a huge ironing machine, similar to the one on the right, which we pull out on its rollers from our large pantry into the middle of the kitchen. I sit down on a chair in front of it and pass the clothing to be ironed between a large roller cylinder, which I control with my knees, and a heated plate beneath it. I have to be very careful not to get my fingers burned or caught under the roller and severely damaged. I even iron our sheets and pillow cases.
* Making Pickles
* Canning Corn
* Making My Own Clothing
Mom teaches all of us girls how to sew our own clothing. In addition, we have sewing projects to make for 4-H. (Note: I made most of my own clothing until I was 30.)
* Cleaning & Painting the Playhouse
Dad built a small, one-room playhouse in the front yard for us kids. We call it our clubhouse.
🅰 Performance in School 🅱
After attending to a one-room country school with one teacher and eight grades, I was surprised to find that I wasn't behind the city kids in scholarship when I started 7th grade in town.
On the left is the one-room country school that I attended through 6th grade – it is a long 1 ¼ country mile walk from our farm. Note the small outhouses in the rear (there is one for each sex).
In my diary, I often write about my performance on exams and how I stacked up against my peers during eighth and ninth grades. Except for one instance where I got a C, I consistently achieved A's and B's, with A's being the most common grade.
The last entry in my diary in September 1955 as I am starting my sophomore year reads, "Got to really study this year. Hope to get all A’s."
🍼👩🏻🍼 Caring for Siblings 👦🏻👧
I seldom have to babysit my younger siblings because Mom and Dad are rarely away at the same time. Plus, my maiden Aunt Clara continues to live with us after her other siblings have married and left the farm. She works in town, but is available nights and weekends to watch us if needed.
Thus I am amazed to read in my Diary in June 1954 that my parents left for Canada* when I had recently turned 13, leaving me in charge of my eight younger siblings – including a 3-month-old baby!!
* Dad and Mom often drive to Canada in the summer to buy more registered Holstein cattle (the black and white ones).
Unfortunately, I have NO photos of myself in 1954 and very few from 1955. The photo below was taken in the summer of 1955 when I was 14. Once I hit puberty, I gained several inches and 40 pounds in a year, so I look much older than I did a year earlier.
August 1955: I am standing on the left with my mother Leona (rear right) and seven of my younger siblings. My oldest brother Gary is in the insert in the upper right. Standing in the rear to the right of me are Elaine, Mary, Lillian (holding a puppy), Frank and Leone. In the front row are Walter and Elizabeth.
📔 My Daily Diary Entries ✍️
Click on the image below of two pages from my diary to read the entire transposed copy of my daily entries. The entries are from 01/17/1954 - 09/08/1955 during portions of my freshman and sophomore years of Junior High School when I was 12-14 years old.
I find all the entries fascinating to read, although perhaps this is because I am the author!!
👩🏻👨 Pals of '54 👦🏻👧
At the end of my diary, I list the names of my 98 Pals of '54. (That's an amazing amount of friends out of a class size of ~300!) Of those, I indicate that there are six boys that I "like," and from my writings, I appear to be crazy about two of them.
In 2023, I was given a booklet by a group of Traverse City High School alumni called TCHS Class of '58. This booklet includes comprehensive details about every student who graduated from TCHS in 1958, such as their contact information if they are alive, or the date of their passing if they are deceased. The table below summarizes my current information about my Pals of '54.
❤️🔥👨 Final Memoranda 👦🏻💔
The Final Memoranda at the end of my diary is even more revealing about my boy craziness.
❤️ Postscript 👩❤️👨
I stopped chasing boys nearly 50 years ago when I started dating my husband Stan.
September 2024: Seventy years after I wrote my diary,
Stan & I are hiking around Rock Creek Lake near Mammoth Mountain, CA.
🎶🎸 🎹 Epilogue 👩🌾🍒🐄
I end this missive with one of my favorite songs, which reflects my memories of my hard farm labors. They are the big reason that I wanted to go away to college and to always spend summers in college or at a job away from the farm.
The song is titled, "Working Man" and it is sung by Kathy Durkin. It is about a man who goes down underground to work in the coal mines. When I am singing along, I change the title to "Working Girl," and I change the words to works down on the farm.
The main theme is, I never again will work down on the farm.
Click on the album cover below to listen to the song. The lyrics (with my revisions) follow.
Chorus:
It's a working man (girl) l am
And I've been down underground (worked down on the farm)
And I swear to God if l ever see the sun
Or for any length of time
I can hold it in my mind
I never again will go down underground (work down on the farm)
At the age of sixteen years
Oh, he (she) quarrels with his (her) peers
Who vowed they'd never see another one
In the dark recess of the mines (farm)
Where you age before your time
And the coal (crop) dust lies heavy on your lungs
Chorus
At the age of sixty four
Oh, he'll (she'll) greet you at the door
And he'll (she'll) gently lead you by the arm
Through the dark recess of the mines (farm)
Oh, he'll (she'll) take you back in time
And he'll (she'll) tell you of the hardships that were had
Chorus
God, I never again will go down underground (work down on the farm)
📔❤️🔥🐄🌾👩🏻👨🍼👩🏻🍼 The End of My Diary 👦🏻👧🅰🅱👩🌾🍒💔✍️
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