Haying with Horses

These photos were taken in the summer of 1937 on the old Harms homestead. In the first one, we are near the barn on the south side of the road.


(Click on images to enlarge)
Images courtesy of Eldon Harms.

Here are my notes based on what Eldon Harms told me about the photo:

The team is pulling a hay wagon. Note the ladder on the wagon: as the hay piled up on the wagon, you climbed the ladder to drive the team so that you weren't buried in the hay. The building in the background is the corn crib, which held the dried ears of corn on the cob that would eventually be taken to the mill in town (Hobart) and ground up for cattle feed.

The horses are Nel and Topsy. Eldon is at left. The two girls are probably his sisters. His father, Herman, is holding the reins.

In this photo, we are out in the hay field:



My notes based on what Eldon told me about it:

At left you can see the hay loader, which picked up the hay from the field and deposited it on top of the wagon.

When you cut the hay, you raked it into long windrows lying on the field. Then you hitched your double team to the hay wagon and drove them over each windrow — one horse on each side of the windrow — and the hay loader, attached to the rear of the wagon, ran along picking up the hay and dropping it onto the wagon.

In this picture Bud Ensign (at right) is driving the team, and Herman Harms, Sr., is raking the hay to distribute the load evenly over the wagon. The wheels of the wagon are just barely visible under the hay hanging down, and at the lower right of the photo you can see the horses' legs.

Bud Ensign's father had died, so Bud wanted to earn extra money to help his family; that is why he hired on with the Harmses. He was only 14 at this time.

The hay wagon could be converted into a box wagon, by removing the back section and attaching a box. That was more convenient for driving when you weren't carrying a load of hay.

We've already discussed how you got the hay from the wagon to the loft of the barn.

♦    ♦    ♦
I'm not sure if I ever asked Eldon who exactly "Bud" Ensign was; if he told me, I've forgotten.

Looking into the census records for a local Ensign boy who would have been about 14 in 1937, I find Richard Elden Ensign. We've seen Richard before, but I had his nickname down as "Dick." Perhaps a 14-year-old Bud might, within a few years, be able to make people call him a slightly more formal name.

Richard's father, John Ensign, had died in October 1935 (Indiana Death Certificates), leaving a widow, Goldie, with some half-a-dozen children, the youngest of which was about three years old.[1] And this was in the midst of the Great Depression.

Incidentally, John's mother had been Elizabeth aka Nora (Shearer) Ensign.


_______________
[1] The 1930 Census and 1940 Census are not consistent regarding some of the children's ages.