Herman and Amanda's Farm
Page 1

This is how my grandparents' farmhouse looks now in 2022. Nobody has lived in it since 2005 when my bachelor uncle Vernie (Werner) died at the age of 83. It consists of a house my grandfather moved to the farmstead in 1913 shortly before his marriage, plus a big back addition (the part to the right in the photo) added in the early 1930's when my grandparents' family of six children became too large for it to comfortably hold. In this photo we're looking at it from the southeast and can't see the front door of the original house, which faces west.


This shows the original house as it looked in 1913, shortly after my grandfather had moved it to his farm site east of Crystal from five or six miles away in the Hensel area. Here we're looking at the house from the southwest and can see its front door. If you look closely you can see somebody, probably my grandmother, standing beside the front door.


The front of the farmhouse seen straight from the west. I took this photo when I visited in 2003. By that time, Uncle Vernie, age 80, was living in the house alone, my grandmother having died in 1982 and my uncle Eugene in 1987.


This is from 1927—not too long after the new addition was built, from the looks of things. We're viewing it from the southeast again, as in the first photo above.


Probably taken about the same time as the previous photograph, this one shows some of the surrounding farmyard.


This photo was taken in 1952.


This photo is from 1971 and shows the look of the farm and my relatives as I remember from the years 1955 to 1973 while I was growing up when our family visited the farm every summer. Uncle Vernie, Uncle Harold and his wife Marguerite are in the front row with, I think, two of their daughters. Uncle Eugene (in the red cap), my grandmother, and, I think, Harold's son Paul, and my cousins Doug and Dennis (sons of my Aunt Margaret) are in the back.


This is how the house looked in 2002 when I visited.