Start of interview.  

Female:            …when you went to Canada and stuff like that.

Antoinette:        Well, we moved to Canada and we lodged in Wetaskawin.  And from Wetaskawin we moved to Ponoka.  And from Ponoka we went to the farm.  And we lived there three years.  Then we come back to Barton County (Kansas) again.  And we worked with Indians, and we loved them.  We didn’t have nothing to say about ‘em.

Dianne:             Now did, what kind of Indians were there around there?

Antoinette:        I couldn’t tell you what kind there _________ to me.

Dianne:             Did they farm too?

Antoinette:        I guess they did.  They didn’t live just where we was.  They come in from other parts.  Town I guess.

Dianne:             Now, what how, what were the farms like in Barton County?  When you were growing up there?

Antoinette:        Oh, put out wheat and corn just like they do now.  Of course years ago we had more dry wind???? And they raised more corn and wheat.  Now a days you can’t raise no corn anymore on dry land.

Dianne:             What did you farm with?

Antoinette:        With horses at first.  I remember my daddy worked a half section with two horses. (Laughing)

Dianne:             How long did that take?

Antoinette:        Oh about five years ‘till he got on his feet.  And had more.

Dianne:             Did they have wooden tools?

Antoinette:        Not that I remember.  But they had working plows.  Everything was working pieces????

Dianne:             What was the school like?

Antoinette:        Oh the school was just a frame, I guess, when we went.  Of course we only had three months school in my time.  Then it went to five months.  But it was all the same.

Dianne:             And how long did you go to school?

Antoinette:        How long we go to school?  Well I tell ya I didn’t get very much school with my folks.  My mama was ____________ so I didn’t get very much school.  But we went and learned something.

Dianne:             What kind of subjects did you have?

Antoinette:        Oh I don’t, Gulf of Mexico (spoken to the room, laughing), and geography.  I didn’t know anything about geography and things like that.  I could read and write and talk.  But when that had geography all I found was Gulf of Mexico (laughing – the whole room).

Female:            And I don’t know for sure where that was at.

Antoinette:        I had a new toy??????????

Female:            Mom you was a good speller.

Antoinette:        Huh?

Female:            You spelled __________

Antoinette:        Do I.  Oh yeah I was a good speller but I had to study it (laughs).

Dianne:             Did your mother – how many where in your family?

Antoinette:        My folks?  Eight.

Dianne:             Eight children.  And did they all get about the same amount of school?  Did your mom help you with your school?

Antoinette:        No.  My mama couldn’t talk English and couldn’t read a word of English.  She came from the old country and that’s the way she died.

Dianne:             Well now, did you, did you speak two languages?  Then you spoke Russian and English.

Antoinette:        No.  My mama and daddy did but we didn’t.

Dianne:             You didn’t speak Russian.  You just spoke English.

Antoinette:        Just German.  Then we learned a English.

Dianne:             Oh you spoke German?

Antoinette:        Oh yeah, I’m still German.

Dianne:             Oh I, I didn’t, well now then they spoke, your parents spoke German?

Antoinette:        Yeah.

Dianne:             I see.  Well that is so interesting.

Antoinette:        Yeah spoke, spoke German.  And my family is German too.  They all speak German.  All of them.

Dianne:             And you lost four sisters and brothers????

Antoinette:        When?  Yeah my mama and daddy lost some children in the old country.

Dianne:             Yeah, lost, My_____?

Antoinette:        Diphtheria.

Dianne:             I see.  Well, can you think of any incident that happened?  Or what was your wedding like?  Right after you were married.  Anything like that.

Antoinette:        It was just nice.  Got married but we didn’t have no money.  My husband had to go and borrow some money from my brother though for a ring.  And a license.

Female:            What about your wedding gifts?

Antoinette:        And for wedding gifts we got chickens.  In place of presents.  The neighbors gave us chickens, and our relation.  And _________ bought our groceries (laughs).  That’s true.

Female:            (Lots of background conversation here.)  And I think they got a hog.  Didn’t ya?  And a cow.

Antoinette:        Yeah.  My mama and daddy gave us a little hog.  And I got a cow.  That’s what we started out with.  Farmed a little.  Of course my husband had to work every day.

Dianne:             Where did you farm, where your folks farmed?  Close to there?

Antoinette:        Yeah.  About three, four miles away from ‘em.

Dianne:             Were there, now you said this was in Barton County.  Did, from, from, Fort Hays did they have  still have any soldiers or anything like that there then?

Antoinette:        In Fort Hays?

Dianne:             Uh-huh.  There nothing there?  They were already gone out????

Background:      Numerous voices. Undecipherable.

Dianne:             Well can you think of anything else then that might be interesting?

Antoinette:        What?  I don’t __ what else I should tell ya.  (Background noise.)  What Leah?

Leah:                (Lots of noise.)  Tell her about your trip to Canada.

Antoinette:        Oh no that’s too much (laughs).

Dianne:             Go ahead.  Go ahead.  I’d like to hear it.

Antoinette:        Well when we moved from Wetaskawin we moved to Ponoka on the varge????  Had a varge.  And had it loaded full of furniture and five of us on there.  Me and my three children.  And my sister and her child.  And we had four horses hitched up.  And had three cows lead in the back.  When we drove about two miles or three, a Indian come lead the wagon.  One of them stood in the wagon and beat on the horse and they run and one of them run ahead.  And I said “dear children pray now we have to die” (laughs)  I thought they after us! (laughs – the whole room).

Dianne:             Scared????  did you let them get away?

Antoinette:        No we stopped.  My husband said “STOP!”  So I stopped.  And he went in front the horses and they passed us.  And one of ‘em said “we run a race!”  (laughs – the whole room).

Female:            They were racing when they _________

Antoinette:        (This whole story is told while laughing.  She’s trying to keep from laughing while she tells it.  It’s very hard to understand.) .  So we went to Ponoka.  And the horses was scared about the cars.  And the cars, a car comes and the horses raised up, ya know, and I got up I said “Stop!” (laughs even more.)  They stopped but one of ‘em come to tell us about it.  I said “Lead those horses by.  They going up _____.”  But my husband went to the ___________.  ______________  and said “What’s the matter?”  So we told him.  He said “you crazy!  You don’t let people to the bathroom!”????  (laughs all around).  And so that’s the way it was.

Female:            How long did it take you to move from Hoisington?  Didn’t you move from Hoisington?

                        (This part of the conversation is about Martin and Antoinette Nufer moving their family from Hoisington to north of Dodge City, Kansas.  I think this occurred in 1929.  The background voice is probably their daughter Leah who was present at the interview.  However, it could have been one of their other daughters who was on the drive.)

Antoinette:        Yeah, well uh.

Female:            Drive your cattle?

Antoinette:        What?  Yeah we did.  They left on Monday from Hoisington.  We left on Monday?

Female:            we drove the cattle up here ___________-

Antoinette:        And they come here on Friday.  And we started down there on Thursday and come up that night with the truck.

Female:            We’d drive so many miles and we’d ______ and milk.  And give the people milk and the cream for keeping us over night.  And then the next morning we’d milk, separate, and give them the cream and milk and go on.

Dianne:             Well that’s interesting.

Antoinette:        And I said that was my family.  Then the neighbor come and load all the furniture on the truck, and my family course we had three cars.  Two cars and the truck.

Female:            I don’t even remember how you _________

Antoinette:        Well with our car.  And we had their car.  We divided the children.  Ya know had nine children.  Course two of them, dad had two of them. (laughs.)  I had the rest.  So we stopped in _________ and I sold some chickens and bought some breakfast for my children.  And gave ‘em bologna, and bread, bananas. (laughs)  Started out for up here.

Dianne:             Oh that’s…

Antoinette:        When we come out here we lived in a little three room house with nine children.  For three months.  Didn’t have no windows.  Didn’t have no doors.

Dianne:             Did you build the house or did you just find it at the…

Antoinette:        Well we had the house but them people didn’t move out until July.

Dianne:             Now, did you homestead the land or did you have to buy it?

Antoinette:        Yes, we bought it.  We traded.  We had a quarter down there we traded up here.

Dianne:             I see.

Antoinette:        But in Canada we homesteaded.

Dianne:             You homesteaded.

Antoinette:        But we didn’t ________  like to own it.  We just left it and took out.

Dianne:             I see.  Well this, this’ll help me a lot.  If you can think of anything else that….

Antoinette:        What, what else do you, what else should I tell ya?

Female:            _________ hog.

Antoinette:        Oh yeah.  When we stopped the first night, when we moved from Ponoka.  Stopped the first night.  We stopped in a little Indian town.  In the school house there.  Everything was painted white, the buildings.  And we had a great big, big hog.  And head of ox.  For, take it out to the farm.  And in the night why, we was afraid of Indians.  So me and my sister though, we didn’t go to bed.  We walked around.  We had horses and the ropes.  Lead the horses around.  And the hog went to sleep and she started snoring.  And I went and got the butcher knife and I said to my husband “Martin!  Martin!” his name was Martin.  “Get up.”  He said “What’s the matter”.  I said “that hog went and died”  (Laughing)

Female:            That hog went and what?

Antoinette:        Died.

Dianne:             And it was just snoring?

Antoinette:        Snoring.  He said “You crazy!  That hog is snoring.”  He said “What do you want with the knife?”  I said “Butcher it.”  I didn’t want it spoiling (laughing).  We didn’t have no water to scald that hog or anything.  I want it butchered. (snaps fingers)

Female:            You didn’t want it dying on you.

Antoinette:        I didn’t want it died.  That was our meat for the winter. (Laughs all around)

Female:            That hog was going to die.  No way to keep the meat or nothing. (laughs)  , my dad used to say he never in his life would move with two women ________________

Female:            How many children did they have?  One?

Antoinette:        They had one.  And I had three.

Female:            ______

Antoinette:        Five of us.  He was the sixth.

Female:            Taking varge????  Who was the sixth?

Antoinette:        Dad.

Female:            _____________

Female:            He’s the sixth?

Antoinette:        Yeah.  Well _____ four children.  And us children.  (laughs)

Dianne:             Okay.  I think, I think I probably have enough info.

End of interview.