Their Gift to Me — Michael Ransom

By Michael Ransom

Reading time: 6 minutes

I was born in Clear Lake, Iowa, in 1948, spent my childhood years there, and then moved to Rochester, MN, in 1970 where my wife and I continue to reside. I’ve recently come upon a Facebook group called Lost Clear Lake Iowa that contains a multitude of posts, photos, and remembrances of the town’s history.

My great-grandparents’ farm near Clear Lake, Iowa, circa 1910

Much to my surprise, I found a post by Sarah Oltrogge that had a photo of my great-grandparents’ (Charles and Elmira Ransom) farm. My father and his sister were born there in the early 1920s. The picture brought back of flood of memories and prompted me to write the following:

The Ransom farm was 2 ½ miles east and 2 ½ miles south of Clear Lake. Charles and Elmira lived and farmed there from 1910 to 1936 and then moved to a house on North 8th Street in Clear Lake.

I was fortunate to know both of my great-grandparents. They were strict Methodists, nice people, and very much against drinking and carousing. Charles was a tall, gangly man, who although strait-laced, was still quick with a laugh. He had served as the County Weed Commissioner for many years, and at my young age the title impressed me to no end, as if he were an ambassador to some foreign country. So, when I was in his presence—this tall, stately man—I thought I was with someone of presidential caliber, when in fact he was lord over thistles and cockleburs in rural ditches around the county.

Elmira was short and stout, with a wry sense of humor. Her stomach shook when she laughed, which she did (and it did) often. They had a small white dog, Skeeter, whom my mom inadvertently backed over with our ’51 Chevy. She began crying and sobbed to my sister (Sue) and me, “Don’t look!” as she got out of the car and apologized to Great-Grandma. Elmira consoled Mom by telling her that Skeeter’s time was about up anyway, and that Mom had but hastened the natural process by a tiny bit.

Great-Grandpa died August 26, 1957 (at age 87 when I was nine), a natural death (Mom didn’t back the Chevy over him!), and as was typical in those days, he expired in his home, lying on a hospital bed that had been brought to their living room and visited daily by a local nurse. I sat in the dining room and peered around the corner into the living room, afraid to walk into the room and look at death upon the face of that kind old man.

After Great-Grandpa died, we often took Great-Grandma to the Methodist Church with us on Sundays, then after to our home for the traditional Sunday meal of roast beef, potatoes, and carrots. She died July 11, 1963, when she was 88, spending her final days lying in bed in her main floor bedroom, adjacent to the room where her husband had died. At her funeral, I thought that she (and Great-Grandpa) had surely been good enough for God to let them into Heaven.

After their marriage in 1919, my grandparents, James and Mildred Ransom, lived with Charles and Elmira in their farm home and then in a small house that was built near the farmhouse. My father, Jim, was born in that small house on February 6, 1923. My grandma said this about the event: “I remember when Jim was born. Dr. Jane Wright came out for the delivery. [Clear Lake had a husband-and-wife doctor team, Dr. Jane Wright and her husband.] Jim didn’t cry right away and had an awful long cord, and I can remember the doctor saying, ‘We may have trouble,’ but she spanked him on his little bottom; then boy did he cry. He changed colors and got red all over. Your dad was big. He weighed around eleven pounds.”

In 1925, Grandpa and Grandma Ransom rented a 126-acre farm from Nellie Naylor, a spinster professor at Iowa State University, and later in 1949 they bought it from her, free and clear. The farm was a mile south of Clear Lake (on Highway 107) and then a quarter mile east on the south side of the road. I admired these two so. They were honest, hard-working, kind people. Grandpa had farmed using horse-drawn machinery and picked corn by hand, and Grandma had cooked on a wood stove and carried water each day from the pump house to the kitchen. I was fascinated by their tales of how things were.

During my childhood, I spent countless hours at my grandpa and grandma Ransom’s farm. I had the best of both worlds; the benefits of being a “townie,” but the fun and freedom that could be enjoyed on a farm. I spent much time alone wandering through the grove of trees west of the farmhouse; the apple orchard to the east; the haymow in the barn; the pasture at the end of a long, dusty lane; the trusty farm dog, Ginger, by my side. On summer days I threw a rubber ball against the barn wall, and pretended to be Duke Snider, Pee Wee Reese, or Sandy Koufax making over the shoulder catches of deep fly balls, diving for hot grounders, and firing perfect over-the-black of the plate strike threes to outmatched hitters. The Ebbets Field crowd roared with each of my spectacular plays, or maybe it was the wind whistling through the nearby lilac bushes; I couldn’t tell the difference. I talked out loud to myself and sang songs in spite of not being able to carry a tune from the corn crib to the barn. And nearly every Sunday and holiday throughout the year, my aunts, uncles, and their kids would visit, and my cousins and I would play ourselves into exhaustion.

But life on the farm was far from all play. I learned about hard work by hoeing weeds from the bean field and baling hay from sunup to sundown on the hottest days of the year, about humility by shoveling manure, about life and death by watching the new pigs and calves be born and deceased animals carried away by the rendering truck, about safety by being sure my pant legs were never near the power takeoff, about weather when we hurried from the fields as summer storms approached, and about the rewards of hard work as I ended a day with a shower and a delicious meal that Grandma cooked.

Grandma died in 1980 and Grandpa died five years later. In 1997 I wrote a book about my love for them and their farm that I shared with family and friends. I intended it to be my gift to them as a way to keep memories of such wonderful people alive, but it turned out to be their gift to me. My writing the book and seeing the joy produced from it prompted me to begin a career as a memoirist and personal/company historian that I still pursue today. (www.mransomwriter.com)