Posted by JD Seller on June 24, 2013 at 10:05:32 from (208.126.196.144):
My Great Uncle call me Saturday to see if I would be home on Sunday. I told him that after lunch I would be home all day. He told me he would be out with his younger "girl friend". We both laughed at that. You see my Great Uncle is 96 years old. His girl friend is 85. That is his version of an "younger woman". They have been together for over 20 years.
My Uncle is moving into an assisted living center. He sold his farm 21 years ago to my oldest son and moved to town. He had a sale then an sold most of his stuff. He kept some stuff that he wanted family to have. He has no children. He was never married either. He has had 4-5 "girl friends" over the years but they all where long term relationships. He has out lived them all.
My Great Uncle is a big man. HE is well over six foot even now. He was 6 foot 5 inches in his prime. He would be in the mid 200s on weight. I can remember him years ago and he was a strong man. I have seen him grab two 100 lbs. burlap sacks of feed and carry them by the tied neck. Then lift them one handed and set them in the bed of his truck. HE was not showing off either. HE was just working. He did a lot of that in his life.
I know you are wondering how this ties in to the picture of three axes???? Here is the rest of the story. LOL
1)The Goose necked single blade ax on the bottom was my maternal Great Grand Mother's. It was "her" ax. It always set in the wood shed just off the kitchen door of the old house. She used it to split the wood for the cook stove in the kitchen in earlier years and then still for the heat stove after she got a gas cook stove. It also was the end of hundreds if not thousands of chickens and geese. LOL She had her chopping block right there too. I remembered the ax because of the strange handle.
She was a BIG woman. I do not mean fat either. She was over six foot tall. This was really rare when she was born in 1898. She had wide shoulders too. Great Grand Father just split the wood into quarters and stacked it in the wood shed to season. It had to be split finer to use in the cook stove. I can still see her swinging that ax HARD splitting wood for HER stove. She was in her mid fifties then. She would grunt and say bad words in German while she worked splitting the wood. LMAO It was years later I figured out she was just doing that when us children where around. The rest of the time she would be silent when she split wood. I think she wanted us kids to think it was harder work than it was. Her little joke.
She ruled "HER" home with an iron fist. Man could she be a PIA at times but she would be the first to be there if help was needed. She also would be the first to tell you when you where wrong too. LOL
The iron fist part is actually true too. She knocked my Great Grand Father out the first time they met. I do mean that literally. They where in this little café/bar/restaurant in Luxenburg, Iowa. That was back in 1915. Great Grand Father had a few beers with his lunch and was feeling a little big. Great Grand Mother Nellie was there to deliver some pies her Mother made for the café. He made some comment about her "big assets" , her shoulders where not the only BIG things she had. LOL She heard him make the comment. She turned around and he said something else that she did not like. She drew back and hit him square in the jaw. She knocked him clear out of his chair and out cold on the floor. She then stormed out. When Great Grand Father came too his buddies teased him terrible. He told them he really like a woman with some fire. They where married in less than a year.
He would tease her terrible just to get her going. He then would tell her " Whoa Nellie" like you would a horse. Then she would really get going. LOL
Those two teased and fought for 71 years before my Great Grand Dad died. Looking at that ax brought all those memories back to me.
Funny side note. She never owned or wore pants. Always floor length dresses. Even when she was outside doing chores, they where long dresses. Her hair was always up in a bun on the top of her head. Her hair reached the floor when she let it down for bed at night. I can still see Great Grand Father brushing her hair. He would do it and they both would look so contented. I now know that they where just enjoying the closeness they had. This was their "courting" each other. Something worked. They had a long marriage and raised eight kids.
2) The middle double bladed ax was my Great Uncle's. He says it was his Dad's, ( my Great Grand Father) ax. My Great Grand Father logged when he was not doing black smith work. He paid for his house with money earned logging. So this ax is close to 100 years old. He gave it to my Great Uncle when he bought his farm. His farm had a lot of timber on it when he bought it. He logged it as needed and cut timber to help supplement the farm's income. As I stated above he is/was a big man. I can remember him cutting limbs off with that ax. Anything under a few inches was one hit and your done. He used a chain saw to fell the trees but limbed and topped them with that ax. He could also throw the ax and make it stick. That fascinated us kids. Just like they showed on TV. I will quit here on him. This post is getting long. I could fill a book on him too.
3) The last/top double bladed ax is a lot newer but still means something to me. It was my Uncle Ed's. He was great friends with my great Uncle. He was a big man too. He was well over six foot. He lost his right leg in Normandy on D-Day. HE still had his knee up. You really could not tell he had a false leg. It never stopped him from doing hard work. He never married and to anyone's knowledge never even dated any one. He loved kids. He would come visit many an evening. My Mom teased him about just wanting a "free" home cooked meal. He always had wrapped hard candies for us kids. Maybe a butterscotch or peppermint treat. You had to be good and clean your plate or you would not get his treats. The man never seemed to have a bad day. He was always in a positive mood.
He made his living farming a little, logging some, raising some calves, sold produce in season. He would clean up after loggers would cut the timber out of places. He would go in and cut all the tops and damaged trees up for fire wood. He never owned a powered splitter. He would use wedges and this ax to split the wood with. It would be hard to guess how much wood this ax split/cut. He did it his whole adult life. He just worked and lived a simple life. Passed away in his sleep when he was 82. He had cut/split two cords of wood the day before and delivered it to me. He had a good home cooked meal, that the first wife made us. So I think he went out how many of us would want too. A good meal, still doing what you liked to do. Just go to bed and its over.
This is what those three axes mean to me. They are a time machine back to times gone by in my family. There is no amount of money that would buy them from me.
So I sanded the handles smooth and treated them with linn seed oil. I cleaned and sharpen the blades to where you can shave with any of them. ( no hair on most of my left arm today LOL) My Great Uncle set there and visited while I did all of that. I did not get anything else done yesterday other than this. So maybe time wasted to some but to me just giving some respect to the prior owners of the tools.
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