Hallenbeck Farm

Written May 12, 2011 

It’s been a while since I spent the night at the farm.  One year, 11 months and 18 days to be exact.  The night of Gumpy’s memorial service was the last time I spent the night here.  There are a few more things in the Shrine (otherwise known as Uncle Jim’s bedroom) because Ema is sorting through things again.  The crickets and frogs are bellowing as I’m typing.  Sure I’m tired, but I don’t feel like sleep is coming.

This room seemed a lot bigger when I was a kid.  The walls seemed straighter, the floor seemed more level, the stairs seemed wider.  I guess after 148 years, the old home needed a break from active Hallenbecks, save one.  It still has Ema, and I’m grateful for that.

I guess everything seems a little surreal tonight.  Some of it is guilt, Gumpy wanted me to help take care of Ema and the best I could do the past two years is stay away from the farm.  I was tired, Mom and I practically lived here weekends the last few years of Gumpy’s life.  My life got in the way, with my new wife, grad school and a business that I didn’t see myself starting.  I’ve always looked up to Ema and the times in life that I have fallen down, she’s always been the one I’ve hated disappointing most.  And I really do feel like I've let both of my grandparents down. 

Some of it is a growing realization that I am an adult now and that I’m probably at the end of the line of family that truly loves the farm.  My earliest memories of the farm are chasing Shep, Gumpy’s Australian Shepard, around the outside of the house.  The farm has always been a place of peace and comfort for me, even in my darkest hour.  And I hope to always be able to call it home.

And frankly, some of it is because I still miss Gumpy terribly.  There have been so many things I wish I could share with him, good and bad.  I could always count on him to tell me he was happy to hear from me or that he was proud of me.  While I do mimic some of his behavior when I’m here, like patting my arms at the dinner table or clapping three times when it’s time to leave, I will always be uncomfortable sitting at his place at the dinner table. 

While I am a bit melancholy tonight, I am also reminded just how fortunate I am to still have Ema in my life.  She’s healthy, active and more mentally sharp than most people I know.  Most importantly for my sanity, I can still call and hear her voice at the other end of the phone when I’ve hit a rough patch or need a reality check.

The past two years have ushered in a completely different aspect of our relationship.  Ema’s taken to tell me more stories about her childhood and her parents.  Her parents were a bit older when she was born than Gladys and I are now, so Ema’s stories have given me a good measure of confidence that Gladys and I can raise a happy, healthy child. 

Ema doesn’t stop in mid-sentence to apologize for blathering on anymore (her words, not mine).  She always felt she needed to when she was telling me family stories, which she never did.  Maybe she’s more comfortable telling me the stories now or maybe she wants to make sure they are heard before she loses the ability to tell them anymore.  Regardless of reason, I’m glad Ema is sharing her stories.

That’s only one aspect of our changed relationship.  Ema has always felt she needed to be the disciplinarian, and I suppose she was right on some level.  After 37 years of this, I’m use to her expectations of me and her questions when I am not meeting those expectations.  The change has been when I’ve needed to cry, she lets me cry on her shoulder without question.  It was never her role before, but she does it with ease and grace.  It’s a side I didn’t expect and a side of my grandmother I am truly grateful for. 

Admittedly, I am really attached to the farm but none of it matters as much as the memories my grandparents helped create for me there.  I am among the fortunate in life for having so many years to enjoy Ema and Gumpy.  My tears tonight are a mix of sadness, guilt and gratefulness.  The tears of gratefulness are winning. 

I Still Give Thanks With Gumpy

My last Thanksgiving with Gumpy was terrible, yet I would not trade the time with him for anything.  The chemotherapy and radiation treatments left his body in a weakened condition, which caused his hemoglobin levels to drop to dangerously low levels a few times.  The first time this happened, the treatment was so aggressive to bring him back that it induced congestive heart failure, leaving him restricted on the amount of fluid he could take in for the rest of his life.

The pain caused by bodily functions now compromised was excruciating, leaving him in tears on several occasions.  I sat in the one bathroom at the farmhouse with him for several hours that Thanksgiving, trying to help him get through the torment of his failing body.  

Remembering that day is unfortunately easy, but I embrace happier memories of Thanksgiving with the old boy.

As a kid, I loved going to the farm for Thanksgiving.  We lived on the back 40 acres, so we would hop in the car and ride the half mile up to the house.  Sure, we could have walked up there as we did all summer but Thanksgiving was always at the tail end of firearm deer season, so walking on our own property was occasionally dangerous.

We would leave as soon as the Thanksgiving Parade shows on Channel 6 and Channel 10 went off the air.  Mom would have Rebekah and I bundled in sweaters to keep us warm.  I would bounce into the farmhouse because it was always so warm and smelled so tasty.  To keep my appetite at bay, Ema would have orange and grapefruit slices out, which I always used to enhance my smile.  Gumpy would be in the basement, tending to the Florida room so I would wander down to see if I could help stack firewood or tend the fire.

Mom and Aunt Moose would be busy trying to help Ema get the dining room and food in order.  For most of the year, the dining room in the small house was used as an all-purpose room.  Ema used it as more of an office, with her desk in one corner of the room and paperwork stacked on top of the dining room table.  Gumpy used it as a changing room.  You would find his wallet and pocket change on the table with his dirty jeans draped over one of the chairs.  Family meals were usually eaten at the kitchen table, with the exception of Thanksgiving and Christmas.

By the time everything was ready, at least two members of the King family would have arrived to share the meal with us.  As we gathered around the table, Gumpy would start the family grace,

"For these and all other blessings, the Lord make us truly thankful.  Amen."

Dinner would end and we would leave for Grandma and Grandpa Lingholm's for our second Thanksgiving dinner.  Afterward, we would return to the farm for desert which was always a pumpkin pie with whipped topping and the occasional apple grunt.  In most families, a grunt would be referred to as an apple cobbler.  However, Gumpy called it a grunt because you wanted to grunt when you pushed yourself away from the table after eating so much of it.

There was little remarkable about the day itself, other than the opportunity to spend a day with family, which was why Gumpy always seemed to enjoy the day so much.  As with many traditions, life got in the way.  It started with Ema and Gumpy retiring and spending much of the winter in Florida.  Mom moved us to Traverse City after she divorced her first husband and that tore away a bit of the tradition too.  Now I've remarried and I've spent the past few Thanksgivings in Tampa with Gladys' family.

What remains of our tradition are the memories of enjoyable times with family and the basis for a new tradition of my own, an evening to reflect on how much I love Gumpy.  Happy Thanksgiving old boy!

The Florida Room

Heating the farmhouse was always an interesting challenge.  The Ben Franklin wood-stove that was in the living room was installed because it was suppose to help heat the house.  While it probably was a great idea, it had the effect of just heating one room to the point of boiling while the bedrooms were shockingly brisk.  Extra insulation was added to the house in an attempt to help cut down the heating bills, but the alure of cheap heat from the 40 acres of woods Ema and Gumpy had proved to be too tempting to ignore.

Eventually, the old Ben Franklin stove was replaced with the wood burning furnace in the basement.  It was hooked up to the blower for the gas furnace so the heat of the fire could be circulated evenly throughout the house.  With the exception of the basement, which is where the wood burning furnace was located.  The basement quickly became known as the Florida Room.

Keep in mind that the farmhouse was built in the 1870's.  The stone walls of the basement have long since been mortared with cement.  The floor is a combination of hard packed dirt with some cement slab thrown in.  That part of the foundation is only under the original half of the house.  The kitchen as we know it was expanded several years after the house was built and the sun porch was converted to a family room when my mom was a little kid.  Both additions sit on a very short crawlspace,  which has to make a mouse feel clostrophobic.  Most of the ceiling in the basement is so short that as an adult, I can only stand straight in a few select areas.  It is now dark, dingy and usually damp.

The Florida Room was where you would find Gumpy most winter nights because it was so toasty.  He kept a few lawn chairs down there for comfortable seating while he unthawed from various chores around the farm or dodged another of Ema's admonishments.  As a kid, I loved spending time down there with the adults.  My dad and Gumpy would sometimes have grown-up conversations that I didn't get chased from in the Florida Room.  While I hear tales of the wine he use to keep down there, I never witnessed any drinking.  Knowing Gumpy, he absolutely had at least one bottle of something hidden down there!

One winter, my Aunt Mary was unemployed and to earn money for smokes, Gumpy had her splitting wood for the furnace.  I know she was in the best shape of her life because I was in great shape for being a scrawny little kid.  Gumpy would give me a little cash just for stacking wood.  I remember thinking I must be stacking wood to the ceiling althought I'm now sure I got the many stacks at least four feet high.  After I finished my work, he would put me in charge of keeping the fire going for a few minutes.  It was a duty I always undertook with the utmost care.

The wood burning has long since been sold.  After retiring, my grandparents started going to Florida every winter, so the Florida Room was no longer a necessity.  I have not split or stacked firewood in years.  The only reason I go into the basement anymore is to make sure the sump pump works in the summer and the pipes are drained in the winter.  Cobwebs abound in the basement.  I duck everytime I go down the stairs leading from the bathroom so I do not hit my head on the wood support at the base of the stairs.  Gumpy isn't there either.  But the memory of being there with him has not faded one bit.