Vegter-Tschetter Heritage

John and Fannie, Hank's house, Winter Haven

Jim, Carol, Grandma Fannie, Mom, Dad

Grandma Fannie, Dad, Argentina Drive

(Fannie's recollection, continued) We moved and had a big house. Pa bought a string of cows that were already on that Delavan farm. We were making out real good. At that time Harry went into the army, and Hank got married in South Dakota. Florence and I went to the wedding and stayed by Vi's folks. They were all strangers to us. But after the wedding, they went along to Delavan. What a trip that was! Tires gone out, and they were bad retreads. They didn't last very long. But we made it at last. I'm glad I don't have to do that all over again. I sometimes say, "I wish I could do everything over again." But the Lord was with us in our married life. When we lived by Sanborn and Harry was a baby, we made confession of faith. I wanted to do it before, but Pa just couldn't do it. He thought he had to be perfect. The day we were going to make it before the consistory, he almost turned to go back home, but didn't.

Hank returned to Wisconsin with Vi and the baby (Diana). Hank was discharged because he had a family. Hank was in Germany. Pete went across and fought their way in Italy. Bill was sent to Guam fighting the Japs. But the armistice was signed; I remember that we were picking corn, but so happy that the war was over, and our boys came home without a scratch. A lot of people came from Dakota. It was a dust storm there every day. No rain. No crops. We had our 25th anniversary there on that farm. Had a nice evening. People from church came. But the boys were not home then yet, so that kind of made it a little sad. One Sunday coming home from church, we missed Florence; we left her by church. But Bar Vander Veen took care of her and brought her home. One day the owner came and said "My son-in-law would like to move onto the farm." We sure did not like that, but he rented the farm to his son-in-law, so we rented a farm by Elkhorn, Wisconsin. While we lived there, Theresa got so sick. We took her to the doctor in Delavan. He didn't know what was wrong. We were threshing by us, but one night she had so much pain. We took her to the doctor again. He was almost ready to send her back home, but all at once he said, "We will take her to Janesville to the hospital," and they operated that night. And it was high time as it was all green around the appendix; she was a very sick girl. The doctor said she had a 50-50 chance. He told me I could stay, but she was "out" most of the night. We had to thresh that day, so I called in the morning. So after threshing we went there, and she looked as good as we could expect. The Lord took care of her and made her healthy again.

When John decided to work out, Pa couldn't run the farm with just Frank who went to school. So John looked for a smaller farm and bought one about 3 or 4 miles north of Delavan. We had a sale by the Elkhorn farm. We had too many cattle, so we sold them. I don't know how long we lived on our farm, but Pa was getting retirement age, so we sold the farm to Wes and Theresa, and bought a house in Delavan. It was an old house, but it was all right. We visited John and Harry's and liked Florida, so we moved down here. Later on, Frank and Donna, and John and Florence moved here and bought a garbage route. We have been here 13 years.