Preface for Volume Three, Chapter Three

                                            The Great Drought

During the years of the Great Drought, in many ways Loveland farmers were far better off than city and town dwellers as they could produce much of their own food while city residents could not. Almost all farm families raised large gardens with vegetables and canned fruit from their orchards. They had milk and cream from their dairy cattle. Chickens supplied meat and eggs. They bought flour and sugar in 50-pound sacks from markets in Cincinitti and baked their own bread. In some families the farm wife made clothing out of the cloth from flour and feed sacks. They learned how to get by with very little money. But they had to pay their taxes and debts to the bank in cash. These were tough times on the farm however, with information that we will get to presented within Chapter Three, a harmonies accord had been struck—with common sense advice along with the strong suggestion by Agnes Pink— between most having a mortgage held by Loveland National Bank.

  Ground Water

As water comes to the earth's surface differently, groundwater in aquifers between layers of permeable rock, such as clay or shale, may be confined under pressure. If such a confined aquifer is tapped by a well, water will rise above the top of the aquifer and may even flow from the well onto the land surface. Water confined in this way is said to be under artesian pressure, and the aquifer is called an artesian aquifer.

Ground water, especially during and when an entire nation is suffering from years of drought, had become one of Central Ohio most valuable resources, as the upper surface of this water-filled area is called the water table, the area beneath the water table is called an aquifer, and aquifers are huge storehouses of water imperceptibly moistening the upper surface of the aquifer.

                                      Chapter Three: The Great Drought

Loveland, Ohio
November 8, 1932
3:34 PM

Wondering if Dane’s ‘thank you to Jesus’ was a prayer in ‘thanks’ for not killing another human-being, or for being allowed into ‘a Hobo jungle’’. Standing, motioning for the boys to follow; intrigued “What’s a Hobo jungle?” Morris asked.

Taking note of their different sizes as the boys stood. “You go ahead, Morris, take them home and have them take baths, I’m going to the ‘Clothes Barn’ to see what I can find for them.”

“Nothing too new now, remember?”

“James, at the ‘Clothes Barn’ everything’s second or third generation and most pretty well patched up, so don’t you worry about anything looking ‘too new’!”

Outside, this once busy street with varied businesses was all but deserted.

Facing Main Street from Pink’s Hardware, immediately to the right— no longer there —the sign over the door had read, ‘Gunny Gunderson’s Guns’.

Quite the character, absolutely bald, with a scraggly black beard, ‘Gunny’ had one good leg and the other— really— a peg leg, leaving it, so Gunny had said, in a trench in France during World War One; reminding Morrie of Robert Louis Stevenson’s, ‘Treasure Island’s’, Long John Silver whenever Gunny clumped across his hard wood floor.

One day in 1931, entering Gunny ‘s gun store, Morrie said he’d like to purchase the same gun Tom Mix used in his movies. So for seventeen dollars and fifty cents, Gunny Gunderson sold Mister Morris Pink a ‘Colt Model 1861 Navy Revolver’. The same revolver used by James Butler ‘Wild Bill Hickok’ and Tom Mix— so Gunny Gunderson said, lied— along with four box’s of fifty each .44 calibre bullets, that, other than one target practice using two boxes, 100 .44’s, deciding that the pistol was too heavy and made too much noise; by decree of Agie, the pistol henceforth remained unseen in the inner far left corner of the front counter.

To the left of Pinks is ‘Viktor’s Bakery’— the only other remaining retail business on Main Street that was still functionally operational— as Viktor had said, ‘That if there is bread, there is food’. So eliminating all sweet pastry, making three types bread only, and cutting his price from fifteen cents to seven per loaf, he was able to ‘at least’ break even, and then there were the occasional— the very occasional— occasions when someone was able to afford a celebratory cake.

To the left of Viktor’s Bakery is the ‘Clothes Barn’ that presently occupies a— long vacated sewing and seamstress business — where used clothing of any type or size could be donated for whomever might be in need of a ‘newer’ or less repaired article of clothing. Only requirement being that any articles donated, be clean.

And then there is Loveland National Bank.

After a lengthy, heated discussion with Mister W.E. Forester, the owner and operator of Loveland National Bank, he ‘fucking female New York Lawyer’ hesitantly nodded approval.

The meeting was set for…

Friday, January 16, 1932

11: AM… A time when the morning chores were finished and the children, those still attending the local grade school that had lost fifty percent of it’s attendance due to their parents migration to where-ever they thought they might find work. The older children were bussed to the High School in Cincinnati.

Assisted by two of the early comers, setting twelve folding chairs— from the three card tables for sale at Pink’s— centered onto the banks lobby; although expecting at least forty people: husbands ‘and’ wives, as attendance by the women was required by the well known fighter for women’s ‘equal’ rights.: Mrs Agnes Pink.

‘Fucking female New York Lawyer!’

W.E. Forester’s cushion desk chair rolled out and placed before the entrance to his office. Sitting, his lips pursed in subdued anger, his spectacles low on his nose; watching from above the double lenses, Foresters eyes surveying each as his clients, the citizens of Loveland came through the front door, found places and sat.

Deep down Forester felt what this ‘fucking female New York Lawyer was about to propose made sense. However, inheriting Loveland National from his father, hard-core banking instincts ingrained upon his psyche since childhood, sometimes… ofttimes the humanistic instinct of the impact his decisions made— sometimes good, sometimes bad— upon people very often escaped him.

But this time! What this ‘fucking female New York Lawyer’ was about to propose went far beyond ‘any’ hard-core banking instinct ingrained upon...But yet!

Sitting before the Tellers cage, behind a conference table containing two stacks of loan papers and grant deeds for the property of all those in attendance, was Miss Florence Moorehead.

Twelve people on folding chairs, four on two lobby sofas, the others either impatiently standing behind the two sofas or sitting on the floor, all nervously having the thought that this meeting was regarding foreclosure proceedings as most were now in arrears, and a few nearing a ‘due’ payment that they could not cover.

The clock upon the wall showing 11:12. We all here, Miss Moorehead?”

Glancing at her checked list of notified banks clients. “All here, Mrs Pink.”

“All right then, I’ll get right to the point. You all read newspapers and listen to the radio and, I’m sure, you’re all aware of major and smaller banks shutting their doors along with the thousands of farms and the millions of acres of American farmland that had fallen into foreclosure.”

Waiting for the murmuring to quiet.

“Calm down, don’t worry, because Mister Forester…” glancing at the man sitting in the padded chair, ‘fucking female New York Lawyer’ “...and myself have an idea that…” waiting for the murmuring to quiet “...probably won’t solve all our problems, but help keep all of us…” again looking to Forester “...from loosing our land and homes.”

  Waiting for the murmuring to quiet.

“When we bought our house in ‘15’, seventeen years ago, Morris began to investigate for a septic system and learned something… My husband’s a very smart man, you know, and he discovered we’ve an artesian aquifer…” Seeing confused looks. Holding both hands forward, palms up. “Let me simplify this. Aquifers hold water, sometimes a whole lake of water, that maybe, who knows, maybe covering miles, deeply beneath the surface of our land.”

“You saying…” one of the wives asked “...that we may have a whole lake of water somewhere beneath us that we can’t get to?”

“Yes, but you are getting to it! Your wells. You’ve all have wells, haven’t you?” All properties older than five years would have a well, and most of these farms have been in the family for generations.” Waiting for the murmuring to quiet. “Raise your hand if anyone here has a dry well?” Agie asked, waiting to see a raised hand. When none appeared, looking at the woman that had asked the question. “You are getting to it. Every time you pump the handle or pull the pail and water comes you are getting to that lake of water.”

  “Nice to know, and I thank Mrs Pink. But our fields ain’t in our yards and it’s the fields that are dried up.”

Taking a long moment to formulate what she wanted to say without sounding too dramatic. “Damn your dried fields! Take whatever you can salvage for yourself and animals now and pl0uw them all up! Turn all that dried dirt over using whatever is left as mulch so when the rains come…”

“If they ever come!” Someone yelled.

“Your yards!” Agie yelled “Pull the grass, pull everything that can’t be eaten or sold, then plant anything that grows fast and doesn’t need a lot of water and plant right up to and around the well.”

Catching the idea. “Like radishes, beets, and carrots and squash.” One of the farmers said.

“But what are we supposed to do all day, run back and forth with buckets of water?”

 “If it feeds your family…” another farmer said angrily “...what the hell better have you to do.?”

“You won’t have to run back and forth with buckets of water. Ken Proctor… Any of you old timers remember Ken Procter?”

“Yeah. Owned the hardware store before you. Pretty inventive guy if I remember right.”

“He was. And when Mister Pink and I moved into that little apartment he made at the rear of the store, we found out just how inventive he was. But then there was this huge spool of what looked like water hose under a tarp at the corner of the garage area that at first we thought was either double ordered or shipped by mistake, that we had absolutely no idea what Ken planned on doing with…

“You think Kenneth Proctor was a pretty inventive guy, do you. He was an absolute genius, a what’s called ‘innovator’…”

“What’s that?” one of the wives asked.

“An innovator is someone that comes up with a completely new idea, or a new way of doing something, and that’s exactly what Ken did.

“You know, when Mister Pink and myself bought our house in 1915 there were only two others being framed, and there was nothing but open field land all around and behind, going for what we figured to be a quarter mile to this side of the woods.

“So what Ken did, and this is our assumption… What we thought Ken did was to pace approximately yard long footsteps from the rear of the store to a natural artesian well he had discovered — because he had, again assuming— thought of a possible way to bring fresh water from that bubbling well... turns out to be about three hundred yards, nine hundred feet, from there…” Agies thumb jerking to her right “... to here.”

All those within the Loveland National Bank lobby, even W.E. Forester, enthralled with what the female New York attorney: Mrs Agnes Pint was telling.

“Mister Pink called our supplier, ‘Niagara Hammer and Tool Company’ to see when and how much of that rubber hose was purchased, and was told it was in October of 2014 that Mister Kenneth Proctor had purchased nine hundred, fifty continues feet of hose. — Niagara Hammer told my husband they had to have their supplier make a special run for nine hundred, fifty feet of that tubing and it was to be paid for, all, ‘hundred thirty-five dollars’, paid in advance. And it was.”

“So what Proctor planed on doing was to run the hose nine hundred or so feet from that well to here.” W.E. Forester skeptically asked. “Then what?”

“Using the water from each of your wells, what me and my husband plan on doing, is cut the hose in sections of two hundred feet each that we’ll fit with the hand pump giving us four two hundred foot, and one smaller section that we’ll set up for two alternating days each week for each of your gardens... You alright with this Miss Moorehead?”

Looking at the list of names on the table before her. “Yes, “Ma’am’!”

“Doesn’t end there, ‘W.E.’. Kenneth Proctor, genius he was, drew plans — using items we have in the store to make that simple hand operated suction pump that attaches to the fitting — which we also have at the store, that will screw onto the end of the hose creating… Have no idea how long, or how much effort it will take to create two hundred feet of suction enough to draw water enough to create a siphon… suction enough to keep the water flowing without having to keep pumping.

Excitedly asked. “This be enough to keep our gardens watered?”

“If this idea works as my husband thinks, ‘yes’. If your well water level is twenty-five feet, that will give you one hundred, seventy-five feet in all directions. So plant what needs water the most closer to the well, and further on you might have to water by the bucket… Remember something else, we think the water coming from the hose will come as a steady, light stream, so don’t expect it to gush out.”

Coming off his seated position on the floor.“This all sounds very nice, Mrs Pink...” one of the older farmers said “...but it don’t help us that are into or facing foreclosure because whatever comes from these vegetable gardens of yours, won’t come fast enough or saleable enough to help us now.”

“Mister Forester…” hearing his name, sitting stiffly upright “...has come up with plan to help us all. Would you like to tell these people about it?”

Forcing what might have been taken for a smile, but those having years of dealing with Mister W.E. Forester knew it for tight lipped resignation. Sensing a gut tightening sensation within his stomach. “No, no, Mrs…” ‘fucking female New York Lawyer’ “...Pink! You’re doing so well! You might just as well tell these people the rest of, uh, ‘our’ plan.”

“Okay, ‘W.E.’! Big banks are closing left and right while millions of acres of good Americana earth lies fallow, it’s top soil being blown away by those damn dust storms but, thinking about it, the wind that blows our top soil also blows someone else’ top soil onto our fields, so maybe that loss isn’t as bad as we think.” Adding “Just a thought! But the point is very few of those foreclosed farms and fields are being grabbed up by investors for ‘pennies on the dollar’. And they're sure not going to want our rinkydink farms…” Glancing at Robert Foreman with but a twenty acre cornfield “... and sixteen miles from the nearest railway.

 Oddly, as though staged, a strong wind gust rattles the banks large window as flurries of dust and scraps of paper accentuate the moment.

 “So…” going on “...rather than most of the farms in the Loveland community sitting vacant and fallow for God knows how long, and the bank here more than likely never going to come anywhere near to recoup it’s losses, what Mister Forester prepossess is that all foreclosures are going to be held off indefinitely.”Or at least until this damned drought is over, Then you will be given time to catch up.”

Waiting for the murmuring to die down. And for Forester’s face—although knowing this makes sense, however going against all banking procedure —to return to it’s normal shade of banker pale.

The same old farmer that had spoken earlier.“If it’s ever over.”

Ignoring him. “We’ve thousands of fast growing seed packets in the store.” Smiling. “Mister Pink and myself will keep track of who’s taking what because we don’t need everyone growing radishes.

“Eo-eo...” Waving her wrinkly skinned thin arm “...I’ve an idea!” Mrs Hanna Bloomgartner — having no farm, but one of the earliest occupants of Loveland, with a huge front lawn...also being W.E. Foresters mother-in-law.

Hoping for some participation. “Yes, Hanna?”

“There’s a food fair every Saturday inf the city. So what’s say we crate up what we’re not using and go and make us a few bucks, huh?”

Exactky along the lines Agie was thinking. “Great idea, Hanna… Wonderful idea! Only let’s not go as a bunch of people, let’s think of a name for ourselves and go as a combined group and split whatever we make evenly…” in thought a moment “...with a percent going to ‘our’ bank, who will keep a record of the groups deposit… Agreed Miss Moorehead?”

Thinking of this lady as somewhat an angel from heaven. “Yes. Ma’am, Mrs Pink.”

Standing, waving his hand as though in a ‘good morning’ salute. “Something else I’ve been wondering on.” Richard O’shannasy, the chicken farmer said. “My three boys are all grown now, you see, and we…” tapping the lady sitting alongside “can’t get Billy into Clem’s pants no more. Might we make a place to bring old clothes that might be of use for some others?”
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                                                Still working on it.