Harley Roscoe FASSNACHT

Notes:

                   Bertha grew up around Scribner. Her father passed away when she was ten years old. He had Bright's Disease, which is kidney failure.She walked to grade school in the country 1 1/2 miles. A coupleof winters she went to confirmation school at St. John's Ridgeley Lutheran CHurch in the country. She went to school until the 8th grade in the country school. She always helped do chores even at an early age. She liked to be out of doors. She helped milk cows and take care of the horses. She would even help pick corn when they got home from school; byt hen it was getting dark and time to do chores.  Then in  the morning they unloaded their load of corn before they went to school, plus doing the morning chores. Very  seldom they got to go along to town. They went to town in horse and wagon. Their folks went and they would bring one rack of candy for all  of them that would have to last a whole week's time. She would help churn cream into butter, this their folks would take to sell along with some eggs or trade for groceries. They either kept the cream in cans down in the cave or in the "Summer Kitchen" which was west of the house in a tank where water ran in one end and out the other. The Summer  Kitchen  was a building where they cooked and baked in the summer time, that way the house didn't get too hot. Theycooked on a cook stove that burned "pig pen cobs" and wood. Her mother  made all their  clothes, knitted their socks and mittens in the  evenings by kerosene lamp sitting by  the heating stove. Their Grandma Romer (Eleanora Römer  geb. Wißner) lived with them and while she was peeling potatoes or other little things she would tell them stories. Her mother even raised geese that they  butchered  and had at Christmas time; that was a tradition. She also raised ducks and chickens that she hatched under hens. She used to help take the ducks down to the creek to swim, north of the barn. Until the mud turtles got them, pulled them  under the water by the feet, drowning them  and then eating them. During World War I there was a bad flu going around that a lot of people  died from. Some of her family got this flu and were really sick with it. She somehow did not get it so she did the chores.

Bertha loved to read and she would  sit up at night and read, read, read, and read some more.  They only got a weekly paper and it was in German.  She taught  herself to read German. She would read anything she could find. She always wanted to further her education. She  had heard of York  Business College inYork, NE,  but that  sounded like a long way off. But she wrote to them and during the winter months she went  to school, staying with either a family or in a boarding  house; part of her board and room was to keep the furnace fired up. While in York she visited a different church each Sunday. The Westphalen family, neighbors of theirs in Scribner, had relatives who lived south of York. This cousin knew Bertha was gong to York college and invinted her to a party at their home.  She could ride  the train to Fairmont, not knowing  that  she could have gotten off at McCool Jct. where the train switched to go to different towns. They  came and got her at Fairmont. At this party there were two brothers, Harley and Wallace Fassnacht. She took  a liking to the younger one, Wallace, who was more her age. They went with each other  and became engaged to marry. Then Uncle Sam was calling in young men to join the Army for WWI. He took his training at Camp Funston, KS. Then he was sent to France. He was over there for several months when she received word that he was killed while out on the battle field. Life still goes on, and Harley, Wallace's  older brother, asked  her to go with him. On March 23, 1921, they  were married at the Ridgeley Lutheran Church. Her brother, John Roemer, was the best man and Louise Graham,  Harley's cousin, was the maid of honor, and her niece, Irene Schellenberg, was the flower girl.

They  moved to  Harley's folks' place, 6 miles northwest of Fairmont, NE, and his folks moved to town. Every March a farmer hired his hired man to work for  him. The hired man lived with them.

On July 4, 1922, Harley  and Bertha had their first child, Wallace Alvin. Ten months later he became sick. The doctor from York came to the house and operated on  him on the dining room table. He had telescopic bowels. He passed  away on May 25, 1923.

When  Byrdene was born, "Wiese," a distant cousin from Germany, was staying with them, helping out, as she  was  a nurse. [This was undoubtedly Louisa Römer, Bertha's first cousin once removed,  who probably  came to the United States with her nephew, Karl Römer, in 1923.  Karl lived in Chicago. The Nebraska Roemers remember that "Wiese" came to Nebraska from Illinois.] She could speak only German; Harley could not understand German and neither could  the attending physician. Bertha was having problems and has stopped breathing. "Wiese"  was  trying to get the men's attention, but was having a terrible time making them understand. Finally they noticed Bertha, and the doctor got  her breathing again.

During the 1930s when times were so hard, Bertha and Harley made  do on the cream and egg money. Everything dried up and blew away during those  years. The Russian  thistles, or tumbleweeds, thrived during those  eyars.

In 1934 since the old house was in such a bad state of  repair, they built a new house. The main carpenter was a Danish neighbor. They found a misplaced cattle check,  which was several years old, in the old house. They were able to cash the check, which was  for about $1, 300, and it paid the cost of the labor in building the new house. They tried raising turkeys to help out with the income. The grasshoppers were so plentiful that the turkeys were hurded into the pasture and chased grasshoppers. The money from the turkey was used to buy  a furnace for the new house. It cost around $100.

In  later years Bertha raised many ducks and geese.  One year she raised 80 ducklings from one pair of ducks. She had a big  write-up in the York News Times with  pictures and all. Bertha enjoyed  nature, and especially taking a trip to Keokuk, Iowa, when she was 80 years old, to search for geodes, a crystal rock formation, along the Mississippi River. She slept with the others that night in a tent at one of the parks. Another trip she  enjoyed was through Eastern Texas with some neighbors, were trucking bees. She was hospitalized in May of 1978 and died June 11, 1978 with cancer of the pancreas.


St. John's Lutheran Church, Ridgeley, Dodge Co, NE:
Taufen 1896
Pathen: Bertha Spiegelberg, Bertha Keinen, Hein. Westphalen