Published: May 28, 2009 08:56 am      

Headline leads staffer down memory lane

The headline on (Angie Bicker’s) column took my breath away. You see, the Clinton Herald had given me my first job straight out of college. Six months later I met Hans and six months after that we were married and I took on the task of trying to fit into a tight German farming community. I had several strikes against me from the beginning, since I was a city girl (Des Moines), college graduate (Drake) and wanted to continue working as a newspaper reporter (gasp) instead of settling down to being a farm wife.

It was fine with Hans that I wanted to continue working, but we agreed we wanted a family, so two years later, when I was pregnant, I gave notice I was leaving the Herald — and I ordered 300 baby chickens, which I picked up at Clinton Feed and Grain Co. on the way home from my last day of work. I was about to start proving I could be a farm wife.

Now that wasn't as outrageous as it sounds. While I was growing up in Des Moines during the Great Depression, we raised a few chickens and a large garden every year. I not only knew how to raise chickens — I knew how to butcher them and cut up the chickens for frying.

I bought “straight run” baby chicks so I could have roosters for frying and pullets for egg-laying. Somewhere I have a picture of me standing on the back porch of our little farm house holding my first egg.

I figure I butchered about 1,000 chickens before our “surprise package” fourth baby was due and I gave up the chicken business. But to the very end, bringing home the baby chickens and sitting in the kitchen watching them pecking and peeping around in the box, was an experience that never got old.



Mary Lou Hinrichsen covers Clinton County for the Herald.