Our farm was originally purchased in 1954 by my
parents Helen and Ed Myslowski. Dad grew up on
a farm not far from the one purchased (which at
that time was a dairy farm). At the young age of
18, during WWII, he enlisted in the army. He traveled
through Europe, helping to reclaim it from the German
occupation. At first he was on a team firing Howitzer
shells at enemy targets, but since he spoke fluent
Polish, his commanders requested that he also learn to
speak German. With a little class time and practice,
he left the battlefield to become an interpreter.
Not long after the war, in a small town not far from where he grew up, Ed met Helen Regula at a dance. The two fell in love and married. Even though Helen was from the city, she always liked the country, and after some searching the two found the current farm. The farm was actually two adjoining farms totaling 142 acres which cost five thousand dollars. That was a lot of money at that time so it wasn’t easy coming up with the $35.00 per month mortgage. Mom and Dad worked various jobs. One that paid well was when Dad landed a job as an electric generator operator for a company that was building Interstates 80 and 81. The generator produced power for the large shovels that moved the huge masses of earth to make way for the highways. During that time Mom and Dad also tried their hand at farming, but there just wasn’t enough profit to pay the mortgage. They found out the hard way what it’s like to be at the mercy of mother nature. One year of drought can be a real setback.
