Jim Morcomb

Make every use you can of being in school. Learn to read. There’s nothing you can do if you can’t read. I still like to learn new things. Be good. It’s more fun to be good and not naughty. Enjoy your parents, be good citizens. We live in a wonderful, wonderful country and be glad for that.

Jim Morcomb

My name is Jim Morcomb. I was born on May 16, 1935. When I was a boy I lived with my parents, three miles south of the school. My father’s name was Arlie and my mother’s was Helen. I have one sister named Mary. She has red hair and I teased her about that. She was a good sister and we played together a lot. She lives in Winona and still has red hair.

Houses were different in 1935. First of all there was no electricity. All of the lights in the house were from lamps and lanterns. The only heat was from a wood stove. We went to bed early, no T.V., nothing to do. We had some games like checkers, some card games, but really nothing to do but read.

My summers were my favorite because the neighbor boy would come over. Loren and I, made a farm with little tractors that we hand carved. We didn’t have toys like today. Most of the toys we made ourselves like slingshots and handmade bow and arrows. We didn’t get very many presents.

Christmas and my birthday and Easter are my favorite memories. Not because I had lots of present but because relatives came. Lots of great food and all homemade. My favorite memories were the food and fun we had with cousins.

In the wintertime sliding down the hill was easy. The only way to get around was by horse and sleigh. On Saturday nights all the people would get together. I can still remember now riding home at midnight in the cold and in the sleigh. You could hear the crunch of the snow when we would move. I can still hear that snow today.

Our family did a lot together. The Saturday night parties always were a lot of fun. I remember going with father to the bee trees. We would find trees with bees in and go in at night and remove the honey and have it with fresh bread when we got home. For summer picnics my mother would make homemade fried chicken.

Another memory I have is going with father to the creamery. We milked cows by hand. You had to sit down and remove the milk with your hands. We separated the milk from the cream. We gave the milk to calves. One thing I always remember on the way home if everything was good and dad had extra nickels we would stop at the Halverson Store or the Newman Store and we could have a one dip ice cream cone or my sister and I could share a bottle of pop.

Another thing I like to do is hunt and fish. When I was a boy there was no deer. Most of my hunting was squirrels and rabbits and we could go fishing down to the Mississippi river. My father gave me a single shot 22 when I was young. I would go down and hunt squirrels. When I was 9 years old I shot a fox.

I had a special friend as a kid, her name was June and she was my pony. Virtually everyday in the summer I spent on the horse except when I got older. Lots of time I got up in the morning and would take some lunch in a bag and ride off the entire day down through the hills.

Work had to be done on the farm. When I was little one job was to keep the wood box filled. I had to keep it full 7 days a week. We fed the cows and calves and gathered eggs. We worked in the garden. By the time I was 10 years old I was helping with the thrashing machine. When I was 12 I ran a bundle wagon.

The first school I went to was the Golish School. I started in the first grade. Half way through Golish I went to school at the Cooper School until 8th grade. We learned to read and learned to write. At recess we played games like Ring Around the Rosy & Annie, Annie Over. We played hide and seek and tag and went sliding in the winter. In the spring we went into the woods and picked flowers. That was a daily thing.

If we did something bad at school, we got put in a time out. We had to stand in the corner and not make a sound for a long time until the teacher decided it was over. If we were really bad we had to sit in the dark wood shed. Of course when you got in trouble in those days, when you got home there was more trouble. Mostly we were really usually good.

I was only naughty once. When I was in school you had to go outside to the toilet. Some of the boys and I discovered there was a way to block the door so you couldn’t get out. We locked the teacher in the bathroom and left her there for two hours. Unfortunately, that teacher lived in my house. I don’t remember all the punishments. That was the worst thing I ever did.

During WWII we also worked during the recesses and noon hours picking milkweed pod. Why did we pick them? The silk inside was used to make the cloth for parachutes used in the military in WWII. We would take out the silk on the inside and get enough of these to send. They had school kids collecting these. The government would send big crates and we would fill them. They would come and take big loads away.

I graduated from Winona in 1953. I went to college at Winona State University. I was studying engineering and got hired by Martin Aircraft Company in Baltimore, Maryland. I only stayed at Martin for year. I was too far from the things I like. When I returned I got married to my wife Lois. We have been married for 52 years. We have 4 children and 9 grandchildren. I worked for IBM for 35 years as an engineer.

Hunting continues to be a big part of my life. I’ve hunted wild sheep, antelope, deer, and I love to fish and do volunteering. I do a lot of work with the Lions Club. I work at the church and work at the school and I like having the opportunity to get to know some of you.

I have so many good memories from my childhood. One of my favorites are the things I got to do with my Dad. My Dad and I did lots of things together. Even when I was grown up we did hunting and working together. My favorite present was a cowboy suit my aunt gave me for Christmas when I was six years old. This same aunt gave me my first six-shooter.