Throughout the story of Heinrich and Sara Neumann, one point is very clear—their life was not an easy one and they worked very hard to provide for their very large family. An excerpt from David Neumann’s memoirs follows, which epitomizes this point. David describes how they were affected by the devastating hailstorm of 1937.

The year 1937 will always linger in my mind. Farm products had been worth next to nothing: wheat— 35 cents/bushel; barley—9 cents; oats— 4 cents. Eggs sold for 5 cents/dozen. George Warkentin had shipped three cows to market. He got a cheque for 87 cents. Mother had raised 100 turkeys one of those years. When they were about 20 lbs. or more, fattened and dressed, ready for the oven, she sold them for 45 cents each. One hundred turkeys—$45.00.

In 1937, it was different. For a reason unknown to me, wheat had jumped in price to $1.35/bushel. Dad had 60 acres of the most promising summer fallow wheat, a prospective yield of 60 bushels per acre. We had little rain that summer. Dad and I had worked exceptionally hard to irrigate our crops three times that summer. Usually, two irrigations were required.

It was either the end of July or the beginning of August. With prospects of a bumper crop and with such exceptionally good prices, dad was thinking if expansion. He had gone with horse and buggy to Herman Klassen, our neighbor, and made a verbal agreement to purchase a quarter section of land from him.

I had just completed the third irrigation of the last square foot of that beautiful wheatfield and was on my way to shut off the water at the head ditch 9 (see note below). Before dad got to the barn, the first pieces of hail hit him. He allowed Ringler, a horse as lively and uncontrollable as Lily had been, to run buggy and all under the trees for shelter, while he just made it to the house. I had to run the last stretch to reach the house before the clouds unloaded hundreds and thousands of tons of hail on our fields. In ten minutes, it was all over. Mother’s flock of turkeys was also wiped out. There was no hail insurance.

I have never seen dad so discouraged in my life. I felt very sorry for him. I was not at home that following winter, but mother told me the next spring that dad could hardly muster up the courage to look after the livestock that winter. In the spring, dad had to buy seed wheat from the government on credit—$1.40 for a bushel of wheat. By the time he sold his 1938 crop to pay the debt, the price of wheat had dropped to 35 cents/bushel again.”

Excerpt from David Neumann’s memoir, “I Remember“.