By Diana Hammell
The Caledonia Argus
Elmer Thies goes about his daily life taking care of his business, fixing an egg everyday and microwaving freezer meals (although he may prefer crackers in milk as his staple), walking down to the road to pick up his mail, keeping track of the political situation and current events and enjoying family and friends – all on the same farm he was born on 102 years ago and on which he has lived all his life. None of this seems unusual to Thies at all; he just keeps on keeping on and with great attitude and humor to boot. Thies’ daughters, Marlene and Linda visit often and friends stop by. Portland Prairie is a great place to live.
Thies has a terrific memory and this prodigious recall allows him to deliver page-long recitations that he memorized back in the fourth grade. A conversation with Thies can take many side roads and the visitor should keep on his toes because Thies isn’t going to forget a snippet of it or how it fits into the larger picture. He’ll talk about politics and is interested in the upcoming elections.
Forever humble, Thies doesn’t think his age is any big deal. “I’m not in the big league because the oldest person in the U.S. is 113,” he said. Other family members were also very long-lived, with his mother almost reaching the age of 105. She rode in Harold St. Mary’s Model T Ford in the Caledonia Founder’s Day parade as the oldest resident of Houston County. Four of his mother’s siblings lived well into their 90s.
Life on the farm
Thies’ grandfather, Fred Thies, after returning from the Civil War, purchased the first 40 acres on which the house now stands for $675 from Asa Sherman, a land speculator. Five years later, he bought the 40 acres just west of the first 40 for $1,500. Thies’ father, Frank Thies and his wife, Louisa Fruechte Thies, built the two story, five bedroom cement block house where Elmer still resides, in 1915. The house included Blau gas lighting, a hot water furnace, a soft water pressure system and even a bathroom upstairs, all for $4,000. Thanks to the Rural Electrification Administration (REA) the house received electricity in 1940.
Elmer was the sixth of seven children who were raised in the house and Thies has great memories of his mother who he said laughed almost always and his father who played the accordion and cornet. Thies said that although there were many happy times, there were times of great sadness as well. The same year the
house was built, Thies’ brother, Roy, died from a burst appendix. In an account written by Thies, he wrote, “Dr. Rhines operated on Roy on the kitchen table in a final attempt to try and save him but was unsuccessful. What a sad day that must have been. Walter died six years later from polio. So, into each life some rain must fall.”
Thies lived through the Great Depression. “It was awful hard on my dad and in those years, a big worry was finding a way to get the bills paid. But, we had fun anyway. We were all in the same boat,” Thies said.
Education
“I got most of my education from the District 44 Country School (1st through the 8th grade). We had very good teachers. One, in fact, impressed upon me more than academic excellence,” Thies said. Gladys Lapham caught him cheating and lectured him severely in front of the other 20 kids, saying, “Just because your dad is on the school board does not make you a little prince with a tin hat… if you cheat in little things, you’ll cheat in big things.” To this day he remembers that lecture that went on and on. He eventually realized how important that lesson was for him and is for others too. “Miss Lapham, thank you, and all is forgiven,” Thies said.
Elmer had to miss a year of high school when he and Mildred Wiegrefe/Albee had to instead ride their horses to Eitzen for German catechism, but he then spent one year in Caledonia High School and from there attended the University of Minnesota’s School of Agriculture in St. Paul for four winter quarters. He lived in dormitories while there and graduated in 1935. “Farmers sent their sons to the winter quarters up there instead of to high school,” Thies said. “They had some real good teachers there. I got a very good education there and had great opportunities to experience lots of different courses like economics, English, chemistry and lots of farm things, of course.”
He played in the band and was in plays, “David Copperfield” for one. He had the red measles toward the end of the play and couldn’t go through the graduation ceremony.
Thies took part in plays here in Caledonia as well. He was a member of the Portland Prairie 4-H Club, the first 4-H group in Houston County. “I had a Holstein calf as my project and I won a trip to the state fair and couldn’t go because I wasn’t 10 years old yet. 4-H has come a long ways since then,” he said.
How Thies met his wife
Thies met the woman who would be his wife in 1939 when she was 17 and he would have been almost 25. Mildred lived with her family in Twin Falls, Idaho and they traveled to Eitzen to attend a golden wedding celebration. Thies met her there and visited with her a few times until she returned back to Idaho with her family. A long correspondence followed until December 1, 1941 when Thies asked a friend of his if he would run the ranch while Thies took a trip to Idaho on the train. After only a few days of visiting, Thies asked Mildred’s father if he would allow Thies to marry his daughter. After what seemed to Thies like a long time for a reply to come from the surprised father, he rushed to town to purchase an engagement ring before Mildred could change her mind. Thies gave Mildred the ring on Dec. 6, the day before Pearl Harbor and they were married on Aug. 9, 1942.
Thies account reads: “It has often been said getting married is one of the world’s greatest adventures. With me and Mildred, it was all that and more. The wedding date was set at Aug. 9 with me marrying a really sweet girl who was now 1,600 miles away and someone I had first met when she was a mere 17 years old and hadn’t seen much of for three years. Wow! Must have taken lots of nerve for the both of us.”
Thies rented a four door Oldsmobile sedan for $100 from Windy Trehus, a car dealer in Spring Grove. The six passengers on the trip to Idaho were Elmer; his almost 70 year old mother; his sister, Ruby; her companion, Erma Fruechte; Paul Wiegrefe, Thies’ best man; and Ralph Schoh, Thies’ nephew who was to be in the wedding party.
“The day after the wedding, Mildred and I climbed on a bus and headed for Chicago where we met up with the Powers tour group for our honeymoon by train to New York City. The trip cost about $500, lots of bucks back then (in war time). Our first stop was Niagara Falls, even rode on the “Maid of the Mist,” then on to New York City to see a small part of the many, many places and sights of that huge place.” Also on their trip were stops in Washington, D.C., Mount Vernon, Jefferson’s Monticello and Pittsburg. Their train took them back to Chicago where they got on another train to New Albin, Iowa where Thies’ cousin, Albert Fruechte met them. Eventually they returned to Portland Prairie and home. “We hadn’t been home more than an hour or so when out in the yard there arose such a clatter – bang – not one bit melodious. We were being shivaried! It was the good old Portland Prairie gang plus even Rev. Radloff, our Eitzen St. Luke’s pastor! My sister, Ruby, somehow knew they were coming so a light lunch with ice cream was served to that noisy gang of musicians,” Thies said.
Elmer and Mildred raised their two daughters in the Eitzen farmhouse and also had a son who died in infancy. Mildred died at the age of 89 in 2011.
Horses
Thies’ love of horses had him raising horses as long as he could keep them and they just became a part of his life.
“You worked with horses and you either walked, rode a horse or had a buggy,” Thies said. “My dad’s first car was a 1917 Dodge touring car complete with side curtains, eight celluloid windows in back, a collapsible canvas top, heavy leather upholstered seats, self starter, 12 volt battery, clutch and stick shifting lever for three speeds, plus a horn button on the driver’s side door and an emergency brake. Trouble was when cold weather arrived, this beautiful machine would be set up on blocks until spring to take the weight off the tires.
“You get so you really love horses,” Thies said. He especially remembers Dude, “One of our work horses and one my favorite horses ever because he had a white face and one white hind leg. He was a smooth rider and he seemed to like us because whenever he saw us coming, he whinnied like mad. He was always out in front; in a four-horse team, he always seemed eager to do his duty.”
Later, Thies took to keeping Arabians and had two Arab costumes sewn by daughter, Marlene, that he would wear in parades. Thies’ white Arabian horse, “loved the parades and was never afraid and she put on a show. Her name was Ishtar, a naughty lady from the Bible,” Thies said with a smile. Marrakech, one of Thies’ Arabian stallions, was taken to several shows in Milwaukee and Waukasha, Wis.
“It sounds silly but I just enjoy being with them,” Thies said once. “They sort of ‘converse’ with me. I would feel so completely lost if I wouldn’t have my horses to play with and tend to. I’ve sort of been around horses all my life – maybe that’s the trouble.”
Soil conservation
Inspired by Franklin Roosevelt, Thies became a pioneer in the county in promoting soil conservation. Thies was a member of the Root River Soil & Water Conservation board for nine years. “Soil conservation is so important in Houston County and with all the work that has been done here, it’s beautiful over the whole county,” Thies said. “Years ago, they would plow up and down and the soil would wash down into the Mississippi. Now it’s very improved. They use different tillage methods more conducive to conservation efforts.”
Thies was the first president of the Houston County Rural Youth and was a member of the Houston County Farm Bureau, “a very worthwhile organization,” he said.
Celebration of 102nd birthday
Elmer’s 102nd birthday, on Saturday, July 30, 2016, was celebrated with family and with great-granddaughter, Cambria’s, baptism at St. Luke’s Church in Eitzen. This big beautiful, brick church (where Elmer was confirmed replaced, in 1917, the wooden church (in which Elmer had been baptized) that had been struck by lightening and burned. Only a few pieces were rescued from the fire; the baptismal fount was, thankfully, one. This was an unexpected fact, and made the symbolism even greater for the family.
On the following day, at the quaint historical Portland Prairie Church, Mildred’s ancestral church and just up the hill from the farm, the congregation, at its yearly July service, acknowledged his birthday, as they do every year.
Elmer Thies finished his interview with a quote from Abraham Lincoln. “And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.”