The Gettmans, dairy farm life in the 1940s and 1950s.

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Dairy farm life the year around.

Rover stands guard in the driveway of the Harry and Pearl Gettman Dairy Farm Located 2 1/2 miles north of Clayton on Highway 395. The picture in the winter of 1949.

The dairy barn of sufficient size to handle 70 or 80 milk cows with milking parlor, milk house plus at least one horse stall for Cleo, Shirley's Palomino pony as shown in the foreground.

Harry and Pearl with little Shirley in 1947. Their farm consisted of owning 420 acres and leasing another 420 acres. A huge amount of land for a dairy farm.

During its hay day the Gettman farm was a showplace including a huge pond to afford water for their livestock and for irrigation. When the E. & E. Mercantile caught fire in 1957 the fire trucks drew 50 truckloads of water in an all out effort to contain the fire, thus sparing the rest of the business district.

One year following the photo above, Shirley's older sister Phyllis was crowned Princess of the Clayton Grange and rode Dad's 1938 DeSoto in the 1948 Old Settlers Parade.

Not to be out done, Shirley followed in her big sister's footsteps and as princess of the Clayton Grange. She also reigned as Queen of the Old Settlers Parade in1962.

During the 1940s hay was put up in any number of ways. Loose as pictured here and put into the haymow with slings. Here Harry pitches hay onto the load and Rolan places and tamps it down and little Shirley supervises from the running board. With Rolan, you have now met the entire family.

There were a good many inventions designed to make life easier for a Dairy Rancher. It is fairly safe to say, the most successful was the Milking machine. Harry Gettman milking cows the easy way.

No more than the fields green up and late June rolls around and its back in the hay field.

Mom (Pearl) Gettman gets the privilege of carrying the two 21/2 or three gallon milk buckets from the milking parlor to the milk house and running it through the cooler, pouring milk into 10 gallon Sterilized milk cans so they can be picked up early everymorning 7 days a week 52 weeks a year for as many years as the kids stick around to lend a hand.

Hay choppers came into vogue as an alterative to baling. First the stationary then the mobile which eliminated a couple labor intensive steps. No shocking nor hand pitching on to a wagon or truck and unloading with slings or pitching the hay into a stationary chopper. The chopped hay was stored in the silo.

Some of the Gurnsey herd taking advantatage of the early spring grass.

Back the dump truch up to the hopper, gravity feeds the hopper, redirect the blower spout while having a cool Lemonade. This haying is a breeze.

Times change. Shirly grows up and so does hay baling. One oddity is round bales which was short lived. David McBeth is standing by the tractor.

Rolan gets a brand new 1955Thunderbird for his efforts and that 's not HAY.

And the cycle begins all over again.

In addition to putting up hay, the Gettmans grew sunflowers for silage. The silo is visible in the above photo. Standing in the sunflowers neighbor Mr. Fred Higgins hoisting Shirley with brother Rolan standing by in this 1949 photo.

Minnie Westby. Direct descendant of the Westby clan that migrated from Trysil, Norway, and pioneered in the Clayton vicinity.

Phyllis, oldest daughter of Pearl and Harry Gettman. Phyllis and Minnie were classmates, graduated from Clayton Grade School together in 1945. Graduated from Deer Park High in 1949 and were inseparable friends. AND NOW FOR THE REST OF THE STORY!

WASHINGTON BRICK AND LIME. THE END. THE FINAL CHAPTER COULD NOT BE TOLD IN ITS ENTIRETY ON THE FOLLOWING PAGE AND WITH A LITTLE ROOM TO SPARE HERE ON THE GETTMAN FAMILY PAGE WE ARE RUDELY INTRUDING IN ORDER TO BRING TO A FITTING CLOSURE TO AN EPIC ADVENTURE.

Once upon a time two young ladies became fast friends. During grade school and their high hchool years they managed to capture the hearts of the entire Clayton Community. The epitome of class, beauty, charm and humility. Everybody loved them. Then one day the inevitable happened. They both fell in love and left for greener pastures. Why did they leave? Because a couple tall dark strangers strolled into town, stole their hearts and stole out of town with the both of them. Hearts were broken for miles around. To pacify these broken men Minnie and Phyllis return for certain celebrations such as Clayton day, Old Settlers Picnic and Class reunions. The above picture is from the 55th Class reunion. The 60th reunion of the 49ers is this coming summer of 2009. Time has been so very kind to these two ladies.

What could be salvaged was. What would burn was and when the embers died and still smoulderd the final Demolition phase began.

This is the Gettman barn years after the Harry and Pearl Gettmans sold circa 1967 or 69. This photo was taken in 2000 by Marilyn Reilly but even then the old barn retained a certain amount of charm but then again, don't they all.

Leno's team started on the West end and used Blasting powder. Worked great.

Lyle Nords tean moved in from the East with Lyles Dozer and other weapons of leverage. Worked great

Then the Three little Pigs attacked from the center. And they Huffed and they Puffed and they blew the chimney down.