Tilsit Memories: Henry Strickert Family

Henry John Strickert Family in Tilsit, Missouri
(son of Friedrich and Catherine Strickert, son of Johann and Kristina Strickert)

Tilsit  was a small farming community in southeastern Missouri where Rev. Henry Strickert served a Lutheran  congregation from 1926 to 1954.  One of his sons, Rev. Arthur Strickert shared his memories of life at Tilsit when he wrote a round-robin letter to his siblings in 1956.
                                                                                                                                         Hillsdale, Michigan

July 1, 1956

Dear Relatives:

For our contribution to the “round robin” this time we would like to do something a bit different, especially for dad’s sake, and ask: DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN?

• We first came to Missouri and were amazed to find that our nearest neighbors intended to butcher 13 pigs for a family of four adults.
• People once came to church in buggies and hitched the horses or mules to the railing south of the church; Paul once failed to walk that railing!
• Ears of several members of the family were glued to the radio with the big horn speakers, especially for baseball games, then Roland would give a play-by-play later.
• A Tennis court was carved out of the side of the hill, a chicken wire net was devised, and dad gave his boys some stiff competition (hitching up his pants quite often as he did so).
• The dog days, with shot-gun shell filled with salt for egg-sucking Teddy’s benefit, and full dress funeral for Frazzles.
• The old threshing days, with the steam engine having difficulty climbing over the rocks on the hills, to serve one threshing “ring” after the other (quite an experiment in team work also for the whole family as well as cooperation between neighbors).
• Entertainment at parties, picnics, ice cream socials consisted of the game of “snap,” either to run the legs off some spinster or to hold the hands of your favorite girl right out in public.
• Two miles once seemed a very short distance to walk to the ole swimming hole beyond Louie Siebert’s place and bathing suits were no problem.
• Some of the boys constructed roads all over the place, even next to “the branch” and Arnold had a special yen for digging deep holes “to keep cool.”  Who fell in?
• Fire-wood was usually brought to our place in the summer time and then had to be piled up out-doors or tossed in the shed (somehow Betty got into the way once, for which she still has a scar.)
• No trip to town in the summer time was complete without getting ice, some of which was used quite often to make ice-cream, on which occasions the boys would fight to sit on the freezer.
• Traps were set everywhere to catch rabbits, but we probably caught more colds; Walt “sold out” his interest when he went off to college.
• To take care of the wear-and-tear of such expeditions, dad had a shoe-shop in the shed, which along with free hair-cuts for all helped put us thru college.
• Baking bread once or twice a week seemed no chore at all for Mom, and coffee-cake was the order of the day every Saturday.
• “Take your dishes” was a familiar refrain after every meal, and then each member of the family usually had his own little assignment to carry out, or wiggle out of.
• Shadows were lengthening and considerable time was spent in the out-door swing, with the kids chasing lightning bugs, days being ended with a loud thud from the parents’ bedroom when dad kicked off his shoes. 

Well, that’s just a sample of some of the memories we have to cherish.  If anybody wants to add to the list, go right ahead.  We don’t want to live in the past, but we must say that we do have some pretty good experiences to chuckle over and for which to be thankful.  With a possible family reunion coming up about Aug. 26, someone may want to rethink some of the stuff we are made of.  Hope that dad will be feeling well enough by then to do some traveling. 
                                                                                                                                       Art Strickert