The Metze and John Mindling Families going visiting, about 1916. Leo Mindling is in the back seat with his mother, Amerett. Marian is the youngest child in the front, next to her father Henry. Her mother Rosa is standing next to the wagon.
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The well house and workshop
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Amertt, Buzza, and Jacob on washday next to the grape arbor
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They were the tractor and the family car
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Ruth Mindling at the barn
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John Mindling (in straw hat) about 1950 on the porch of the farmhouse. Aunt Rose (Marion's mother) to the right, then Aunt Anna. The farmhouse passed to Anna after Jacob and Buzza died. Inside, the Peters clock is passing the time.
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The railroad station in Waterford. Grandkids would arrive here to be picked up for a few summer weeks on the farm.
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 oing to grandpa's and grandma's when I was little meant getting up early to get the chores done. When I hear a rooster crow it takes me back to that time. Dad and Frederic would hitch the team to the "express". Since there were six of us Mabel and I would sit on the boxes between the back and front seats. It was only about 10 miles to grandma's, but it would be close to dinner time when we got there.
Such meals! Grandma's good noodles and homemade bread and usually chicken. That is what I remember now. I still have a taste for chicken. Grandma's kitchen always smelled of yeast dough (such lovely, tasty bread), coffee cake that we called by the German name. I can't spell it. Ginger cookies - big, thick, soft cookies. It seemed two of those cookies and a glass of milk made a good meal.
Remember the well house, Leo? Grandma's milk and cream and butter were lowered into the open well. The horses watered in the "yard" beyond the well house. You drew water with a big windlass and it was cold and good. When I think of grandma, one picture comes to mind - her trotting (she never seemed to walk) with her cream and butter to the well house to put it back in the cool depths. Grandma's and grandpa's picture was taken in front of the well house. I hope you have one.
There was a huge grape arbor with grandpa's grindstone at the end and a swing and hammock for the children. And a lawn swing on the shady side of the house. There were what I think they called cinnamon grapes on another trellis at the back of the house. Little red ones - oh! So good. On the big arbor were concord grapes and those big white ones.
Their cellars smelled of apples. Grandpa had quite an orchard as I remember. The apple I remember was the "sheep-nose". You can't find them anymore. Aunt Olive used to get some somewhere and send to Uncle Louis. Maybe she sent them to Uncle John and uncle Carl too, I don't know. But "Louis liked the sheep-nose", she said. The cellar was dirt-floored, but spank clean.
And then the barn. Little gates, short flights of steps. A sleigh up in the loft. Ruth and I used to sit in it until we found a snake skin in it. Lots of nooks to explore. Then there was the wagon shed you could drive through. There was a granary above. The corn crib was free standing. A chicken house was under the buggy shed down near the gate where the lane comes into the farm yard. There were two other chicken houses. One hear the wagon shed and one at the foot of the garden. The little "outhouse" was behind the chicken house near the wagon shed. There was a wooden latch on the inside. A hole to put your finger through to lift the latch, worn perfectly smooth over the years.
Grandma's house had fascinating nooks. An alcove off their sitting room had their bed in it. Back beyond the hall was another large living room with the alcove for the bed. I understood that room was our great grandparent's room - Grandpa Peters and Granny's. Granny was our grandma's stepmother but was so beloved! She must have been a very wonderful lady. Frederic remembered grandpa Peters but he was thirteen years my senior.
There were winding stairs up from the hall to granny's room. A nice window at the turn of the stairs. Fine place to sit and read. Then on up to a dark landing with a "dox coomer". I can't spell that German word so I wrote it as it sounded. In it was a spinning wheel among other treasures - the cradle, for instance. There was a step up with a bedroom opening off wither side of the landing. Another "dox coomer", off one where cousin Ruth had her playhouse.
Another closed winding stair went up from the dining-sitting room off the kitchen. You couldn't go from one upstairs to the other when I was little. I have the idea that the house was built at two different times. Rooms added to accommodate granny and grandpa Peters and our grandma and grandpa. I may be wrong but that's my thinking. No proof. The "dox coomer" in that room above the dining room was a walk-in. It never fascinated me like the one with the spinning wheel. Clean jars were stored there.
From a letter written by Marian Metze Hecker, May 1991.
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his is the Peters/Mindling farm in Watertown Township, Ohio, in about 1900. The Jacob Peters family settled here in 1833 after emigrating from Germany. Jacob's son Carl inherited the farm and raised his own family here, including daughters Anna Maria and Elizabeth. These girls married Mindling brothers Jacob and Nicholas. Anna Maria and Jacob acquired the farm and raised their family of six children here. My dad, Leo, was one of many of their grandchildren who enjoyed the place on summer vacations, and ate cookies made by their busy grandma they called "Buzza". Marion, one of dad's cousins, included the following reminiscence in a letter written to my parents in 1991 on their 50th wedding annivarsary.
