16. Rohner Farm Photograph

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] Oh, we had a Swiss man there. He was a planer man by trade, and he run planers. And at that time he was running the planer down at Wells Dale for, I think didn't they call it Valley Lumber? [Lumber was shipped from the mill near the Soap Creek Schoolhouse in 1928 by Model T trucks. After running through the planing mill in Wells, it was shipped by rail. JR]

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Valley Lumber, I think it was Bill..

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] Bill Bertram and McCoy, can't remember his first name, were partners in the mill. And they hired him to run the planer.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] And he boarded with us, Mom fed him, bedded him, washed his clothes, made his lunch, he boarded there at our house, that way she made some extra money.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] That was my mother's money, boarding him and the chickens, whatever the chickens brought in, that was her money.

Bob Zybach: So that's why she had him build the chicken house?

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] Yeah, I guess he had time in between.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Yeah, they didn't work Saturdays and Sundays, and they got off early, I mean worked 8 hours, where farmers work a lot longer. And then he'd work at that whenever he felt like it.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] We put in over 12 hours a day on the farm, because we'd get up in the morning to milk the cows and then we'd eat breakfast quick, go out in the field again and come in at noon, to eat, back to the field, then come in again for supper. We usually ate supper before milking.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] It depended. In the wintertime sometimes after milking, but in the summer before. And during combine, not combine, but thrashing time, Mom and the kids had to milk. The little kids. You guys used to didn't milk then because they worked til what 7 or 8 o'clock with the thrashing machine.

16. Rohner Farm Photograph

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] So it was long hours on the farm. Here's a picture of our place from near the top of Coffin Butte, looking at our place and Beals Hill.

Bob Zybach: Can you tell me the. . . there is an oak tree in the middle.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] The story there, yes. There was a story that a man lived there in a little

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: brick building or house, just a very small, just a man alone. And that he had buried some gold around near that tree, and we never did, of course we didn't have metal detectors then, we never did find any. But finally we later cleared that land except for that oak tree, and farmed it, and we would find the remnants of bricks, particles of bricks in that area.

Bob Zybach: So you actually were able to find the bricks.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] Oh yeah.

Bob Zybach: Did you ever hear the name of the man that lived there?

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] I probably did but I can't remember if I did.

Bob Zybach: It wasn't Hodge, Hodges?

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] I have no idea.

Bob Zybach: Or Cahoon?

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] If I at one time knew the name, it's gone.

Bob Zybach: Did you hear how he got his gold?

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] No. No.

Bob Zybach: Okay. Willie, did you ever hear any stories about buried gold other than this gold in that neighborhood?

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Well there was tales of people burying out there but I don't really definitely remember any certain stories other than that one that was supposed to be on our place. But I've heard other stories around, you have too, I'm sure, didn't you.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] Well if I did I've forgotten them.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] I don't really know where at, but I've heard.

Bob Zybach: Did you ever hear any stories about Tampico?

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] I don't know too much about Tampico.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] I just heard that it was a wild place, they had this saloon, and stage coaches stopped there, and that's about it.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Mostly, it seems like our end was pretty much Wellsdale.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] We didn't visit too much back there, only when we walked across the pasture to get there because it was five miles around the road either way to go visit people in the Tainpico area through there.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] We used to play ball, our little old Welisdale School, we did have ball