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- BIOGRAPHY:
Max Gregory Flathers
SIEBRANDS added this on 10 Nov 2009
Max Gregory was the third child born to George Lewis and Lillian Yockey Flathers. He was born at home on December 17, 1914, near the Sisston Indian Reservation, between Sisston, South Dakota and two miles south of Clear Lake, South Dakota. Max's occupation was always farming as was the previous Flathers generations before him. He was a grain farmer: corn, oats and hay and he raised cattle, sheep and hogs. At one time he fed out several hundred head of cattle at the Homestead.
Before he married Vera Klingensmith, he rented a small farm between Moville and Kingsley, Iowa, just one-half mile east of the Emery and Flossie Klingensmith farm, Vera's parents. Previous to Max's move to the rented farm, he would walk eight miles and back again to the Flathers Homestead during bad weather when the temperature was 25 degrees below zero to "court" vera. When Max and Vera married, they lived in the house on the rented farm where Max had been living for the past year. It was not the best living conditions. In the winter the only heat in the house was from the kitchen cookstove and a heater in the livingroom. At night the house would get so cold the linoleum flooring in the kitchen would roll up. There was no electricity or running water in the home and no telephone. Their first child, Nancy, was born on a very hot day two years later, on July 26, 1939, in this house.
After 3+ years, Max and his family moved on March 1, 1940, to a farm rented from Paul Sadler. The farm was located west of Correctionville, Iowa and south of Pierson. The house was fairly new and quite modern compared to most of the farm homes in the area. Water was piped into the house for an indoor bathroom, and a modern kitchen. Electricity was supplied by Delco batteries which only worked part of the time so they had to resort to using lamps when necessary. They also had a telephone and a coal/wood burning furnace. They lived there for one and one-half years. It was in this home that their second child, Benjamin (IV) Larry was born.
After the death of his father on August 13, 1940, Max, Vera and their two children, moved on January 1, 1943, to the Flathers Homestead in Woodbury County, rural Correctionville, Iowa, at Rock Branch, the family farm which was originally homesteaded by Max's grandfather, Benjamin Lewis Flathers. This move must have been very difficult for Vera as she had to move from a nice modern home into a house with no plumbing. The water for drinking, cooking, and baths had to be carried in pails from a well south of the old garage. The bathroom was the old wooden "outhouse" west of the house that was freezing cold in the winter and unbearably hot in the summer. And "oh, did it stink!" The house did have electricity and a telephone. The ground floor was heated with the cookstove in the kitchen and a heating stove in the dining room. There never has been heat in the upper level. Vera mentioned at times about the large number of rats on the farm and the many mice in the house. At night the mice were so plentiful they would occasionally run across the bed when the family was sleeping.
After Benjamin Lewis homesteaded the farm, he planted a forest of trees on the north side of the farm from the west end next to John Sadler's farm and to the road which runs in front of the house. When the trees had grown to maturity they were so dense it was almost impossible to drive a horse and wagon through them. When Ben first homesteaded the farm, the indians would pull the small sapplings from the sand bars in Sioux City and bring them to the farm, a storm went through and destroyed many of the trees. A man from Oto, Iowa was hired to dismantle his sawmill, move it to the Flathers Homestead, set it up and cut the fallen trees into lumber. Many in the community benefited from the processed lumber as it was sold to anyone who wished to buy it. With the lumber from these trees, a large barn was built on the farm for milking cows and storing hay. It was a high, red barn with a weather vane on the very top, center of the wood shingled roof. When Max and Vera moved to the farm, many of the trees were still standing. During the first few years living on the Homestead, Max cut down all of the remaining trees, the largest being 5 1/2 feet in diameter. It was sawed by hand as were all of them. After the trees were down and the stumps burned, the field was used as a pasture for many years to graze cattle and then several years later the field was planted to corn, oats and hay, rotating the crops yearly so as not to deplete the soil of its nutrients.
In 1967, the Flathers Homestead was declared a Centennial Farm. A special celebration was observed at the Homestead to commorate the 100 years the farm had been in the Flathers family. The day started with a church service with family and friends dressed as they did many years ago. About 400 friends of Max and Vera gathered on the Homestead lawn for a potluck picnic.
Max and his son, Benjamin (IV) Larry, built a log cabin on the Homestead for Max's four granddaughters to play and pretend they were settlers of many years ago. It is filled with many family heirlooms and antiques of the homesteading period. Max and Vera's two oldest granddaughter's, Christie Howland Bolin and Joni Rae Howland Morrow, spent many happy hours in the log cabin during the summer months as they were growing up.
Max and Vera lived on the Flathers Homestead for 52 years. In March, 1994, they moved to theri present home, a nice two-bedroom home at Sunrise Village in Sioux City, Iowa. Max and Vera's granddaughter, Julie Ann Flathers Sypedrsma and her husband Shawn, lived on the farm.
-written by Nancy Lorraine Howland
March 1995
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1914 - 1996 (81 years)