Ramona: Ihde family celebrates Christmas in July
By JESSICA GILBERT
Ramona correspondent
(785) 965-2621
When we saw the Christmas wreath hanging on the gate to the Ihde Farm out on Mink Road, Pat and I knew we were in for a treat. Any bunch of folks that were crazy enough to celebrate Christmas in July were people we wanted to know! After all, we did that one year in the middle of summer with our family, complete with Santa hats and reindeer ears, singing Christmas carols up and down the streets of Ramona as we (with sweat dripping from our brows) dragged a freshly-cut tree to the Parish Hall for decorating.
The Ihde farm was a much more serene scene — at least on the surface. The sign by gate read: Ihde Farm, Since 1902. Ahead in the distance was the pristine white farm house surrounded by the pale green of freshly mowed fields of hay. The road to the house curved like a graceful ribbon, and the round bales of hay were like huge spools of thread scattered on the fabric of the fields.
But when we stepped out of our car and headed for the house, all sense of "serene" evaporated into thin air, as we crossed paths with Bob Ihde, the youngest of Orville and Ruth (Paire) Ihde's children. "Are you Mike?" I asked, trying to find the person I'd talked with on the telephone. "I could be?" he replied.
"You must be the tease of the family," I said to Bob, searching for somebody I would recognize. "He's Bob with two 'Os,'" said his older sister, Mary Jane, laughing, as she emerged from the farmhouse to "rescue" us.
Ahh, at last, somebody I recognized. I'd talked with Mary Jane McNeil, on the phone about renting them our bed and breakfast for overflow guests, and she'd invited us out to see their ancestral home.
We followed Mary Jane into the house for a tour. In keeping with the Christmas theme, a large Santa Claus was poised by the door, and rugs on the floor hollered out "Ho Ho Ho!"
Mary Jane and her sister, Carolyn Kiehl, both of Wichita, told family stories as we wandered from room to room. "This is the kitchen now," said Mary Jane, "but it used to be the bedroom of the house. Our dad, Orville Ihde and his siblings Roscoe, Maurice, Melba, and Raymond, were all born in that room."
The sisters explained that this family home didn't always reside on this property. "The house was located on 100th Avenue, on the Marion side of the Dickinson/Marion County line," explained Mary Jane. "It was moved to the farm land on Mink road in 1988."
The land where the house resides is adjacent to a lovely lake — it's actually the Turkey Creek watershed. "My grandfather, Arthur Ihde, donated that land, but didn't live long enough to see the watershed created," said Carolyn, Arthur's granddaughter.
"Our dad, Orville, was a railroader and he put up a barn on the land near the watershed, along with an electric light pole so that his railroad friends could bring their campers out for a tranquil weekend. In the 1980s Dad contemplated buying a bungalow that was for sale in Tampa and moving it to the property so we'd have a place to stay. And I said, 'why not move the farm house here and we can be staying in the home you were born and raised in.'"
Orville liked the idea and so did his brothers and sisters and that's how the family home got moved to Mink Road.
While the sisters took us on a tour, divulged history and stories, the men in the family were attempting to install a new air conditioner. There was much joking and teasing about whether they'd get the job done with so many "experts" on the job.
About an hour later I heard Mary Jane's husband, Mike, exclaim: "The air conditioner is installed and working — Now we're going to read the instruction book!" Mike later told me that this is a running joke between he and his wife.
"Every Christmas we had toys for the kids that had to be put together," said Mike, "and I'd think to myself, 'I'm not stopping to read a book on how to put together a bicycle.' Usually Mary Jane was the one that would finally read the book so things would be assembled properly."
Now that the A/C was working once more in the old farmhouse, Mary Jane could put down her fly swatter. I just had to smile as I watched her take us through the house, with fly swatter in hand the entire time. It's such a Kansas symbol of "the good ole days" when folks had screen doors and instead of storm doors.
"So what prompted you to want to do Christmas in July?" I asked Mary Jane, the instigator of all the falderal. "We used to come home to the farm for Christmas, ever since I was a kid — until there were too many to fit into the house," said Mary Jane. "You can't fit 50 people in this little house when the weather isn't decent outside. And we haven't gotten together as a family for Christmas for about five years — every body lives too far apart and traveling isn't good at that time of year."
So July was the perfect time to get the whole family together. "But the heat!" exclaimed Mary Jane. "It was so hot outside we could have cooked the meal outdoors — without any pots and pans!"
"Did you exchange presents too?" I asked. Mary Jane laughed, "I got chastised for that — we should have brought presents, but didn't think of it. But my brother, Robert and his wife, Rhonda, brought something for everybody — a snowman key chain!"
The Ihde's had 40+ attend the family celebration. So many, in fact, that they didn't have enough beds out at the farmhouse for everybody. So they rented Cousin's Corner Bed & Breakfast and Pat and I got to cook breakfast for 12 members of the family on Sunday morning and we had a grand time getting to know these kindred spirits.
It didn't take long to discover that we'd "met" this family before. Back in 2000, when Ramona's Fourth of July celebration was a relatively new event, the Ihde family was having a full-scale family reunion (140+ people) out at the farm in campers and trailers. They heard about Ramona's hometown parade and decided to enter.
"We made Statue of Liberty crowns out of paper plates and aluminum foil," said Mary Jane, pointing to a nail on the wall where all the crowns still hang. They loaded everybody onto a trailer and entered the Ramona parade. Bob, (the tease of the family) who had a video camera, amused himself by videoing the people of Ramona and telling them he was from WKRP from Cincinnati.
When Pat and I visited the Ihdes out at the farm on Saturday, we got the siblings together for a photo on the front porch of the farmhouse: Glenn, Carolyn, Mary Jane, and Robert (Bob). The only sibling missing was Patricia from Dallas. In the background of the photo was Ihde Mound.
"The Farm was called Ihde Mound Farm," said Mary Jane, and the Hill was called Ihde Mound, "she pointed southwest of the house. "It's highest point in Dickinson County."
Ahh, there are lots of memories connected to Ihde Hill, which is what locals call it 'round here. "Kids from Tampa and Ramona would go sledding there," said Warren Fike. "We had great fun on the hill — especially in 1937 when ice and snow stayed on the ground for about seven weekends," said Warren.
"We had a Scout Master, Thurl Brehm, who'd drive his car from town out to the hill and he'd pick up kids along the way," recalled Warren. "He had a tow rope behind his car and you could fasten your sled to a space along the rope and he'd end up with a dozen sleds behind him heading for Ihde Hill."
"I remember when I was in high school going sledding at Ihde Hill," said Noami Fike. "We went as a group — it was a school thing. We even went sledding at night — only time we could go. We had to be careful, though, so we didn't run into any fences, since the hill was out in a pasture."
"It was like Estes Park to us kids," said my mom, Martha Ehrhardt. "It was the closest thing to a mountain out here in the Prairie!"
So it wasn't just the Ihde's who got to enjoy some Christmas/snow memories in July. Other folks in the community got to relive some childhood memories and I'm sure "thinking of snow" made the temperature outside seem a little bit cooler.
I was drooling over an amazing piece of Marlene's cherry pie at the Ramona Cafe, when Warren and Paula Fike came in for lunch. They joined Pat, Tooltime Tim, and me, and we began discussing the Telfer family, which I reported about in last week's column.
I reported last week that one of Robert and Margaret's daughters was named Ellen. "Her name was Helen," corrected Warren. "Helen worked at the Central Office (the Ramona switchboard) when it was located just north of the bank building."
Warren also told me that Helen's married name is spelled McRae (not McCray). "That's what's out on her tombstone," said Warren with a grin. And he should know. Warren serves on the Lewis Cemetery Board along with Steve Eskeldson and Al Sondergard.
"And the daughter, Mary, worked at Tatge's down here," continued Warren, as he pointed east across the street from the restaurant to where Tatge's garage once stood, "not Tatge Manufacturing."
Oh my — when my Uncle Hank Schubert told me that "Mary worked at Tatge's" I just automatically thought of Tatge Manufacturing, where Hank worked until he retired.
I should have known better — Tatge Mfg. (which is down at the old high school on the north end of town) didn't even exist at the time of Mary Telfer's story, but I'd forgotten about Tatge's garage since it's been torn down since 1995.
A cement slab is all that remains of the once-stately garage where everything from tractors to refrigerators were sold. It was located just north of Betty's Café (later to be known as Cheers II). When the south wall of the garage collapsed, Jim Weber, owner of the old structure, decided it was time for the building to come down.
Pat took pictures inside and out; I gathered up some of the bricks for posterity, and we stood in reverence with other community folks as the old Ramona landmark tumbled to the ground.
My dad, Laurel Ehrhardt, told me stories of how exciting it was when Tatge's would unveil the latest John Deere tractor. We have pictures in our little Dirt Gambler's Museum showing the streets of Ramona buzzing with activity as people swarmed around Tatge's to get a look at the newest tractor.
And Tatge Bros. (that's the name that was painted on the roof tiles of the building) sold more than tractors. I discovered a scrap from one of their publicity pieces, which says: Tatge Sales Co., Farm Implements — Home Appliances, Herington and Ramona, Kansas. "They even had the Chevrolet franchise," added Warren Fike.
"I wanted things to go a little faster on the home place so I bought a John Deere tractor and plow from Tatge's. Paid $3,264 for the whole set-up," said Tony Meyer. "When they delivered it to the farm, Pop didn't want to accept it because he didn't think it was paid for. Harlan and Ed Tatge were real salesmen; the kind of people I liked."
"I never thought my dad ever bought a brand new tractor," said Jim Brunner, "and I said this one day in front of my uncle Ben and he corrected me. 'Oh yes he did, he bought one from Tatge's. It was during WW II and it was the only new tractor they sold that year.'"
"I worked for Tatge's for four or five years," said Clinton Hanschu, "drove to Texas, Oklahoma and got machinery, plows, combines. They were good guys to work for."
"Oh, I remember coming into town to Tatge's," said Warren's wife, Paula. "All us kids and mom waited in the car while dad went into Tatge's and bought us our first refrigerator. It was a Servel, propane-powered refrigerator. It was a really hot day and when dad came back to the car he had a bottle of orange pop for us kids to share. We didn't worry about germs in those days like we do now," laughed Paula.
The refrigerator was indeed a "big deal" in the Mueller household, who used the basement for keeping things, like butter, cool. "We didn't even own an ice box," said Paula, "and Warren's folks and most folks in the area had one of those — you see them in antique stores. They're wooden and have a place to put a piece of ice."
I do remember the day I first saw an ice box at an antique store. I finally understood why my mom always called the refrigerator an "icebox," and I did too as a kid, but hadn't a foggy notion as to why.
And that's the news from Ramona where ice is a treasured commodity, Christmas even happens in July, and there are no dogs in the road because it's just too darn hot!
