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April 9, 2000
Springfield native authors bookExperience of growing up on farm in Depression chronicledBy FRITZ BUSCH Journal Staff Writer SPRINGFIELD -- Viola Radtke Mode returned to her hometown Saturday to talk about her book "All Rivers Run to the Sea," and other subjects of interest to people her age. "It seems like I've never left Springfield. It keeps calling me back," Mode said Saturday morning in the Altermatt Room of the Springfield Public Library. She grew up on the Radtke farm, five miles southwest of town, which led her to write the book. Mode was visiting her brother one day in the Springfield nursing home and learned that the man that bought their farm was going to tear down all the buildings. She drove to the farm and looked at the buildings before returning home to Brooklyn Center. "The buildings looked just like they did when I was young," she said. "I decided I can't let all the memories go away. I went back home and had a video writer and glorified typewriter and put down all my memories." She gathered family pictures, poems and obituaries and decided to write a book, only for the family, at first. Mode started contacting publishers and found out they wanted her to write and sell the book and go on tours while they took 45 percent of the sales. She decided she couldn't do that at age 80. "I didn't want to run around the country," Mode said. "I didn't think people would find my book among so many books in a big bookstore, either." Mode looked into self publishing the book and rode a roller coaster of emotions for six months until she found a literary agent that would take her work to a publisher for her. She found a publisher that had done work for her church that originally told her he wanted to write 2,500 books. They later agreed on 500 books and a "good deal" if a second printing was needed. Mode never thought she would need a second printing, but she said she has been pleasantly surprised. Now she gets lots of letters from readers and is enjoying that even more than she did writing the book. She read excerpts from her book about what her life was like as a youngster during the Great Depression: "The Depression did not affect us for some time. My parents did not own stock so the big collapse of the stock market in November of 1929 did not affect us. Neither did unemployment. There was plenty of work on the farm for everyone. "What did effect affect us was falling prices. We were just recovering from the drought. We could not sell what we produced. People with no jobs could not buy food. "My parents never discussed money with us, so we were not aware of the Depression. We did not know that some of our schoolmates moved away because their farm was taken by the bank because of the loans they could not repay. "I remember my mother came home from town one day and was very upset. She had to sell eggs for two cents a dozen, 60 cents for a whole case. "My father had a large number of steers. By mid-summer, prices began to fall. My father was listening to the noon markets on the radio. One day steers went up 50 cents. The next day, prices plunged $1. His fist hit the table. 'Call the neighbors to bring their horses. I'm selling the steers to save the farm,' he said. "It was quite a sight to see Black Angus cattle being driven to the South St. Paul Stockyards. Father spent a week there before he found buyers for them all. "It was a difficult time for my father. He never talked about it. He tore down the feed lot and never fed steers again. "His friend George could not handle his losses and committed suicide." "We burned corn cobs and ears in the stove to keep warm. Coal was too expensive. "Mother made ice cream after a bad hailstorm broke lots of windows on the house. When life deals you lemons, make lemonade." She also recalled entering kindergarten at age four in a one-room schoolhouse with an outhouse. Her teacher was Ada Evenson through the fourth grade. Then she got married and left the school, to Mode's dismay. It was not the same with her next teacher, whom students labeled a "city slicker." Mode urged the audience to sit down and write their memories or speak them on videotape. She said making a list of family possessions and letting family members choose what they want and will decisions can be made before death to avoid family inheritance fights afterward. She also suggested getting some family heirlooms appraised. Mode had other frugal tips: * If you're compulsive, stay away from craft shows. Buy only what you need. * Sit back, enjoy life. Realize you won't be here forever. You can feel good about giving some possessions away to people before you die.
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