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PERRY KELTNERS HOMESTEAD 

 In the foreground — Carl and Rover 



PERRY AND VIRGIL B-VNTER 

 Seed corn is a problem vhis year 



CARL AND HIS 



MOTHER 

 Nait year — lekooll 



MRS. BESSIE KELTNER AND 



FLOCK 



Sit* k««pi har chickens up nigkh 



Who Says Farming's Not Fun? 



jg^rS pretty empty right now," 

 I said Mrs. Perry Keltner as she 

 swung open the door of her 

 brand new electric refrigerator, "but 

 we haven't had to use it yet, it's been 

 so cold. From now on, it will be 

 packed all the time." 



Then she showed us her new elec- 

 tric iron, the electric washing ma- 

 chine, and in the meantime the WLS 

 program was coming in fine over the 

 big Philco in the next room. Ferry 

 spoke up, "We keep the barn lot 

 lighted, at night. The dairy barn is 

 electric lighted too. We keep the 

 chickens up late by turning on the 

 electric lights when it gets dark. It's 

 a dirty trick to play on them but it 

 gets the eggs." 



By this time you're probably won- 

 dering what this is all about, who the 

 Keltners are, where they live and 

 after that- — so what? Here's the story. 

 The writer, having previously been 

 scared out of Northern Illinois by 

 the heavy snow, poked his nose 

 cautiously into Stephenson coun- 

 ty the other day and looked up Virgil 

 Banter, the Farm Adviser. "How's for 

 driving me out to a Farm Bureau mem- 

 ber's house and let me take some pic- 

 tures and do a little interviewing?" 



"Anybody special you want to see?", 

 said Banter. We had no preference we 

 said, but why not just take a road 

 out of Freeport, ride along and let us 

 pick out a likely look'ng place and if 

 it belonged to a Farm Bureau member 

 we'd stop. That suited him and so 

 away we went. And that's how the 

 writer landed at the Perry Keltner 

 farm. And we're still pretty perked 

 up over the lucky coincidence that 

 led us to Perry's place and into his 

 barn lot. 



If you know where Kent township 

 is in Stephenson county, and you prob- 



Nol the Young Keltners of Stephenson County. They're as 

 Modern as Today's Newspaper 



ably don't, then you know where the 

 Keltners live. In all, the acreage to- 

 tals 156, 80 of which Perry owns out- 

 right and the rest which he rents from 

 his father. There are around 7 or 8 

 buildings on the place, all painted with 

 gray and white Soyoil paint and well 

 kept up. The home has 7 rooms, and 

 dropping in all of a sudden like, we 

 found it as neat as a pin. There will 

 be another room added to the house 

 this year, Mrs. Keltner said. It's go- 

 ing to be a modern bathroom and what 

 with all the electric equipment in the 

 house now, that would just about com- 

 plete a modern city home, to say 

 nothing of one in the country. 



This is largely a dairy country. What 

 grain is raised is used for feed. Of 



THE NEW ELECTRIC REFRIGERATOR 

 Carl says "It lights up inside" 



the 156 acres Perry farms, last year 38 

 were in corn. 35 in oats, 4 in wheat and 

 the rest in alfalfa and pasture. The 

 cattle are all Brown Swiss stock, and 

 of the 28 head. 18 are being milked 

 at present. There are 100 spotted Po- 

 land China hogs, 4 horses and then 

 Mrs. Keltner's flock of 100 or more 

 Barron type White Leghorn chickens. 



The farming is done largely with a 

 10-20 McCormick-Deering tractor with 

 the horses for the odds and ends of 

 things. Most of the milk is sold to 

 the condensery nearby and Mrs. Kelt- 

 ner sells the eggs to a produce man 

 that calls regularly. The hogs arc 

 shipped to the Producers in Chicago. 



Perry confesses to age 39. He was 

 born in JoDaviess county but says, 

 "I've lived on this land for 36 years 

 so you could almost say I was born 

 on it." Mrs. Keltner was bom and 

 brought up in Eldorado Springs, Mis- 

 <;ouri. That immediately tickled the 

 bump of curiosity on this writer's head 

 and we wanted to know how it hap- 

 pened that she met Perry over here 

 in Northern Illinois. It seems that the 

 then Bessie Wolf was teaching school 

 in Pearl City, which isn't more than 

 a good walk from the Keltner farm. 

 She went about her business of teach- 

 ing school for seven and a half years 

 before she decided that all things con- 

 sidered Perry Keltner had been get- 

 ting pretty insistent lately and besides 

 she had sort of gotten used to the coun- 

 try and so on. So she resigned from 

 her teaching job and a not too sur- 

 prised school board wished her all the 

 happiness in the world as Mrs. Perry 

 Keltner. 



That was 12 years ago, January 2nd. 



APRIL, 1936 



31 



