Grandma Remembers: Dimes, Tractors, and the Grit of Homestead

By Flo | Chapter One

I sat down with my grandma—she’ll be ninety-four on May twelfth—and asked her to tell me about her earliest memories of Florence County. I went in looking for history, but what I found was a story of how a young girl becomes the backbone of a family.

The Nine-Year-Old Driver

Long before she was the matriarch of our family, she was a farm kid in Homestead. Life on the farm didn't wait for you to grow up; it put you to work as soon as your feet could reach the pedals.

At nine years old, Grandma started driving the tractor.

"I thought it was kinda neat," she told me with a smile. But by seventeen? The romance had worn off. Work is work. Today, looking back from the vantage point of nearly a century, she appreciates those long days in the field. They built something in her that never wore out.

A Change of Plans

When Grandma was eleven, the world shifted. Her mother suffered a stroke and would never walk unaided again. In an instant, the childhood "play" of the farm became a full-time management role.

She learned to cook for a hungry family while most kids her age were still learning long division. It was a cycle of beef, veal, and potatoes pulled straight from their own gardens. The farm kept spinning because she and her siblings refused to let it stop.

The Ten-Cent Fortune

Life wasn't all heavy lifting, though. There were the "Potato Bug Dimes."

Grandma spent hours picking bugs off the crops for her dad. A full tin can earned her exactly ten cents. That dime was more than just pocket change; it was her ticket to the Fourth of July.

She remembers the drive to Aurora, heading toward the bridge where vendors would set up tents along the dusty roadside. That dime bought firecrackers—the only time of year she was allowed to touch a match.

"By the time I was ten, my mom said I was getting too old for the big ones."

As she "aged out" of the loud bangs, she moved on to the "lady firecrackers" and sparklers. She and her sister Vivian would walk slowly through the Northwoods dark, their faces lit by the rhythmic hiss of the wire sparklers, being careful not to let a single spark touch their skin.

Cold Watermelon and the Basement Pump

In a time before modern refrigeration, the Fourth of July had a specific ritual. They would take a watermelon and tuck it away in the basement, right next to the water pump where the air stayed cool and damp.

On that one day of the year, the rules disappeared. They could eat as much as they wanted—cold, sweet, and earned by a summer’s worth of hard work.

This is Florence County

That is Homestead. That is the grit and the beauty of this place before the war changed everything. It’s a reminder that the trails we hike and the fields we drive past today were built by people who knew the value of a dime and the responsibility of a family.

New chapters of "Grandma Remembers" will be posted weekly.

Flo’s Reflections

It’s easy to look at the Northwoods and see a vacation spot. But talking to Grandma reminds me that this land was tamed by eleven-year-olds who knew how to cook a full meal and nine-year-olds who could handle a tractor. We come from tough stock.

What’s your favorite "Grandma story"? Share it in the comments below!