Love - The Odessa Record "By Your Relative"

Odessa Record subscriber Larry Fisher of Spokane continues his series of articles on the history of the Batum/Lauer area (where his wife, the former Joyce Kiesz, grew up.)

Hi, here I am again.

Continued from last week “The Schibels.”

Don told me “his father changed over to the tractor around 1935 when farming started to improve.” By 1936, farming was better and in 1939 when WWII started, the crops were very good and the price was a lot better than it had been for quite a while. The “Great Depression” was over.

In a 1935 TOR article about the Odessa Trading company – part of it said “Tractor sales of over $40,00 were made by the Odessa Trading company during the past few weeks, it was announced on Monday by W.C. Raugust, manager of the company. The sales included 21 tractors, as follows: .. 20-TracTractor, Henry Schibel, Basil Oliver, and Jacob Walter Jr., all of Odessa and a 22-36 McCormick-Deering tractor to J.J. Schrag, Odessa.” (Note: Others were listed but they were not identified as being Odessa.)

In the 30s, most families in the L-B-D had greater mobility than the families before them. The automobile, pickup/truck of different types were being used. The Schibels started with a 1929 Model-A, then a 1937 Ford V8, finally a 1941 Ford, costing about $1,000.

Roads in the L-B-D were usually poor. Today, you would call then “unimproved” in most cases. As for Kagele road that goes by the Schibels today, in the “old days” it was called the Irby road. The road was first improved by Henry Schibel. He improved it south to the Lincoln/Adams Co. line by himself. Later Lincoln Co. improved the remaining portion of the road north to the State highway.

Also in the 1930s – 1940s, the Odessa school bus route for the area the Schibels lived in started in Odessa, then going west on the State highway to the Star ranch, south and west on what today is called Schafer road. After going by both of the Schafers, turning south at the Loeffelbein farm to the Els farm at the country line, then west on the country line road stopping at the Irby (Kagele) road to let Don, etc. off. (Note: Except for the two years in Spokane, this was the bus route up to the time Don graduated in 1947.)

In April, 1979 the Schibel children honored Henry and Katie for their 60th wedding anniversary. It was in Spokane, on Easter Sunday with a dinner at the Ridpath Hotel. Attending were Mr. & Mrs. Don Schibel, Mr. & Mrs. Floyd Derr, Mr. & Mrs. John Underwood, Mrs. Dorothy Gallaway and Mrs. Schibel’s twin brother, David Frick.

Henry died 7-19-1988, Katie 8-8-1989.

Until next time.

Your Relative,

Spokane