THE SEBEWA RECOLLECTOR Bulletin of the Sebewa Center Association,
DECEMBER 1993, Volume 29, Number 3.
Submitted with written permission of Editor Grayden D. Slowins:

SURNAME:
KNEALE, WHITLOCK, FIRST, HARWOOD, REED, HEINTZELMAN, NASH, SLATER, GRIFFIN, LAPO, HORN, SHAY, ELDRIDGE, JENSON, ROLLS, BRINK, MIDDAUGH, TUSING, NOTT, FOREMAN, MACKEY, GOODENOUGH, HOUSERMAN, SPITZLEY, FOX, ARENS, SIMON, KLOECKNER, GIERMAN, JOYNT, GREEN, WALSH, SAYER, SLOWINSKI

RECENT DEATHS:
HOWARD J. KNEALE, 89, husband of Geneva Whitlock Kneale, father of LaVerne, Lyle & Gary, brother of late Riley Kneale & Mrs. Glenn First, son of William H. Kneale & Iva Harwood. He farmed at W1/2 NE1/4 Sec. 18 Sebewa on Henderson Road, and favored Herford cattle, as did his cousins, Harold Harwood and Walter Reed, who mother was Clara Harwood.

HOWARD A. HEINTZELMAN, 82, husband of Nancy Rosanna Nash & Helen, brother of Robert Heintzleman & Olive Slater, son of Grace & Harry Heintzleman, son of William E. Heintzleman, who settled in SW1/4 SE1/4 & NE1/4 SW1/4 Sec. 17 Sebewa on Bippley Road before 1891. He was a tool & die maker, Presbyterian, buried at Balcom Cemetery.

IVAH M. GRIFFIN, 100, widow of Dale Griffin, mother of Mark Griffin, sister of late Roy Lapo, daughter of Emma Horn & Ora Lapo, son of Reuben Lapo. Reuben Lapo settled in NE1/4 Sec. 29 Sebewa before the Civil War, on what became the John Shay farm on Musgrove Hwy. Ora Lapo owned the east half in 1891, and John Griffin owned directly behind on Tupper Lake Road. Buried at Lakeside Cemetery.

GERALDINE E. ELDRIDGE, 70, wife of LaVern Eldridge, mother of Larry, Eddie, John & Joan, sister of Zoa Jenson and the late Eleanor Rolls, Irene Brink & Estia Middaugh, daughter of Rebecca Tusing & Alonzo Nott. The W. Nott family owned 80 acres at center of N1/2 Sec. 33 Sebewa on Tupper Lake Road in 1891 and after, but we are not sure of the connection. Geraldine’s parents lived on the Robert Musgrove farm, where Musgrove hits Jordan Lake Road. Geraldine & LaVern farmed there one year, and then joined his parents on the Behler farms, which they eventually bought and added to on Portland Road. Buried at Lakeside Cemetery.

JOYCE E. KNEALE, 60, wife of Lyle Kneale, mother of Kenneth Kneale & Kathleen Foreman, sister of Jean Mackey, daughter of Mary Goodenough & Karl Houserman. They farmed at E1/2 NE1/4 Sec. 8 & SE3/4 SE1/4 Sec. 5 Sebewa, on Clarksville Road and she drove Lakewood school bus. Buried in Saranac Cemetery.

LEO A. SPITZLEY, 94, widower of Theresa Fox Spitzley, father of Leo M., Robert S., Harold S., Philip J., Joan J., David E., Wilma I., Roy C., Jerome P, Alvin R., Alice I., brother of Michael J., Edwin, Hildegard, Pauline, Josephine, Laurine, Adelaide, son of Josephine Arens & Michael Kloeckner & Johann Jakob Spitzley, who emigrated from Prussia to Westphalia, MI, in 1846. He farmed on Ainsworth Road in Berlin Township and on Divine Hwy. in Portland Township.

ELMER R. GIERMAN, 93, widower of Muriel Joynt Gierman, father of Joanne Green, Karl & Michael Gierman, brother of the late Robert, George & Carl Gierman, Cora Walsh, Edna Sayer & Nettie Nash, son of Christina & Charles Gierman, son of Frederick Gierman, who settled at W3/4 NE1/4 Sec. 21 Sebewa on Bippley road, where Ilene Carr lives now, between 1875 and 1891. He was an appraiser & loan supervisor for Farmer’s Home Administration.

AUSTRALIA & NEW ZEALAND – Continued by Grayden Slowins
Saturday, August 28, 1993, we leave Bryson Hotel in Melbourne for a trip thru the Blue Dandenong Mountains. We pass thru a suburban area.......After lunch across from Town Hall in downtown Melbourne, we re-board the bus for our trip to see the Penguins……then into flat open country with lush vegetable crops. We see a few Border Leicester sheep, but mostly beef & dairy cattle, because the land is so flat & wet there is a problem with hoof-rot in sheep……

The Penguins live in the ocean by day and come ashore every night of the year. For three weeks during molting they are not waterproof, so they stay ashore. They have oil glands that coat the feathers. These Fairy Penguins are the smallest variety in the world. They live in little burrows in the sand dunes, where they hatch two eggs and raise their young. Their main enemies are foxes, dogs, cats, and humans with flash cameras. The light blinds their delicate eyes, so a phot is forbidden by Park rules. They crouch and slowly, hesitantly, walk up the path past the tourists to their homes.

Thursday, September 2, we board the Airport Express Bus to catch Quantas Flight 43 to Auckland, New Zeeland……seated next to a forester, raised in Central Africa, who has lived in Rotorua, NZ, for 25 years. He says New Zealand lambs are grass-finished smaller than ours for sale to export. Local people eat hogget, a yearling, considered better tasting than lamb or aged ewe. New Zealand destroyed the Finnish Landrace breed, because they though it brought Scrapie, a disease which they aren’t sure even exists……

We leave Auckland Province and enter Waikato Province……Some farms have root crops (turnips) ready for the sheep to pasture in this season of short grass, and other vegetables are just starting to grow…we see large Holstein dairy herds. The driver says the small milk & cheese plants were all closed in 1965 and consolidated into a few large plants, losing a lot of local jobs. All power stations have been converted from coal to gas, or use water power. We follow the Waikato River a while. Beautiful Calla Lilies are growing wild. White geese are pasturing with the sheep. Several ewes have twins. The land is rolling green hill pastures, with Barberry hedge fences neatly trimmed flat at 48 inches high, with metal gates……Golf courses have electric fences to keep sheep off, but some are pasturing anyway. A black Suffolk-cross ewe has a nice whit Cheviot lamb. The dairy cow is the symbol of Waikato Province and in Hamilton, a city of 120,000 we see a large dairy processing plant with a statue of a cow out front. There are 980,000 cows in the province, average farm has 240 acres and 250 cows. Land is worth $8000NZ per acre. We see one of few fields of corn stuble. Corn is used for silage. Also some grass silage in plastic tubes. No upright silos, few trench silos, no storage for dry shelled corn. What little silage and hay is grown is fed to cattle, not sheep. All farm subsidies were ended overnight two years ago, when European Common Market did the same……. Border Leicester sheep, some lambs two months old, and some new-born. Deer farms are common here for export trade. Freshly plowed ground ready for spring crops……we see a brand new New Holland square baler in a dealership, along with assorted small tools. No big tractors, tillage tools, corn planters, or combines in New Zealand……To the Agrodome for a demonstration of all the breeds of sheep, a bit about each one’s history and strong points, and some demonstrations of shearing, est. Breeds shown included Texel, Lincoln, Perendale, Cheviot, Romney, Merino, Corriedale, Border Leicester, English Leicester, Coopworth, Polled Dorset, Black Romney, South Suffolk, Suffolk, Drysdale, Dorset Horn, Hampshire, Southdown, Dorset Down. Merino has long fine wool which is in demand for clothing, and is favorite for Australian sparse pastures. Corriedale is a Merino cross with Lincoln or English Leicester ram, and is used on drier hills & plains on New Zealand’s South Island. Romney has coarse carpet wool and is favorite in New Zealand, although Drysdale is very best for this. Coopworth, which is Romney crossed with Border Leicester, and Perendale, which is Romney crossed with Cheviot, are for similar use. South Suffolk, Black Romney & Dorset Down are for black-wool spinners as well as meat. Dorset Horn is oldest breed known to man. Dutch Texel & Polled Dorset are nicest for meat lambs. Southdown is smaller and also for same purpose. Suffolk & Hampshire are for the same purpose but larger.

Sheep are crutched before lambing or shearing, so a good shearer can shear 250-300 in a 9-hour day and a top person can do 400. The record is 664. Some women are in the top contests today too. This man sheared a Romney for us. Carpet wool is worth $2.50 NZ/kilo or $1.15 NZ/pound. The sheep yield 5 kilo or 10 pounds per year. Back outside, the shepherd demonstrated herding with dogs. There are noisy dogs & quiet dogs. Noisy dogs are sent out to round up the sheep out of the hill pastures. Then the noisy dog is sent to sit on the truck. The quiet dog herds, cuts, divides, and pens the sheep without barking or snapping at them. He just crouches here, crouches there, and stares them into going where he wishes. If necessary he can run over their backs to start the lead animal……New Zealanders value their dogs for the work they do, but never forget it is sheep & not dogs that feed & clothe the world.

Their ewes are Romneys as are some rams. Some ewes are bred to Suffolk rams as “terminal sires”, meaning all lambs go for meat, none kept for replacement ewes. They have also used Dorsets for this purpose. They get 2000 live lambs yearly, of which about 1400 are marketed and 600 are kept as hoggets (yearlings). They still sell by the head, as we did 100 years ago. They get $38.50 NZ per head for lambs. Converted to American dollars, that is $22.00 US/head. They apparently pay more Income Tax, Health Care Tax & Social Security Tax than we do, but little or no Property Tax. They have little farm machinery investment; just a small tractor with loader bucket, a bush-hog, a disc plow, a whirl-wind seeder, some sorting gates but no barn, a pickup truck & a car. Their biggest expense would appear to be interest & principal on their mortgage……

Lynn Hughes is a farm girl who attended a ten-student rural school, and a Boarding High School & College for kids from outlying farms. Julian did not grow up on the farm, and while they appear to be well-educated, it is not specified what they worked at to earn a grub-stake for farming. They are about 39-40 years old and must have done something profitable before they started a farm & family.

Lynn is a remarkable shepherd, who can drench (worm) or palpate udders on 2000 ewes in 3 days with a child strapped to her back and has done it with one in front too (when pregnant). Palpating means to feel, for lumps or lack of filling udder. Those with problems are sorted out just before lambing. The rest are divided into flocks of 30-150 to fit the size of pasture they will lamb in. Flocks are checked daily with pickup truck and assistance given where necessary. All ewes have ear tags, but records are just on whether lambed, not production & growth rates as we do……

We pass Huka Falls on the Wairakai River and see beautiful glacier-blue Lake Taupo, a 740 ft. deep volcano crater, and largest lane in Austro-asia. Now we see sheep again and these resemble Border Leicesters but are what they call Cheviots, what we call North Country Cheviots because they are as large as any breed.
(To be continued)