1. 90th Birthday
1920 - 1929
• Graduates from grade school
• Farm life
• First car

2. 90th Birthday 1920-1929 World Events
President: Woodrow Wilson (1919), Warren G Harding (1920), Calvin Coolidge (1924),H Hoover (1929)
Vice President: Thomas R. Marshall, Calvin Coolidge (1920), None (1924), Charles Curtis (1929)
Population: 108,538,000 (1920)
Postage Stamp: $.02
Unemployment: 5.2
•Speakeasies replace saloons as the center of social activity (1920)
•Woman’s suffrage (19th) amendment ratified (1920)
•Vitamin D and E discovered (1920)
•Insulin isolated and used for diabetes treatment (1922)
•First television transmission tube used – in Russia (1923)
•Time magazine debuts (1923)
•Walt Disney creates his first cartoon, Alice’s Wonderland (1924)
•First Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade (1924)
•Adolf Hitler publishes Volume I of Mein Kampf (1925)
•First woman governor in U.S. history Wyoming, Nellie Tayloe Ross (1925)
•Ben-Hur released costing a record-setting $3.95 million dollars (1925)
•First television image transmitted in London (1925)
•Leica markets 35mm camera (1925)
•Auto antifreeze allows people to use cars year-round (1926)
•Knee-length hemlines mark new high (1926)
•Charles Lindbergh makes first solo nonstop transatlantic flight (1927)
•Penicillin discovered by Alexander Fleming (1928)
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3. 90th Birthday 1920-1929 Gladys and Felix
Gladys and Felix by the fam ily farm house
Gladys and little brother Felix
Gladys and taller
little brother.
Gladys and Felix
on the fence
around the farm
house. Mama
would not allow
them to go
barefoot before
June 1.
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4. 90th Birthday 1920-1929 Graduates Grade 8
These are Felix’s 8th grade papers.
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5. 90th Birthday 1920-1929 Rabbits and School
Family farm pictures
These were rabbits Felix raised. He
skinned the rabbits and paid the Indians
working on the farm 15 cents to tan the
hide. A days wage was $1 a day and they
paid the Indians 5 cents a sack to pick
potatoes and sort them into big and little
potatoes – each size in different sacks.
Mama took a picture of Felix
leaving for his first day in High
School. She used a camera
Felix bought and it was lost
later in a fire.
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6. 90th Birthday 1920-1929 Family
The extended family is growing..
Gladys, Felix and Earl Rogers
that married their sister Ruth.
Peter and Anna with
Ruth and seven of Ruth
and Earls eight
children, taken by the
gate in the farm house
fence; by Rudolph’s car.
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7. 90th Birthday 1920-1929 Farm
The farm was a 160 acres of semi sub irrigated land that
was just big enough to be too small for a viable
economic unit. When the American Falls reservoir was
built the water table rose and decreased their production.
When Felix was old enough to work off the farm he
helped the neighbor harvest corn for $1.00 per day. The
neighbor didn’t have any cash to pay him so he gave
Felix the stalks for the cows. After a days work Felix
loaded the stalks on a wagon and hauled them home – it
was his pay for the day.
Peter Hoff with a
shovel and a
canvas irrigation
dam . A is
nna
standing by the
farm house.
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8. 90th Birthday 1920-1929 Farm Chores
Farm chores.
When Felix was 1 0-1 2 years old one of his daily farm
chores was to pum p water for the dairy cows.
Som etim es he’d pum p until he got tired and then he’d
chase the cows away from the trough. When they cam e
back for a drink Mam a would send him back out to
pum p m ore water.
On the farm they raised pigs and a calf or two for They kept some milk from their dairy cows for
the family meat supply. They butchered two pigs family use; the rest of the milk was separated
and stored the pork salted in a barrel. They (turning the separator by hand) and the cream
butchered at least one yearling steer or heifer a was sold to the creamery in town.
year and canned most of it in jars on the kitchen
stove. The beef was grass fat, they never fed The jars of family milk was put into a bucket and
grain to the beef they ate. lowered into the well to keep it cool.
They also raised a garden. The parsnips stayed They raised potatoes for a cash crop and stored
in the ground all winter and they dug them as them in the potato cellar until sold. One year they
they were needed. The carrots were buried in could not sell their potatoes so they kept them
sand, and they canned tomatoes, apples, pears, and fed them to the hogs.
peas, and other vegetables.
The local Indians picked their potatoes. One year
They had a root cellar under the house for cold a steer bloated and died, they gave it to the
storage – it took the place of a refrigerator. Indians; they butchered the steer and dried the
meat for their own use.
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9. 90th Birthday 1920-1929 First Cars
This is Felix’s first car. His older brother
Rudolph made if for him from spare parts
when Felix was 13 years old. It was a
Model T Ford; they didn’t have electric
starters, you cranked it to get it started. If
it was really hard to start Felix would jack
up a rear wheel; the wheel turned when
he cranked and it helped keep the engine
running until it warmed up.
It had a gas pedal and three shifting
pedals on the floorboard. You pushed on
the left pedal for low gear and let it out for
high gear. The center pedal was reverse
and the right pedal was the brake; it only
had brakes on the rear wheels.
It had two levers just below the steering wheel The lever on the right was the gas lever. It
similar to the turn signal and the automatic worked the same as putting your foot on the
gear shift that are in modern cars. The left gas pedal, except you could set the gas lever
lever adjusted the spark. You pushed it in any position and it would keep the engine
forward (up) to start the engine, this allowed running at that speed. It was sort of a cruise
the piston to reach the top of the cylinder and control.
start down again before the spark ignited the
gas to start the engine running. As you started down the road and the engine
picked up speed you moved the spark lever
If you didn’t set the spark lever all the way back so the gas ignited in the cylinders when
forward the spark would ignite the gas before the piston was at the top of the top – thereby
the piston reached the top of its stroke in the getting all the power from the ignited fuel.
cylinder and the engine would ‘kick’ backwards
jerking the crank out of your hand. From Model T drivers had an expression for going
experience you learned not to grasp the crank fast, “I eared her back and let her go.” That
handle like you hold a hammer handle or a meant they would pull both the spark lever and
knife. If you had your hand over the crank the gas lever all the way back to get the most
handle, like you hold a hammer, and the motor power and speed from the engine. They would
backfired (kicked) it felt like your thumb had hold the levers with their left hand and steer
been ripped from its socket. You soon learned with their right hand.
to keep your thumb and all of your fingers on
the same side of the crank handle.
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10. 90th Birthday 1920-1929 First Cars
Felix didn’t need a driver’s license, he could
drive anywhere. One of the neighbor ladies
didn’t care for the way he drove and when she
saw him coming she would make all of her
children go into the house until he passed.
One day his car died in front of the Cschikof
place and he walked home. When he went
back a few days later they had striped it for
parts for their own cars. That was the end of
Felix’s first car.
In the background of the picture (previous
page) the black Model T was the family car.
Like most farm houses they parked on the side
of the house and went in the back door of the
house. Anna, Felix’s mother, is standing by the
back door.
This 1 928 Model A Ford was the first Model
A to com e to Firth, Felix’s hom e town. His
older brother Rudolph bought it new for
$500.00 and he paid cash. Felix went with
him and rode hom e in a new car.
This was a m odern car, it had glass side
windows, a starter so you didn’t have to
crank it, but there was a place to crank it if
the battery was low. It had m etal spoke
wheels, a heater to keep you warm , and
brakes on all four wheels.
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