Farms

Interview with former Northboro farmer Raymond and his son Don Haitsma by Forest Lyford and Alan Gustafson on Oct. 16, 1999

Haitsma hay loader – Forest Lyford and Allan Bezanson (Don’s stepbrother) on left

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RH. Well, it was a battle. We had a couple of silos. When we could put the silos up, we could spread the hay.
FL. How many acres of land did you have here?
RH. Probably about 100 acres of land here.
FL. Is that what it would take to maintain a herd of 24 or 26 cows?
DH. Well, yes, and we would rent lands for hay.
FL. You didn’t use all the land for yourselves?
DH. We used everything that we could and would rent land up the street. Where the Boroughs Shopping Plaza is, this side of it where the new hotel is, there was a farm there. We planted corn up there, and we hayed it too. I can remember going up Millham Roadand doing some haying up there. I remember having corn over on Maple Street where – I
can’t remember the name of the street, there was a big white house there that used to belong to the town doctor, that was all open – Omaha Avenue, that area, that was all open.
FL. What about the land across the street? Was that part of your farm?
DH. Just the field directly across the street. The Schutte farm, which was behind _,they had a bigger herd. For a long time, Miss Schutte and her mother farmed it all by themselves. Eventually she married the hired man. Then she had some help.
FL. That’s one way to do it, I guess. In the earlier days you had a team of horses and you did all of the plowing and raking, and so forth, with horses?
RH. Yeah. In the summertime we had a third one doing light work so we could keep the team together. That team did their share of keeping us short of hay. We had the whole back end of the barn full of hay, and that all went for the horses.
AG. When did you get your first tractor?
DH. I don’t remember.
AG. Was it before the war.
DH. (pulls out a framed picture of a small track-type tractor).
FL. Is this you on the tractor?
RH. Oh. (FL recalls RH stating that it was someone else on the tractor, maybe a hired hand)
AG. Well that doesn’t eat much hay anyway.
DH. I was trying to figure out what year this was. That’s the cle-track.
RH. That would be around 1925. (Some discussion of who was on the tractor)
DH. This picture was taken before the new route 20 went through, and I think that went through in 1930. The road in this picture about where that tractor is for sale (near the current route 20).
FL. So this was used for plowing, manure spreading? It has a tine harrow on it.
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DH. It must have been around 1938 when we got the first wheel tractor. I can remember that.
FL. During this time you still had a team of horses?
RH. Not very long after we got the first wheel tractor. (In addition to the ) tractor there was a whole line of equipment. Eventually, we got the equipment that fit the tractor. (Some discussion about equipment that was difficult to hear on the tape).
FL. When you got the tractor, and you mentioned a line of equipment, that would include a mowing machine, a side delivery rake of some kind?
DH. We used the regular dump rake for a long time.
FL. Did you continue to throw hay on the load by hand, or did you get one of the overhead loaders?

DH. I don’t think we got a hay loader until after the war did we?
RH. We were haying all over creation. We were haying opposite the entrance to the high school. That was a big open field. It’s houses now. We had a wheel tractor, and I can remember bringing the hay loader behind that. Somehow it got discombobulated. I looked behind me, and somehow the hay loader was running off the highway.
FL. What about bailing equipment? I suppose you eventually got into bailing your hay and putting up bails.
RH. That wasn’t heard of in those days.
DH. That must have been in 56 or 57 before we got the first bailer or maybe later.
RH. I would say so.
FL. Square bales or round?
DH. They were rectangular. I guess we have had quite a succession bailers since then. Funny, we bought one about 30 some-odd years ago. I went to a birthday party in Barre a few weeks ago, and the farmer who sold us that bailer came bustling right over. He said “Gee, how did you ever make out with that little bailer I sold you?” Apparently he
figured it was a bad deal because he figured it was going to break right off. He was quite relieved when I told him we got 7 or 8 years out of it. The thing of it was, he was one of my milk customers, and I knew that he was not mechanical at all. Every time the bailer broke, he had to have the dealer come and fix it, for a lot of money. When he got ready to
sell it, I thought, well gee, we ought to be able to buy this cheap, which we did. Of course, we fixed it ourselves every time it broke and eliminated the dealer’s bills, and got along very nicely with it.
FL. Don was saying that you gave up the dairy business in the mid 50’s or thereabouts. I was kind of curious about why you gave up the business. He was saying that it had to do with equipment and so forth. I know a lot of dairy businesses went out of business about that time. I guess it became more and more difficult to make a living at the dairying
business.
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RH. There was another reason. Later on gallon jugs of milk came into the stores. There was no sense for the farmers running around the street and setting individual quarts of milk on porches every day of the week.
FL. Then you got into the business of, what was the term that you used, replacement cows?
DH. Yes, dairy replacements, in other words, young heifers. We had heifers here right up until 76. My Dad’s house burned in 76. We were too busy cleaning up the mess to deal with the heifers.
FL. That was the house next door?
DH. Yes.
FL. So this one (next door) is a rebuilt house?
DH. This end burned off and the rest was damaged pretty much, but they were able to restore it, or rebuild it, I’ll put it that way.
FL. Did you ever get into beef cattle or is that different?
DH. Whenever we had beef cattle we could never keep them in. In fact, in late years we had trouble keeping the heifers in. It seems like every single time we planned to have a cookout, we would be just ready to eat in the front lawn, and somebody would pull in and say your cows are out.
AG. I remember those days.
DH. The happiest day in my life was maybe 5 or 6 years ago. I was sitting at the kitchen table and the phone rang. It was the Marlborough police and they said, Mr. Haitsma, your cows are out, and I was very happy to say that Mr. Haitsma doesn’t have any cows. It turned out that our neighbor up the street had some beef cows and somebody had tried to
steal his car. They live right beside Hayes Memorial Drive, so they came off Hayes Memorial Drive and cut their way through the fence to the pasture on both sides. Of course, the cows got out at the corner of Route 20 and Boundary St. So I did walk out to the end of the driveway, saw all kinds of blue lights, turned around and came back.
AG. Cows can be pretty dumb when you want to get them back in the pasture.
FL. I had a cow when I was in high school, and my dad would say it could jump like a deer. We used to have a poke that we would put around its neck: a forked stick that would hang between its legs. That seem to do the job.
DH. Cows aren’t made to be kept alone. They need other cows around. If you have a single cow they like to travel.
FL. What about bulls. Did you have your own bull, or did you use artificial insemination, or was that later than your operation here?
RH. The artificial insemination was coming in. We had a bull until at least 1940.
DH. It was later than that because they didn’t start the bull barn up in Shrewsbury until 1950 I don’t think. I remember that. Al Eaton used to come around to breed the cows.
AG. Did you have your own bull or did you use someone else’s?
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FL. Did you have to keep the bulls separate? Let me ask, what kind of cows did you raise?
DH. All kinds. It was a mixed herd.
FL. So you didn’t have an all Holstein herd or Jersey?
DH. No.
FL. A few Jersey cows to keep the butterfat content up?

DH. Well, yes. We had Jerseys and Guernseys and Holsteins, Ayrshiers, so it was a mixed bag (no pun intended). We did have a bull pen in the barn, but it seems to me that the bulls would run out with the cows most of the time.
FL. I remember as a kid, we would were always very cautious of Jersey bulls.
DH. They have a reputation of being pretty mean.
FL. I also remember, we would go over to the University of New Hampshire where they had several bulls. It was like going to the zoo for us. They were huge, huge animals. I know that yours did not get that big, but I know they could grow to be pretty good size.
DH. You probably don’t remember, but there was a nationally know Guernsey herd in Berlin, Chedco (?) Farms. They kept 4 bulls there. They bred all their cows artificially, but they kept 4 bulls right there on their own farm. They must have been up in the 2,500 to 3,000 pound class. They were big bulls. Pretty impressive. They had pipe rail fences
that big around. And periodically you would hear a bull clang up against them.
RH. Something you won’t need to put in your notes. I’m trying to think where it was. I don’t think it was UMASS, but anyway, I bought a bull at an auction somewhere. This was not quite full grown. I get out there and they advertised that they would deliver the bull that was bought at the auction. I talked to the auctioneer about the arrangements. He said, we just have a little pen for a small bull. If you could slide right in your truck and save us a trip. So, I have no objection to that. We put it in the back and pulled up to a popular eating place, I’ve forgotten where it was, and parked the truck. The bull had to go, so he went. It dropped over the tailgate. We came out from eating, and there was the
neatest pile of stuff.
DH. So, did you just drive away and leave it? I’m sure you did.
RH. I backed right over it without thinking about it.
FL. As I understand, you took over the farm when your father died. At the time you were school or college. Were you studying agriculture.
RH. No, I was at Worcester Tech. My father died in the winter time. I needed one more semester to graduate. I never got it.
FL. What were you studying there?
RH. Nothing connected with farming.
AG. Well, I suppose that engineering came in handy on the farm.
RH. Once in a while. As time went on, we would buy stuff at Ross Brothers. Finally, International Harvester wouldn’t let Ross sell. That’s where I bought my first tractor at Ross Brothers. International Harvester wouldn’t let Ross Brothers sell their products
anymore. I forgot what the reason was. 7

DH. I think that had to do with the volume, or they had to have a sales room. The same deal that Charlie is in now. He can’t sell new International stuff over in Berlin.
FL. You have to handle a certain volume before they let you sell?
DH. Yeah. You have to maintain a certain amount in stock. He’s the only International Parts dealer around, but they took the franchise for selling machinery away from him. But, of course, there are not too many farmers around that need farm tractors too.
AG. Now you said the trolley used to run in front of the house out here.
DH. Yes. Here’s a picture. That’s the picture I told you about (to his dad).
FL. So when did the trolley go out.
DH. Do you remember what year they quit running. I think Bob Kennerly said around 27 or 28.

Bob Kennerly was president of the Northborough Historical Society in 1980–2. I had him for chemistry at Algonquin and he was one of my favorite teachers.

AG. Where did it run, from the center of town.
DH. To Marlborough.
FL. So this house appears in the picture.
DH. And the barn. You can see the name on the barn over the top of the trolley. Did you say that was the last one to come by Pop.
RH. Yes. Chet, Raymond’s brother was in the field across the road and waited. They were on an hourly schedule. I am trying to think if Chet was still at home. He graduated in 1926, so it was sometime before that.
DH. I this picture you can see the part of my father’s house that is no longer there on the left.
FL. So the road was not too far from your front porch here.
DH. Well, it was a lot closer. There are some barberries in front on my father’s yard. It was just behind that.
AG. So, when they rerouted it you gained a little.
FL. Was the main road paved?
DH. Yes.
FL. Somehow I never associated paving until much later.
DH. Well, the new road was cement. The road they put in 29 or 30. It had two lanes of cement with a tar (?) middle lane. Of course, when they blacktopped that road they blacktopped right over that. On a hot night you can still hear the thugs from the tires going over the expansion joints. Of course, Route 20 used to be the main trucking route
to New York City.
AG. Before the turnpike went in.
DH. There used to be a steady stream of trucks going by all night long.

Allan Bezanson is the step brother of Don Haitzsma. Both Don and Allen picked up milk from my father’s farm.

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RH. The interesting part was, in those early days when we were here, nobody ever plowed the road. When I was going to school in Marlborough, the fellow wouldn’t plow, and the trucks coming through from Boston, I don’t know how they got to Marlborough, if they found two tracks plowed out, that was lovely. They would get on the tracks and
churn away. Everything was fine until a (street) car coming towards them. Something had to be done. So tractor trailer would drive off the tracks and promptly get stuck. Then the car would stop. If the car was 5 minutes late leaving for Marlborough, I wouldn’t spend any time waiting, I just started walking. The car might come an hour later.
FL. So you picked up the trolley out here and went to school in Marlborough. You didn’t go to the Northborough schools?
RH. No. High school only had a dozen pupils in a class. My father planned on having me go to college. In order to do that, I needed to take classes in a variety (of courses). He paid the $800 per year.
FL. Don was saying your father came over from Holland. Do you remember your Grandfather? I am trying to put ages with people. If you don’t mind, I would like to ask your age. I am trying to piece things together. Is it 90 or thereabouts?
RH. You hit it right on the nail.
DH. I’m 65. How old was your father when he died.
RH. 54.
FL. Did he ever speak the Dutch language around the house.
RH. No. He and my mother – I think he told me once that she was born in Holland. I think she came over when she was a year old. They spoke a little Dutch, but very little. I imagine that when they came over here her parents probably lived in a settlement where there were Dutch. She would use a Dutch expression once in a while. When you asked the name of a certain food, she always gave it the Dutch name.
DH. You don’t have any idea the year your father came over from Holland?
RH. He was 19 when he came over. He never went back because if he did he would have to serve time in the army. Apparently, all the boys were conscripted to serve a year. So he came over at 19 so he wouldn’t have to serve. People would ask him why he never went back.
AG. Well, has changed a lot since you came here.
RH. Yes. We don’t have any more like Virginia Schutte running a farm. They lived across the road, and we both used the fields for pasture at different time of the year. We had a fence to keep them separate. When our cows got out they would go over there. “You know there’s a post missing in that pen back there. That’s why your cows got out” she says. I didn’t say anything. She says “well I suppose I could have put that post in”.
FL. This is the woman you mentioned where she and her mother ran the farm. 9
DH. Her father was a German National. He was an inventor. I guess he was interred during World War I because he was a German National. This Virginia and her mother must have done all the farming right up until the mid 50s when she finally got married and married the hired man. His nephews lived there. They were twins. One was the first
kidney transplant that was ever done. He received a kidney from his twin brother. That put Northborough on the map. The Saturday Evening Post had a big article about the Herrick twins and the kidney transplant. The transplant was successful, but the recipient died several years later from a heart attack. That would have been around 1956.
FL. Where was there home?
DH. The first place on the left going towards town, what we used to call Curve Inn. There’s a driveway this side. If you went in that driveway and right into the woods, the house out there. It was a brick house. It was a showplace for the brickyard across the street. I think the brickyards ran for 100 years. The bricks from the original town hall came from there, and the large house across from Fiske’s nursery, the bricks came from
here. What was the name? Howe’s brickyard.
RH. Yes.
AG. When did that go out of business?
AH. I never knew it operating.
DH. Before World War I. That was 1917.
AH. I didn’t realize it was that far back.
DH. Every so often, Metropolitan Life come up with a hair-brained scheme for that swamp over there. The map shows a couple of ponds, which is where they took the clay
out for the bricks. I don’t remember seeing them. When we were farming over there were
shards of brick everywhere. As far as the brickyard itself, there must have been kilns there to dry the brick.
AG. Some brickyards actually built the kiln with green bricks and fired them. The outside bricks would be fully fired. And they would take it down and take the fully fired bricks out.
DH. They say there was another one down off of Hudson Street, and I never saw any signs of that.
AG. When they went out of business, there wasn’t a lot left.
FL. I read a consulting report for the Metropolitan Life property. They put in a number of test borings, and in several instances talked about bricks they encountered.
DH. You are aware of the talk about the new high school. Metropolitan Life says they would be glad to sell you extra land for the new high school, but we would like to give you that swamp. It’s 112 acres. Some dude will jump up and say that’s marvelous for the ecology and everything. I think it is stupid. Metropolitan is paying taxes on it now. Let
them pay taxes. To hell with them.
AG. They’ll get something in exchange, like free land for the high school.
DH. That’s the way I feel about it if it comes to that. But we certainly shouldn’t give them a lot of money for the good land and take the junk land.
AG. Where did you people do your shopping? Northboro or Marlboro?

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RH. Both places.
DH. Well, Marlboro was a regular metropolis Friday nights down there. Main Street was always crowded. But there were markets all over Northborough too. There was Peinzes Market, Mayberry’s Market, Macabee’s Market. All in the center. Then Lawrence’s had a
market down by the aqueduct. Then another market by the Assabet on Route 20. Then there was another market by the Residence at the Falls there. There was a market up at the corner of Times Square. So you could shop anyplace. Marlborough had J.C. Penny’s and Aubuchon’s, and so on. For clothes and stuff you would go down there.
FL. I was just thinking about your milk business. Did you collect milk from other farmers in the area or just your own.
DH. We bought from other farmers.
FL. They delivered their milk here?

DH. We went and picked it up. With the exception of Lois Bennet’s farm, I guess every place else is all gone now. There used to be a lot of farms in town, of course. Where the Howard St. school is now was the Haskin’s farm, where the Middle School is was the Rich Farm.
FL. I have heard some of these names. Wasn’t there a Swallow?

DH. Sparrow. He owned some of the fields where Mass. Electric is now (Bearfoot Road). But his father owned a big farm over on Bartlett St., which is Metropolitan Life now. There was a big cow barn over there. Another cow barn where Town Paint is on Lyman St. That was the Velot farm. Joe Murray was on the corner of Howard St. and Washburn
St. Of course, Lois Bennet was way up on Howard. Alexandrovitch was up on Moore Lane. There was a dairy farm up there. Ziff Kachan on Ball St. They peddled milk. Kay Davidian’s father peddled milk.
FL. So how did you get customers? Did you have to go out and hustle a little bit to get customers?
DH. There were so many milk men around, you had to. Two Marlboro milkmen. There must have been a dozen milkmen peddling milk in Marlborough at the same time.
RH. Oh yeah.
AG. How many customers did you have on your milk route?
DH. Can you remember how many customers Dad.
RH. Probably 300.
AG. Were they all in Northboro or did you go to Marlborough?
DH. Primarily in Marlborough. There was Bill Ellsworth in Northborough peddling milk. He had a dairy. When he died my father bought the Northborough route. That’s when he started peddling milk in Northborough. I’ve been collecting Northborough milk bottles
for quite a while now and I have quite a variety of them. I have the idea that I should wash them up and present them to the Historical Society.
FL. I’m sure that would be much appreciated.
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(End of side 2)
We replaced the tape, but for some reason, I think a bad electrical connection, the tape stopped shortly after it started. I took a few notes during the interview and recall the following points of discussion that were not recorded.
DH stated that Everett Blakely contracted to buy trolley tracks. He took up most of the track but left some behind. Track was found when homes were built just to the east of the Haitsma’s. Raymond stated that his older brother delivered the milk produced at the farm and creamery. Farming was difficult after World War II because good help was hard to find. That was not a problem during the depression, particularly if family members needed work. I asked Raymond if he could reconstruct a typical day on the farm. He gave us the following rundown: Get up about 5:30 and milk the cows. The cows would be fed grain prior to milking. After milking the farmers would have breakfast. After breakfast they
would clean the gutters and feed the cows hay or ensilage. Ensilage was not fed to the cows during milking because it could flavor the milk.
Raymond said that when they moved to the farm in Northborough there were still a lot of dead chestnut trees standing. These were cut for fence posts and lasted a long time because chestnut is rot resistant. Ross Brothers supplied the barbed wire, but he found that the wire cut the cows pretty bad. He also stated that 7 generations of Bartletts lived at this location before his father bought the farm, starting in the 1740’s with Daniel Bartlett. When Raymond discontinued the dairying business he went to work for Raytheon where he had a variety of jobs. The one he enjoyed most related to the U.S. Space program. Construction of various generations of rockets required long lists of materials, and these
would change somewhat with each generation of rocket. He was responsible for maintaining a parts list, which he enjoyed but was not a priority for the scientists and engineers working on the program. At one point there was a crisis because they were facing a deadline and were missing a part for the equipment that they were working on.
Raymond was able to find a replacement part in an earlier generation of rocket. He restated that he lacked one semester of graduating from WPI when his father died, and within a month his brother died. He was left with the responsibility of running the farm. Before that he had no interest in farming, certainly not as a profession.
(About this point, I discovered that the recorder wasn’t working, so restarted it?)
FL. Unfortunately this thing was not recording. That’s why I take notes because I don’t trust these new fangled gadgets.
AG. Well, does that about wrap it up?
FL. I think so.
AG. Appreciate your taking the time.
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DH. I am of two minds. I don’t know if it is very good to be interviewed by the Historical Society. It makes me feel ancient.
AG. Well, I am about the same age, but I haven’t lived in Northborough all my life. It is real interesting for me to hear about some of these things.
DH. You know, I am an antique car bug. Every so often I am at a show and I’ll see an antique truck all done up and restored, and realize that I owned them when they were brand new.
AG. My grandfather was in the farming business, but he did a lot of logging and lumbering as well in the little town of Montague. I remember my uncle telling me that back in the 20’s and 30’s when they were doing all this lumbering that they used Model T Ford trucks, and they had two of them. He said they would only last about a year and they
would be totally torn up: engine, transmission, whatever, would be completely worn out. Every six months they bought a new truck. I was surprised because I think today we think of the Model T as being indestructible and lasting forever. He said that wasn’t true. He
said we put them to pretty hard use, and after a year they weren’t worth keeping anymore. That surprised me. You hear so much about how rugged they were.
DH. Last weekend I had company and they wanted to go out in the field. We were standing out to the field and I heard a chug-a-chug-a-chug. I looked and there’s this brand spanking new Model T touring car coming up the road with my wife in the back seat. A friend of mine from Shrewsbury just finished restoring it. It looks better than new.
Glistening black with bright yellow wheels. Real leather upholstery. Ran like a million dollars. He and his had brought it down just to show.
RH. I was wondering when you told me that. Was he in high or in low?
DH. He was in high going up the hill. I guess he must have gone along the flats pretty good and got a running start. He got up the first little hill so he was on the flats again.
AG. When I was a kid, we never used it for driving, but we had an old one for sawing wood. The back wheel off and a pulley on it. I can remember every fall when it came time to cut wood, we would try to get the thing started. Of course, it hadn’t run for a year. We kept the magneto inside. I think it took longer to get that thing running than to cut the
wood. We used to get it cranked up after a while and cut wood all day long.
DH. I have always been interested in Model T’s. The old guy that had the house that Dot Hunt lives in (on West Main St. near the Shrewsbury line). We always delivered milk there. My father knew him and I knew him from delivering milk. What we never knew ishe had a 1914 Ford down behind the house jacked up to saw wood with. It was a
Roadster. He kept it covered. Somebody from Westborough went in there and bought thatthing for 25 dollars and drove it out. That really, really hurt me. I figured I should have known about it and been able to buy it. The same guy said, “Well, I got the touring car in the garage there that I went on my honeymoon in, but I don’t want to sell it”. Can I see it.
“No, too much junk on it.” But it was there right up until he died. Then his son or some heir started selling stuff out of there. Apparently the Model T went then. But when Dot bought the house, I went roaring right up there. There was a lot of Model T stuff there. I bought it all from her. In fact, one of my friends has a Locomobile. Up on the shelf where
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you couldn’t see them I got about a dozen paint chips for a Locomobile automobile. You
know, little square tags to show you the different colors.
FL. What was a Locomobile?
DH. A Locomobile was a big car like a Cadillac. A luxury car. I don’t know why the
chips were up on the shelf there.
FL. I took a number of notes here but, one of the things that we didn’t record very well
and I think we missed because the tape wasn’t operating was the various farms. You went
through a list. Can you recall some of those that we discussed.
DH. Starting up the street, the Balcom Farm was right next to us. We called it the
Sheehan Farm. Paul Sheehan was the Postmaster. Then a little farm. Schutte’s. Who was
up at the corner of Bartlett St. Was it Breault.
RH. Breault. Flibbert.
DH. That’s where the big red brick house is. They owned where the St. Bernadetts is.
Where Fisk’s Nursery is where ? is. Then there was the Sparrow Farm way down on
Bartlett St. The last person who farmed it was George Daly. I don’t know if he is still
down at the Senior Center. Who owned the land at Dr. Skougs there, the big field off of
Maple St. I think that Sparrow farmed it.

RH. I was just thinking of Albert Mentzer on Mentzer Avenue.
DH. Yeah. That was the big farm that went all the way from Mentzer avenue to Bill
Maney’s house. That was one big valley. Of course, now 290 goes through it. There was
Joe Murray’s farm at the corner of Washburn and Whitney. Alexandrovich’s farm at the
end of Moore Lane.
RH. Then there were several farms further down past, practically down to – where do you
work.
DH. Berlin. Yes there was a big farm out on the end of Whitney Street that Danny Tyler
owned. Who was it on Pleasant St.? Ide. About where Trombetta’s Greenhouse is.
RH. Irving Rich.
DH. Irving Rich on the corner of Pleasant St. He had that whole field where the Middle
School is. Where the Agway Store is was the Acompora Farm. Roger Wiles bought it
afterwards. We forgot Winch’s Pig Farm up on Acompora St. Where they used to have
the baboot games.
FL. The what games?
DH. Baboot. It was an illegal gambling game that they used to ferry people in from out in
the woods. They didn’t want a bunch of cars around. Periodically there would be a big
raid up there.
FL. Where was that again?
DH. Winch’s Pig Farm up on Acompora St. I’m trying to think of the name of the street.
Maynard St. The pig farm was roughly across from the corner of Maynard and Howard.
That’s all new houses. Then you know about Warren Oberg’s on the other end of Davis
St. And there was a John Tibbets on Davis St.
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RH. Jack Veldt lived over there (Lyman Street).
FL. Were these farms kind of phased out over the years, or did they all pretty much go
out about the same time.
DH. They dropped out one at a time. I think of when each one quit. Of course, Haskins
and Rich both quit when the town took their land for schools.
RH. If you went past the golf course. There was a big farm up there. The house is still
there.
DH. The end of School Street. Then there was the Anderson Farm where the new 18
holes is at the end of the golf course. Christian Anderson. They were there for a long
time. Then there was Speckland’s Farm where Northgate is.
RH. There was a bunch of them. So that’s why Peinze up in Northborough could make a
living supplying them with grain.
DH. There were two grain stores because Garland Feed was across the tracks.

FL. Peinze and Garland?
DH. Garland was the name of the grain. I don’t know who ran that.
FL. So it was mostly cattle. You mentioned a pig farm. Was there much of a poultry
industry.
DH. Yes, Fouracre had a big poultry operation. Roger Wyles up where Agway is had a
big poultry operation. They were real big, both of them. (Don added Wilfred Murray on
Howard St. later).
AG. Was there much truck farming in town.
DH. Well, Berberian, Davidian. There was another fellow on Park St., Dick Stone, who
used to grow vegetables. But he was my age and used it as a sideline.
RH. The hardware store on South St. supplied all the farmers. Fairlys.
DH. At the same time there was another hardware store in the Town Hall. Preston
Adams. There were two more farms. An Adams Farm up on Crawford St. and another
Adams Farm on the corner of Pleasant St. across from Rich’s. No that was Allen on
Pleasant St.

FL. So you were able to get all your hardware needs locally.
DH. Yeah. Fairly’s has only been out of business for 5 years or so.
FL. Was that your classic hardware store where you had everything you could ever want.
DH. In fact, when he was closing up, I bought a lot of stuff. Mowing machine fingers.
RH. If they didn’t have it out in front, you went out in back.
DH. He had a big scale on the counter, so you bought nails by the pound. You didn’t buy
them in a plastic box. No computer. You put all your purchases on the counter and he
added it all up by hand on the bag. He would pull the string down from the ceiling to
wrap the bag up.
15
RH. They would slide the galvanized three quarters pipe through a window under the
shelve window and into the cellar. I don’t know how many sizes he had.
FL. Well, we tried to quit two or three times. I am a little disappointed that we missed
some.
(End of interview.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7n86I2IUtSw

Yelleck Farm

Bennett Farm

Haitzma Farm–Stirrup Brook Farm

Stirrup Brook Farm–Haitzma Farm Don Haitzma and his step brother Allan Bezanson picked up milk from my father and other dairy farms in the early 1950’s when I was in grade school. They also milked their own cows, pasteurized the milk, and bottled it. This was when they were in high school. Their farm was on East Main St. (Route 20) near the Marlboro line.

Interview with Raymond (RH, father) and Don Haitsma (DH,
son), October 16, 1999

Interview with Raymond (RH, father) Don Haitsma (DH,
son), October 16, 1999
Interviewed by Forest Lyford (FL) and Alan Gustafson (AG), October 16, 1999
Transcribed by Forest Lyford
FL. Today is October 16, 1999. We are at the home of Don Haitsma. He lives at 459 Main Street in Northborough, Massachusetts. We hope to be joined later by his father Raymond. We are going to talk about Don’s experiences growing up in Northborough, focusing on the farming experience, but anything is fair game today. With that, could you
tell us if you were born in Northborough?
DH. Right here. You can see I haven’t gone very far.
AG. How about your parents. Were they natives of Northborough.
DH. My Dad and Mother were both Marlborough residents. My grandfather owned the farm directly across the street from the Marlborough Historical Society on Elm Street. If you remember, there was a big barn there that burned down several years ago. That was
my grandfather’s barn. He bought it from John Fry of the Fry Shoe Company. It was close to the center of town. My grandfather moved the barn up there to Elm Street. That would have been some time before World War I.
FL. So, you come from a long line of farmers obviously.
DH. Well, the big mill owners like John Frye in the shoe business and Whitten down in Whitensville, the machine shop. They both had dairy herds. They imported a bunch of Dutchmen from Holland to run the farms. My grandfather was one of them. A lot of the Dutchmen in Northbridge and Whitensville came over the same way. Of course, after a while they saved enough money to buy their own place. There is quite a Dutch community in Whitensville, with their own Dutch Reformed Church, and so on. In fact, I guess we have cousins down there that we don’t know.
FL. So your grandfather purchased the farm from this industrialist. Was your grandfather working on that same farm.
DH. He was working on that same farm and apparently saved enough money to buy the farm on Elm Street. And then he was able to buy the barn from Fry. Then they dismantled it and moved it to Elm Street and put it back up. I’m not sure how many years they were there, but moved here in 1923 or 24, something like that.
FL. So your father moved here from Marlborough.
DH. He continued to go to High School in Marlborough. He rode the trolley. The trolley went right by the house. I think he was a junior in college when my grandfather died. He left school to take the farm over about 1929 until 1956 when we sold the cows. We sold the milking herd in 1956, but had cows until 1976. They were just dairy replacements.
FL. So you were raising heifers and selling them.
DH. Yea. Selling them after or before they calved.
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FL. Why did a lot of farms go out of business about that time. That was my experience up in southeastern New Hampshire. Why was dairying so difficult?
DH. We were producer dealers. In other words, we pasteurized the milk right here. But that was about the time that homogenization was coming in, and homogenization was pretty expensive. I guess it got to the point where you either had to homogenize or you went out of business.
FL. So it was a matter of purchasing equipment.
DH. At the time I was away in the service. My brother was in college and there was nobody home. Maybe there were a couple of hired men. Anyway, then my father sold out and went to work for Raytheon.
FL. I have a number of questions here. I was curious to know how many cows you were milking over that duration of time.
DH. I don’t think we ever had more than 25 cows at one time. That’s another big change because a single individual needs at least 50 cows, and most of them have up to 100. All by themselves with no hired men. Out of the 25, we had 17 or 18 that would be milking. The rest would be dry or young or something. I came by a list that we had made while we
were weighing the milk, probably about 1950. The amounts of milk per cow per milking was minuscule, maybe 12 or 14 pounds of milk. Now, a lot of cows will give 110 or 120 lb. of milk in one milking. That’s mostly through selective breeding. I think that selective breeding just came in here about 1950.
FL. We have just been joined by Don’s Dad, Raymond Haitsma. As Don was just saying, Mr. Haitsma arrived in Northborough about 1921 (1923 or 1924 stated above), is that correct.
RH. That’s about right. I was in elementary school.
FL. Don was saying, what was the term, a full service farm, or something.
DH. Now they call it producer-dealer. They process it then sell it. Not many of them of them around. Whittier Brothers from Sutton, that now own the Lundgren and Jonaitus Dairy in Shrewsbury is the only one I can think of.
FL. What kind of equipment did you have for preparing the milk for distribution. You didn’t have a homogenizer, obviously.
DH. Pasteurizer, bottler, cooler, and bottle washer. I can’t think of anything else.
AG. Did you have a separator and sell cream as well as milk?
DH. We had a separator.
RH. The separator was mostly for when we had a surplus of milk. We would churn some up and do something with the cream. It was what the market could use.
AG. Did you have any other animals, or were you strictly a dairy farm?
DH. He had a team.
RH. We were always busy haying for one thing.
AG. Did you raise enough hay to feed those animals, or did you have to buy hay.
3
RH. Well, it was a battle. We had a couple of silos. When we could put the silos up, we could spread the hay.
FL. How many acres of land did you have here?
RH. Probably about 100 acres of land here.
FL. Is that what it would take to maintain a herd of 24 or 26 cows?
DH. Well, yes, and we would rent lands for hay.
FL. You didn’t use all the land for yourselves?
DH. We used everything that we could and would rent land up the street. Where the Boroughs Shopping Plaza is, this side of it where the new hotel is, there was a farm there. We planted corn up there, and we hayed it too. I can remember going up Millham Roadand doing some haying up there. I remember having corn over on Maple Street where – I
can’t remember the name of the street, there was a big white house there that used to belong to the town doctor, that was all open – Omaha Avenue, that area, that was all open.
FL. What about the land across the street? Was that part of your farm?
DH. Just the field directly across the street. The Schutte farm, which was behind _,they had a bigger herd. For a long time, Miss Schutte and her mother farmed it all by themselves. Eventually she married the hired man. Then she had some help.
FL. That’s one way to do it, I guess. In the earlier days you had a team of horses and you did all of the plowing and raking, and so forth, with horses?
RH. Yeah. In the summertime we had a third one doing light work so we could keep the team together. That team did their share of keeping us short of hay. We had the whole back end of the barn full of hay, and that all went for the horses.
AG. When did you get your first tractor?
DH. I don’t remember.
AG. Was it before the war.
DH. (pulls out a framed picture of a small track-type tractor).
FL. Is this you on the tractor?
RH. Oh. (FL recalls RH stating that it was someone else on the tractor, maybe a hired hand)
AG. Well that doesn’t eat much hay anyway.
DH. I was trying to figure out what year this was. That’s the cle-track.
RH. That would be around 1925. (Some discussion of who was on the tractor)
DH. This picture was taken before the new route 20 went through, and I think that went through in 1930. The road in this picture about where that tractor is for sale (near the current route 20).
FL. So this was used for plowing, manure spreading? It has a tine harrow on it.
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DH. It must have been around 1938 when we got the first wheel tractor. I can remember that.
FL. During this time you still had a team of horses?
RH. Not very long after we got the first wheel tractor. (In addition to the ) tractor there was a whole line of equipment. Eventually, we got the equipment that fit the tractor. (Some discussion about equipment that was difficult to hear on the tape).
FL. When you got the tractor, and you mentioned a line of equipment, that would include a mowing machine, a side delivery rake of some kind?
DH. We used the regular dump rake for a long time.
FL. Did you continue to throw hay on the load by hand, or did you get one of the overhead loaders?
DH. I don’t think we got a hay loader until after the war did we?
RH. We were haying all over creation. We were haying opposite the entrance to the high school. That was a big open field. It’s houses now. We had a wheel tractor, and I can remember bringing the hay loader behind that. Somehow it got discombobulated. I looked behind me, and somehow the hay loader was running off the highway.
FL. What about bailing equipment? I suppose you eventually got into bailing your hay and putting up bails.
RH. That wasn’t heard of in those days.
DH. That must have been in 56 or 57 before we got the first bailer or maybe later.
RH. I would say so.
FL. Square bales or round?
DH. They were rectangular. I guess we have had quite a succession bailers since then. Funny, we bought one about 30 some-odd years ago. I went to a birthday party in Barre a few weeks ago, and the farmer who sold us that bailer came bustling right over. He said “Gee, how did you ever make out with that little bailer I sold you?” Apparently he
figured it was a bad deal because he figured it was going to break right off. He was quite relieved when I told him we got 7 or 8 years out of it. The thing of it was, he was one of my milk customers, and I knew that he was not mechanical at all. Every time the bailer broke, he had to have the dealer come and fix it, for a lot of money. When he got ready to
sell it, I thought, well gee, we ought to be able to buy this cheap, which we did. Of course, we fixed it ourselves every time it broke and eliminated the dealer’s bills, and got along very nicely with it.
FL. Don was saying that you gave up the dairy business in the mid 50’s or thereabouts. I was kind of curious about why you gave up the business. He was saying that it had to do with equipment and so forth. I know a lot of dairy businesses went out of business about that time. I guess it became more and more difficult to make a living at the dairying
business.
5
RH. There was another reason. Later on gallon jugs of milk came into the stores. There was no sense for the farmers running around the street and setting individual quarts of milk on porches every day of the week.
FL. Then you got into the business of, what was the term that you used, replacement cows?
DH. Yes, dairy replacements, in other words, young heifers. We had heifers here right up until 76. My Dad’s house burned in 76. We were too busy cleaning up the mess to deal with the heifers.
FL. That was the house next door?
DH. Yes.
FL. So this one (next door) is a rebuilt house?
DH. This end burned off and the rest was damaged pretty much, but they were able to restore it, or rebuild it, I’ll put it that way.
FL. Did you ever get into beef cattle or is that different?
DH. Whenever we had beef cattle we could never keep them in. In fact, in late years we had trouble keeping the heifers in. It seems like every single time we planned to have a cookout, we would be just ready to eat in the front lawn, and somebody would pull in and say your cows are out.
AG. I remember those days.
DH. The happiest day in my life was maybe 5 or 6 years ago. I was sitting at the kitchen table and the phone rang. It was the Marlborough police and they said, Mr. Haitsma, your cows are out, and I was very happy to say that Mr. Haitsma doesn’t have any cows. It turned out that our neighbor up the street had some beef cows and somebody had tried to
steal his car. They live right beside Hayes Memorial Drive, so they came off Hayes Memorial Drive and cut their way through the fence to the pasture on both sides. Of course, the cows got out at the corner of Route 20 and Boundary St. So I did walk out to the end of the driveway, saw all kinds of blue lights, turned around and came back.
AG. Cows can be pretty dumb when you want to get them back in the pasture.
FL. I had a cow when I was in high school, and my dad would say it could jump like a deer. We used to have a poke that we would put around its neck: a forked stick that would hang between its legs. That seem to do the job.
DH. Cows aren’t made to be kept alone. They need other cows around. If you have a single cow they like to travel.
FL. What about bulls. Did you have your own bull, or did you use artificial insemination, or was that later than your operation here?
RH. The artificial insemination was coming in. We had a bull until at least 1940.
DH. It was later than that because they didn’t start the bull barn up in Shrewsbury until 1950 I don’t think. I remember that. Al Eaton used to come around to breed the cows.
AG. Did you have your own bull or did you use someone else’s?
6
FL. Did you have to keep the bulls separate? Let me ask, what kind of cows did you raise?
DH. All kinds. It was a mixed herd.
FL. So you didn’t have an all Holstein herd or Jersey?
DH. No.
FL. A few Jersey cows to keep the butterfat content up?
DH. Well, yes. We had Jerseys and Guernseys and Holsteins, Ayrshiers, so it was a mixed bag (no pun intended). We did have a bull pen in the barn, but it seems to me that the bulls would run out with the cows most of the time.
FL. I remember as a kid, we would were always very cautious of Jersey bulls.
DH. They have a reputation of being pretty mean.
FL. I also remember, we would go over to the University of New Hampshire where they had several bulls. It was like going to the zoo for us. They were huge, huge animals. I know that yours did not get that big, but I know they could grow to be pretty good size.
DH. You probably don’t remember, but there was a nationally know Guernsey herd in Berlin, Chedco (?) Farms. They kept 4 bulls there. They bred all their cows artificially, but they kept 4 bulls right there on their own farm. They must have been up in the 2,500 to 3,000 pound class. They were big bulls. Pretty impressive. They had pipe rail fences
that big around. And periodically you would hear a bull clang up against them.
RH. Something you won’t need to put in your notes. I’m trying to think where it was. I don’t think it was UMASS, but anyway, I bought a bull at an auction somewhere. This was not quite full grown. I get out there and they advertised that they would deliver the bull that was bought at the auction. I talked to the auctioneer about the arrangements. He said, we just have a little pen for a small bull. If you could slide right in your truck and save us a trip. So, I have no objection to that. We put it in the back and pulled up to a popular eating place, I’ve forgotten where it was, and parked the truck. The bull had to go, so he went. It dropped over the tailgate. We came out from eating, and there was the
neatest pile of stuff.
DH. So, did you just drive away and leave it? I’m sure you did.
RH. I backed right over it without thinking about it.
FL. As I understand, you took over the farm when your father died. At the time you were school or college. Were you studying agriculture.
RH. No, I was at Worcester Tech. My father died in the winter time. I needed one more semester to graduate. I never got it.
FL. What were you studying there?
RH. Nothing connected with farming.
AG. Well, I suppose that engineering came in handy on the farm.
RH. Once in a while. As time went on, we would buy stuff at Ross Brothers. Finally, International Harvester wouldn’t let Ross sell. That’s where I bought my first tractor at Ross Brothers. International Harvester wouldn’t let Ross Brothers sell their products
anymore. I forgot what the reason was. 7
DH. I think that had to do with the volume, or they had to have a sales room. The same deal that Charlie is in now. He can’t sell new International stuff over in Berlin.
FL. You have to handle a certain volume before they let you sell?
DH. Yeah. You have to maintain a certain amount in stock. He’s the only International Parts dealer around, but they took the franchise for selling machinery away from him. But, of course, there are not too many farmers around that need farm tractors too.
AG. Now you said the trolley used to run in front of the house out here.
DH. Yes. Here’s a picture. That’s the picture I told you about (to his dad).
FL. So when did the trolley go out.
DH. Do you remember what year they quit running. I think Bob Kennerly said around 27 or 28.
AG. Where did it run, from the center of town.
DH. To Marlborough.
FL. So this house appears in the picture.
DH. And the barn. You can see the name on the barn over the top of the trolley. Did you say that was the last one to come by Pop.
RH. Yes. Chet, Raymond’s brother was in the field across the road and waited. They were on an hourly schedule. I am trying to think if Chet was still at home. He graduated in 1926, so it was sometime before that.
DH. I this picture you can see the part of my father’s house that is no longer there on the left.
FL. So the road was not too far from your front porch here.
DH. Well, it was a lot closer. There are some barberries in front on my father’s yard. It was just behind that.
AG. So, when they rerouted it you gained a little.
FL. Was the main road paved?
DH. Yes.
FL. Somehow I never associated paving until much later.
DH. Well, the new road was cement. The road they put in 29 or 30. It had two lanes of cement with a tar (?) middle lane. Of course, when they blacktopped that road they blacktopped right over that. On a hot night you can still hear the thugs from the tires going over the expansion joints. Of course, Route 20 used to be the main trucking route
to New York City.
AG. Before the turnpike went in.
DH. There used to be a steady stream of trucks going by all night long.
8
RH. The interesting part was, in those early days when we were here, nobody ever plowed the road. When I was going to school in Marlborough, the fellow wouldn’t plow, and the trucks coming through from Boston, I don’t know how they got to Marlborough, if they found two tracks plowed out, that was lovely. They would get on the tracks and
churn away. Everything was fine until a (street) car coming towards them. Something had to be done. So tractor trailer would drive off the tracks and promptly get stuck. Then the car would stop. If the car was 5 minutes late leaving for Marlborough, I wouldn’t spend any time waiting, I just started walking. The car might come an hour later.
FL. So you picked up the trolley out here and went to school in Marlborough. You didn’t go to the Northborough schools?
RH. No. High school only had a dozen pupils in a class. My father planned on having me go to college. In order to do that, I needed to take classes in a variety (of courses). He paid the $800 per year.
FL. Don was saying your father came over from Holland. Do you remember your Grandfather? I am trying to put ages with people. If you don’t mind, I would like to ask your age. I am trying to piece things together. Is it 90 or thereabouts?
RH. You hit it right on the nail.
DH. I’m 65. How old was your father when he died.
RH. 54.
FL. Did he ever speak the Dutch language around the house.
RH. No. He and my mother – I think he told me once that she was born in Holland. I think she came over when she was a year old. They spoke a little Dutch, but very little. I imagine that when they came over here her parents probably lived in a settlement where there were Dutch. She would use a Dutch expression once in a while. When you asked the name of a certain food, she always gave it the Dutch name.
DH. You don’t have any idea the year your father came over from Holland?
RH. He was 19 when he came over. He never went back because if he did he would have to serve time in the army. Apparently, all the boys were conscripted to serve a year. So he came over at 19 so he wouldn’t have to serve. People would ask him why he never went back.
AG. Well, has changed a lot since you came here.
RH. Yes. We don’t have any more like Virginia Schutte running a farm. They lived across the road, and we both used the fields for pasture at different time of the year. We had a fence to keep them separate. When our cows got out they would go over there. “You know there’s a post missing in that pen back there. That’s why your cows got out” she says. I didn’t say anything. She says “well I suppose I could have put that post in”.
FL. This is the woman you mentioned where she and her mother ran the farm. 9
DH. Her father was a German National. He was an inventor. I guess he was interred during World War I because he was a German National. This Virginia and her mother must have done all the farming right up until the mid 50s when she finally got married and married the hired man. His nephews lived there. They were twins. One was the first
kidney transplant that was ever done. He received a kidney from his twin brother. That put Northborough on the map. The Saturday Evening Post had a big article about the Herrick twins and the kidney transplant. The transplant was successful, but the recipient died several years later from a heart attack. That would have been around 1956.
FL. Where was there home?
DH. The first place on the left going towards town, what we used to call Curve Inn. There’s a driveway this side. If you went in that driveway and right into the woods, the house out there. It was a brick house. It was a showplace for the brickyard across the street. I think the brickyards ran for 100 years. The bricks from the original town hall came from there, and the large house across from Fiske’s nursery, the bricks came from
here. What was the name? Howe’s brickyard.
RH. Yes.
AG. When did that go out of business?
AH. I never knew it operating.
DH. Before World War I. That was 1917.
AH. I didn’t realize it was that far back.
DH. Every so often, Metropolitan Life come up with a hair-brained scheme for that swamp over there. The map shows a couple of ponds, which is where they took the clay
out for the bricks. I don’t remember seeing them. When we were farming over there were
shards of brick everywhere. As far as the brickyard itself, there must have been kilns there to dry the brick.
AG. Some brickyards actually built the kiln with green bricks and fired them. The outside bricks would be fully fired. And they would take it down and take the fully fired bricks out.
DH. They say there was another one down off of Hudson Street, and I never saw any signs of that.
AG. When they went out of business, there wasn’t a lot left.
FL. I read a consulting report for the Metropolitan Life property. They put in a number of test borings, and in several instances talked about bricks they encountered.
DH. You are aware of the talk about the new high school. Metropolitan Life says they would be glad to sell you extra land for the new high school, but we would like to give you that swamp. It’s 112 acres. Some dude will jump up and say that’s marvelous for the ecology and everything. I think it is stupid. Metropolitan is paying taxes on it now. Let
them pay taxes. To hell with them.
AG. They’ll get something in exchange, like free land for the high school.
DH. That’s the way I feel about it if it comes to that. But we certainly shouldn’t give them a lot of money for the good land and take the junk land.
AG. Where did you people do your shopping? Northboro or Marlboro?
10
RH. Both places.
DH. Well, Marlboro was a regular metropolis Friday nights down there. Main Street was always crowded. But there were markets all over Northborough too. There was Peinzes Market, Mayberry’s Market, Macabee’s Market. All in the center. Then Lawrence’s had a
market down by the aqueduct. Then another market by the Assabet on Route 20. Then there was another market by the Residence at the Falls there. There was a market up at the corner of Times Square. So you could shop anyplace. Marlborough had J.C. Penny’s and Aubuchon’s, and so on. For clothes and stuff you would go down there.
FL. I was just thinking about your milk business. Did you collect milk from other farmers in the area or just your own.
DH. We bought from other farmers.
FL. They delivered their milk here?
DH. We went and picked it up. With the exception of Lois Bennet’s farm, I guess every place else is all gone now. There used to be a lot of farms in town, of course. Where the Howard St. school is now was the Haskin’s farm, where the Middle School is was the Rich Farm.
FL. I have heard some of these names. Wasn’t there a Swallow?
DH. Sparrow. He owned some of the fields where Mass. Electric is now (Bearfoot Road). But his father owned a big farm over on Bartlett St., which is Metropolitan Life now. There was a big cow barn over there. Another cow barn where Town Paint is on Lyman St. That was the Velot farm. Joe Murray was on the corner of Howard St. and Washburn
St. Of course, Lois Bennet was way up on Howard. Alexandrovitch was up on Moore Lane. There was a dairy farm up there. Ziff Kachan on Ball St. They peddled milk. Kay Davidian’s father peddled milk.
FL. So how did you get customers? Did you have to go out and hustle a little bit to get customers?
DH. There were so many milk men around, you had to. Two Marlboro milkmen. There must have been a dozen milkmen peddling milk in Marlborough at the same time.
RH. Oh yeah.
AG. How many customers did you have on your milk route?
DH. Can you remember how many customers Dad.
RH. Probably 300.
AG. Were they all in Northboro or did you go to Marlborough?
DH. Primarily in Marlborough. There was Bill Ellsworth in Northborough peddling milk. He had a dairy. When he died my father bought the Northborough route. That’s when he started peddling milk in Northborough. I’ve been collecting Northborough milk bottles
for quite a while now and I have quite a variety of them. I have the idea that I should wash them up and present them to the Historical Society.
FL. I’m sure that would be much appreciated.
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(End of side 2)
We replaced the tape, but for some reason, I think a bad electrical connection, the tape stopped shortly after it started. I took a few notes during the interview and recall the following points of discussion that were not recorded.
DH stated that Everett Blakely contracted to buy trolley tracks. He took up most of the track but left some behind. Track was found when homes were built just to the east of the Haitsma’s. Raymond stated that his older brother delivered the milk produced at the farm and creamery. Farming was difficult after World War II because good help was hard to find. That was not a problem during the depression, particularly if family members needed work. I asked Raymond if he could reconstruct a typical day on the farm. He gave us the following rundown: Get up about 5:30 and milk the cows. The cows would be fed grain prior to milking. After milking the farmers would have breakfast. After breakfast they
would clean the gutters and feed the cows hay or ensilage. Ensilage was not fed to the cows during milking because it could flavor the milk.
Raymond said that when they moved to the farm in Northborough there were still a lot of dead chestnut trees standing. These were cut for fence posts and lasted a long time because chestnut is rot resistant. Ross Brothers supplied the barbed wire, but he found that the wire cut the cows pretty bad. He also stated that 7 generations of Bartletts lived at this location before his father bought the farm, starting in the 1740’s with Daniel Bartlett. When Raymond discontinued the dairying business he went to work for Raytheon where he had a variety of jobs. The one he enjoyed most related to the U.S. Space program. Construction of various generations of rockets required long lists of materials, and these
would change somewhat with each generation of rocket. He was responsible for maintaining a parts list, which he enjoyed but was not a priority for the scientists and engineers working on the program. At one point there was a crisis because they were facing a deadline and were missing a part for the equipment that they were working on.
Raymond was able to find a replacement part in an earlier generation of rocket. He restated that he lacked one semester of graduating from WPI when his father died, and within a month his brother died. He was left with the responsibility of running the farm. Before that he had no interest in farming, certainly not as a profession.
(About this point, I discovered that the recorder wasn’t working, so restarted it?)
FL. Unfortunately this thing was not recording. That’s why I take notes because I don’t trust these new fangled gadgets.
AG. Well, does that about wrap it up?
FL. I think so.
AG. Appreciate your taking the time.
12
DH. I am of two minds. I don’t know if it is very good to be interviewed by the Historical Society. It makes me feel ancient.
AG. Well, I am about the same age, but I haven’t lived in Northborough all my life. It is real interesting for me to hear about some of these things.
DH. You know, I am an antique car bug. Every so often I am at a show and I’ll see an antique truck all done up and restored, and realize that I owned them when they were brand new.
AG. My grandfather was in the farming business, but he did a lot of logging and lumbering as well in the little town of Montague. I remember my uncle telling me that back in the 20’s and 30’s when they were doing all this lumbering that they used Model T Ford trucks, and they had two of them. He said they would only last about a year and they
would be totally torn up: engine, transmission, whatever, would be completely worn out. Every six months they bought a new truck. I was surprised because I think today we think of the Model T as being indestructible and lasting forever. He said that wasn’t true. He
said we put them to pretty hard use, and after a year they weren’t worth keeping anymore. That surprised me. You hear so much about how rugged they were.
DH. Last weekend I had company and they wanted to go out in the field. We were standing out to the field and I heard a chug-a-chug-a-chug. I looked and there’s this brand spanking new Model T touring car coming up the road with my wife in the back seat. A friend of mine from Shrewsbury just finished restoring it. It looks better than new.
Glistening black with bright yellow wheels. Real leather upholstery. Ran like a million dollars. He and his had brought it down just to show.
RH. I was wondering when you told me that. Was he in high or in low?
DH. He was in high going up the hill. I guess he must have gone along the flats pretty good and got a running start. He got up the first little hill so he was on the flats again.
AG. When I was a kid, we never used it for driving, but we had an old one for sawing wood. The back wheel off and a pulley on it. I can remember every fall when it came time to cut wood, we would try to get the thing started. Of course, it hadn’t run for a year. We kept the magneto inside. I think it took longer to get that thing running than to cut the
wood. We used to get it cranked up after a while and cut wood all day long.
DH. I have always been interested in Model T’s. The old guy that had the house that Dot Hunt lives in (on West Main St. near the Shrewsbury line). We always delivered milk there. My father knew him and I knew him from delivering milk. What we never knew ishe had a 1914 Ford down behind the house jacked up to saw wood with. It was a
Roadster. He kept it covered. Somebody from Westborough went in there and bought thatthing for 25 dollars and drove it out. That really, really hurt me. I figured I should have known about it and been able to buy it. The same guy said, “Well, I got the touring car in the garage there that I went on my honeymoon in, but I don’t want to sell it”. Can I see it.
“No, too much junk on it.” But it was there right up until he died. Then his son or some heir started selling stuff out of there. Apparently the Model T went then. But when Dot bought the house, I went roaring right up there. There was a lot of Model T stuff there. I bought it all from her. In fact, one of my friends has a Locomobile. Up on the shelf where
13
you couldn’t see them I got about a dozen paint chips for a Locomobile automobile. You
know, little square tags to show you the different colors.
FL. What was a Locomobile?
DH. A Locomobile was a big car like a Cadillac. A luxury car. I don’t know why the
chips were up on the shelf there.
FL. I took a number of notes here but, one of the things that we didn’t record very well
and I think we missed because the tape wasn’t operating was the various farms. You went
through a list. Can you recall some of those that we discussed.
DH. Starting up the street, the Balcom Farm was right next to us. We called it the
Sheehan Farm. Paul Sheehan was the Postmaster. Then a little farm. Schutte’s. Who was
up at the corner of Bartlett St. Was it Breault.
RH. Breault. Flibbert.
DH. That’s where the big red brick house is. They owned where the St. Bernadetts is.
Where Fisk’s Nursery is where ? is. Then there was the Sparrow Farm way down on
Bartlett St. The last person who farmed it was George Daly. I don’t know if he is still
down at the Senior Center. Who owned the land at Dr. Skougs there, the big field off of
Maple St. I think that Sparrow farmed it.
RH. I was just thinking of Albert Mentzer on Mentzer Avenue.
DH. Yeah. That was the big farm that went all the way from Mentzer avenue to Bill
Maney’s house. That was one big valley. Of course, now 290 goes through it. There was
Joe Murray’s farm at the corner of Washburn and Whitney. Alexandrovich’s farm at the
end of Moore Lane.
RH. Then there were several farms further down past, practically down to – where do you
work.
DH. Berlin. Yes there was a big farm out on the end of Whitney Street that Danny Tyler
owned. Who was it on Pleasant St.? Ide. About where Trombetta’s Greenhouse is.
RH. Irving Rich.
DH. Irving Rich on the corner of Pleasant St. He had that whole field where the Middle
School is. Where the Agway Store is was the Acompora Farm. Roger Wiles bought it
afterwards. We forgot Winch’s Pig Farm up on Acompora St. Where they used to have
the baboot games.
FL. The what games?
DH. Baboot. It was an illegal gambling game that they used to ferry people in from out in
the woods. They didn’t want a bunch of cars around. Periodically there would be a big
raid up there.
FL. Where was that again?
DH. Winch’s Pig Farm up on Acompora St. I’m trying to think of the name of the street.
Maynard St. The pig farm was roughly across from the corner of Maynard and Howard.
That’s all new houses. Then you know about Warren Oberg’s on the other end of Davis
St. And there was a John Tibbets on Davis St.
14
RH. Jack Veldt lived over there (Lyman Street).
FL. Were these farms kind of phased out over the years, or did they all pretty much go
out about the same time.
DH. They dropped out one at a time. I think of when each one quit. Of course, Haskins
and Rich both quit when the town took their land for schools.
RH. If you went past the golf course. There was a big farm up there. The house is still
there.
DH. The end of School Street. Then there was the Anderson Farm where the new 18
holes is at the end of the golf course. Christian Anderson. They were there for a long
time. Then there was Speckland’s Farm where Northgate is.
RH. There was a bunch of them. So that’s why Peinze up in Northborough could make a
living supplying them with grain.
DH. There were two grain stores because Garland Feed was across the tracks.
FL. Peinze and Garland?
DH. Garland was the name of the grain. I don’t know who ran that.
FL. So it was mostly cattle. You mentioned a pig farm. Was there much of a poultry
industry.
DH. Yes, Fouracre had a big poultry operation. Roger Wyles up where Agway is had a
big poultry operation. They were real big, both of them. (Don added Wilfred Murray on
Howard St. later).
AG. Was there much truck farming in town.
DH. Well, Berberian, Davidian. There was another fellow on Park St., Dick Stone, who
used to grow vegetables. But he was my age and used it as a sideline.
RH. The hardware store on South St. supplied all the farmers. Fairlys.
DH. At the same time there was another hardware store in the Town Hall. Preston
Adams. There were two more farms. An Adams Farm up on Crawford St. and another
Adams Farm on the corner of Pleasant St. across from Rich’s. No that was Allen on
Pleasant St.
FL. So you were able to get all your hardware needs locally.
DH. Yeah. Fairly’s has only been out of business for 5 years or so.
FL. Was that your classic hardware store where you had everything you could ever want.
DH. In fact, when he was closing up, I bought a lot of stuff. Mowing machine fingers.
RH. If they didn’t have it out in front, you went out in back.
DH. He had a big scale on the counter, so you bought nails by the pound. You didn’t buy
them in a plastic box. No computer. You put all your purchases on the counter and he
added it all up by hand on the bag. He would pull the string down from the ceiling to
wrap the bag up.
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RH. They would slide the galvanized three quarters pipe through a window under the
shelve window and into the cellar. I don’t know how many sizes he had.
FL. Well, we tried to quit two or three times. I am a little disappointed that we missed
some.
(End of interview.)

Northboro History

Farms

Interview with former Northboro farmer Raymond and his son Don Haitsma by Forest Lyford and Alan Gustafson on Oct. 16, 1999

Yelleck Farm

Bennett Farm

Haitzma Farm–Stirrup Brook Farm

Interview with Raymond (RH, father) and Don Haitsma (DH,
son), October 16, 1999

Northboro historical material

Interview with former Northboro farmer Raymond and his son Don Haitsma by Forest Lyford and Alan Gustafson on Oct. 16, 1999

Yelleck Farm

Bennett Farm

Haitzma Farm–Stirrup Brook Farm

Interview with Raymond (RH, father) and Don Haitsma (DH,son), October 16, 1999

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Northboro historical material

Interview with Raymond (RH, father) and Don Haitsma (DH,
son), October 16, 1999