Franklin County, Nebraska

For Another Day

“Raisin Jack Brandy Time on Dry Creek”

Keith Melton and I have been talking via e-mail for about a year. He tells me about living south of Naponee and about his childhood days attending Red Top School.

Keith has sent wonderful pictures of that time period. I found the picture he sent of the school most interesting, for that is where my husband’s mother taught for a couple of years in the ‘30’s.

I have been to the Red Top School site and tried to imagine what it looked like. The only thing I had to use to determine the size is a few pieces of foundation. Now with the help of Keith, I can see what it looked like sitting on the side hill facing north. I asked Keith to tell me what those days were like. He sometimes writes me bits and pieces, but this time he took the time to write this story on paper and mail it to me.

Here is a special memory from Keith Melton, now living in Oregon:

“My parents lived on a farm called the Graff Place, on Dry Creek, from 1928 to 1930. It is located just south of Naponee, NE, between the Republican River and the Kansas border.

“Just across a small wooden bridge, over Dry Creek, lived an old farmer. This bridge was part of a small road system that crossed over the hill to the next farm and on into Naponee. This hill was very nice in the wintertime to sleigh ride on. I didn’t have a sled, but my dad showed me how to ride in a grain shovel down the hill. The next thing I knew I was learning to steer the grain shovel and how to avoid the barbed wire fence at the bottom-especially the lower strand of barbed wire.

“The handle of the shovel would catch on the barbed wire and give you a nasty flip. Riding down the hill backwards, it was worse to hit the wire; you really needed heavy clothing around your neck. It was a lot of fun, though. Sometimes Model T. Fords, if low on gas, would have to turn around and back up the hill, as the Model T. had no fuel or gas pump and the gas was gravity fed from the tank under the front seat. What a fun hill! I would love to go back and do it all over again.

“But, back to the story about how to make Raisin Jack Brandy. Dry Creek was loaded with wild gooseberries and crab apples. I can’t recall where he got the wild grapes or the raisins. Also, fermented ground up corn sure did smell bad mixed with the gooseberries, currants and crab apples all fermented together.

“I would help this gentleman in the fall, at least I thought I was helping him. He would always go over to Crow Creek, which was the next creek over and get black walnut wood for cooking his Raisin Jack Mash. Some farmers raised sorghum cane over on Crow Creek and he would borrow some sorghum vats to cook his mash in.

“The mash would be ready to cook when he mixed in all of the apples, grapes, corn meal, raisins, prunes (mold and all), with the gooseberries and currants. Several cakes of yeast dissolved in warm water and then poured in, plus at least one hundred pounds of sugar. You needed to be a farmer to afford to make Raisin Jack, as it would take a wagonload of corn to trade for the hundred pounds of sugar and the cakes of yeast. When the bartering was over, the sugar and yeast would come out of Austin’s Grocery Store in Naponee, and then back to the farm to cook the mash.

“It seems to me he would cook the mash for about a week, or ten days, in the sorghum vats, all outside along Dry Creek’s banks. This must have been an awfully hard job, as he was all alone. After the cooking was over, the mash was strained through used flour sacks into a big wooden barrel. Water was added and then it was covered with wet flour sacks for weeks or more. It seems like it was all gone by Christmas time except for a pickle crock he kept covered again with a wet four sack. Never did I see him drink any from the crock and I do not know how long it lasted.

“The strained mash, from the flour sacks, was poured over the cows’ prairie grass hay. The cows didn’t seem to care what they were eating, but he chickens must have been able to smell the mash, as they would fight the cows in order to get at the mash.

“Flour sacks are a story in them selves. The were used not only in straining things and making cheese, but for pillowcases sewn together to make covers for corn shuck mattresses, dish towels, diapers and underwear. They were also dipped in water and hung over the windows to keep the dust out during the dust storms. I remember going to sleep with wet flour sacks over my face during dust storms, what a wonderful sack. I wonder if people who made the sack knew what a wonderful sack they made.”

Soon this art of making spirits at home will be lost if someone doesn’t talk. We know the process of making Raisin Jack Brandy, but we still lack the knowledge of the portions. Coming from the mountains of West Virginia where the moonshine still was just around the hill. I asked my dad on my last visit to his home, “How do you make Moonshine?” Well, he either has forgotten or he has joined the crowd of secret keepers. If these old timers don’t share the recipe from the past, it will be a guessing game.

Here’s a toast to the good old days of homemade brandy, good corn liquor, wine and home brew, drank from a reusable brown bottle. And a toast to a passing era, when barn dancers took a “Pardon me for a second,” to the outside night air, for a sip from the potent hidden flask.

There will be a hot time in the old town tonight. Joseph Hayden

Rena Donovan, For Another Day.

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