Joe and Rose Masek, parents of Fred, Victor, and Charles, were engrossed in a living style where sometimes the wolf probably wasn't far from the door. However, they always gave their sons their love and the best they could provide.

Fred always regarded his dad as a good cheerleader as Fred finished high school, advanced in rank in the Army, entered college, worked in the radio announcing fields, and later became a newspaper writer.

Both Joe and Rose only reached the level of an 8th grade education. They were eager to have their sons graduate from high school (which they did) and seek a more comforting and promising life thereafter.

Rose originated from a poor background in Bohemia, a province now part of the Czech Republic. She filtered into an agrarian setting upon reaching the United States. As a mother, Rose was a little more conservative than Joe. She often cautioned her sons against taking chances and warned that a sudden opportunity might not be golden. She was extremely honest and concerned about the future of her sons.

Throughout his life Joe had a tremendous love for horses. Even after moving from the farm near Geddes to Lake Andes he kept a team nearby for a few years. His steeds were sometimes used to plow and harrow city gardens. Joe, his horses, and hayrack were in demand by school children seeking to organize hay rides. Joe had a deep feeling for children of all ages.

Joe had been born in the city of Cleveland, OH. before leaving for Geddes at age 14. He later returned to Cleveland for several months to be a milk delivery man. A team of horses pulled his milk van.

Even 50 years after leaving Cleveland Joe often steered his conversation with strangers and friends alike toward some early events and experiences in that city. It may have been that a part of him remained in Cleveland.

Quite possibly he returned to South Dakota abruptly due to the continued poor health of his father, Thomas. His presence was no doubt needed to keep the farm operation running smooth. His father died in 1928 just a few days within the time that Fred was born.

When Fred was 2 the family moved from an Armour farm to a farm between White River and Wood in south-central South Dakota. Joe wanted to get into raising cattle but the timing was wrong. The depression set in with its crop failures, the dust bowl, and scanty income. Much of the population in a wide range of the dust bowl, covering many states, was on government-supported commodity relief. Family health insurance during this period and many years to follow was an uncommon investment.

The next Masek family move was to a small ranch on Scalp Creek near Fairfax and the bottomlands of the Missouri River. Today, that land is under water due to the construction of the Ft. Randall Dam near Pickstown.

There were other perils at the Fairfax location. Cattle died from anthrax, horses died from sleeping sickness, and coyotes were murdering sheep. Joe set up Fred with two sheep which developed into a herd of maybe a dozen by the time he left home. Although Joe furnished feed and shelter for the sheep, he generously allowed Fred to have the profit from the sale of the wool and eventual sale of the sheep for caring for them. Often the sheep found holes in fences and Fred had to look a mile or more for them.

Joe's mother, Barbara, was losing her farm near Geddes. Joe's sisters looked at Joe as the savior to take over the farm. He did. During World War II farm profits thrived but during other periods its size was not conducive for supporting the family well. It was 120 acres, not an adequate standard in that area. Joe farmed with horses and never became mechanized with a tractor and implements which might have allowed more ground to be rented and farmed.

The farm, 12 miles northeast of Geddes, was the last family home from which sons, Victor, Charlie, and Fred, in that order departed for educational pursuits or the working world. The house was moved to Lake Andes, across from the city park, where it continued to be the family home. Fred stayed in the home when he visited there some weekends from Sioux Falls. Grandma Masek died before Brian and Dick were born. However, the boys accompanied their Dad a few times to visit Grandpa Masek in Lake Andes before he was settled in a Wagner nursing home.

Farm life for Joe often meant going to the bank in spring to obtain a loan to buy seed to plant, farming all summer, and paying off the loan when harvest of grain arrived in fall. Often there was little or no cash remaining.

However, there were attributes to farm living. The Maseks always had chickens and eggs to eat. A large garden provided fresh summer-time vegetables, some of which were canned for winter-use. Bread, cake, doughnuts, and other pastries were home-baked by Rose. The Maseks often raised ducks and turkeys for family eating. Turkeys were also a cash entity.

Fred always prided himself with a pipeline he sunk into the ground which brought water from the windmill to the garden.

In winter, Joe frequently butchered a hog. The meat remained unspoiled in cold weather. It also could be kept in the cellar for shorter periods of time. Rose canned tasty pork and beans in quart jars. She did the same with stew meat if beef were available. Bohemian families often made a delicious sausage during winter months.

Rural Electrification didn't reach the farm until 1948 when Fred returned from his first tour of duty in the Army. It is believed that at White River-Wood the pork was cooked and preserved in a large crock filled with lard.

There were the usual daily duties on the farm that Fred and his brothers, like other farm children, were required to perform: Help milk cows, feed the sheep, pigs and calves, pick the eggs, turn a separator by hand to divide milk into cream and skim milk, cut firewood, weed the garden, water the garden, clean out the barn and chicken house (not choice jobs) and unloading hay into the barn. In winter the task might include shoveling paths from the house to the barn, hoghouse and chickenhouse.

Usually Johnny or Vern Petrik, cousins from Platte, spent much of the summer at the Masek rural Geddes home, but not both boys together. At one time, Johnny, Fred, and a city kid from Rapid City tried to conduct their own rodeo by coaxing calves with buckets of feed and jumping on their backs. The folks didn't catch onto these pranks and wouldn't have permitted it for fear of injuring the calves.

The Rapid City kid became somewhat of a brat and often provoked Johnny and Fred. One day they each grabbed him by the arm and drug him through a mud puddle. That may have been the only time that Joe used a leather strap on Fred and told him in no uncertain terms that he should be ashamed. The Rapid City brat got the last laugh that day.

During winter months Fred also trapped weasels, skunks, and mink and shot rabbits. The hides produced a welcome income for the farm boy. One day Fred got skunk odor on his shoes and had to bury them temporarily to rid the scent.

While World War II was raging Fred became rather gung ho and built two cannons (from pipes) on wheels and dug an air raid shelter near the house. The folks either thought, "What will this lad think of next" or "This will pass." During a heavy rain, the shelter was consumed with water.

During summers from high school, Fred earned some money by shocking grain for nearby farmers. He also rode a converted planter pulled by a tractor and driven by a neighbor. Once, a piece of metal on a turning shaft caught Fred's pant leg and ripped cloth all the way to his waist. He was lucky to have escaped injury.

Two summers during his college years, Fred followed the harvest northward shocking grain and driving a rack into which bundles of grain were pitched and later fed into a threshing machine. During part of one of those summer seasons Fred trained at Camp McCoy, Wisconsin, preparatory to receiving a commission as a second lieutenant in the Army Reserve Corps.

While at Camp McCoy, Fred also wrote a couple of feature stories for the Argus Leader regarding the training of the USD Army cadets. It was another way of breaking the ice in seeking work later in the publication field. He was a college junior at the time.

After his first year in college, Fred went to Grand Junction, Colorado, to find summer work. He joined his Platte, SD. cousin, Johnny Petrik, who had gone ahead to Colorado where a married sister lived. Work was more scarce than expected. One day, Fred lived on a couple of doughnuts and coffee. He never quite forgot that experience. He and Johnny slept in Fred's car near an irrigation ditch at the outskirts of town for three nights while they looked for work. Fred's two summer jobs consisted of working in a greenhouse and in a tomato factory. The top pay was approximately 90 cents an hour. Fred was glad to limp back to South Dakota in his 1938 Chevrolet and resume college.

During Fred's early school years, his Dad, Joe, seems to have a method for dealing with teachers who were responsible for unreasonable acts.

Fred's first grade teacher in Mellette County near Wood-White River was a very warm-hearted and helpful person who caused students to make excellent progress. During a family move while Fred was in the second grade he was transferred to a country Scalp Creek School near Fairfax in Gregory County. The new teacher proved to have a hearing problem. On the first day in the new class, the teacher said she wondered how some clay models on top of the piano fell apart. Fred responded that the cold (unheated building overnight) may have been responsible. The teacher said, "What?" Fred repeated himself. The partially deaf teacher thought Fred was mumbling. She rushed to his desk and shook him until he cried. Fred told the story at home. Joe joined the School Board and the teacher's contract was not renewed.

Later at another country school near Geddes in Charles Mix County the teacher seemed to be guilty of upping the grades of two students (her pets). She in turn also was downsizing Fred's grades even when these scores were vastly superior to the other two students who just weren't cutting it. Joe was elected to the School Board and the teacher's career at the school ended. Joe did not often actively seek revenge but he didn't tolerate injustice either.

Back on the farm, the Maseks had a black and white spotted riding horse named "Buster." He was appropriately named. Every male member of the family and some relatives hit the dirt when Buster was in a bucking mood. Sometimes if the wind moved a thistle, Buster was out of control and so was the rider.

During one experience Victor Masek was the rider and Sylvia Petrik, a cousin, was the passenger. The horse may have been touched in the flanks by one of the pair. Quickly, the horse's rear feet went up and then the front feet and the rear feet. Sylvia was sprawled on the ground, surprised but unhurt. In attempting to retell the experience in her excitement she remarked, "Victor bucked me off."

The family always had a couple of dogs sometimes used to help round up cattle. One dog, "Shep," proved to be a reliable hunting dog. Brother Charles and Fred did considerable hunting during pheasant season. However, it was learned with dismay that Shep began roaming at night, possibly with other dogs, and a neighbor had shot him.

Fred was the first to introduce a battery-operated radio to the Masek farm home in the early 1940s. He earned the money while joining Victor in picking corn by hand for Uncle Tony Lunak. The work was done either during a Thanksgiving or Christmas break from school. Fred was fearful that he would catch heck for such extravagance. It was not the case.

The radio was secretly brought into the living room while Fred's Mom and Dad were in the kitchen. Suddenly, it was turned on. His Dad stepped to the archway of the two rooms and almost seemed stunned as he heard music coming from the airways. His most quotable remarks seemed to be, "Where did you get it?"... and "How did you get it?"

There were enjoyable programs to be heard. While Fred did chores his Mom's job was to remind him of when it was 5 p.m. and time for "Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy." The sponsor was Wheaties, "breakfast of champions."

Radio station WNAX, with its 50,000 watts, was the outlet easiest and clearest to pick up, night or day. Whitey Larson, the 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. homey newsman, had a loyal audience. The listening public loved it when he said, "There will be a little rain about milking time." It was the language farmers understood.

The Jack Benny Show, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Fibber McGee and Molly, and the Hit Parade were favorite night-time programs. WNAX also seems to have a fixture of country musicians who filled a full Sunday afternoon of programming. Lawrence Welk's Band also played on the station.

The farm home near Geddes never had central heating. There was a living room heater burning coal and a wood and cook stove in the kitchen. Sometimes corn cobs were used as fuel. Joe tried to bank the fire in the heater before bed time so there would be something to rekindle in the morning. If it was 20 below zero during the night it was a challenge to get out of bed into a frigid house.

The house and other buildings had been rebuilt after a tornado in the late 1930s when Grandma Barbara Masek, Uncle Charlie, and Aunt Anna Straka lived there. They escaped injury. For some time a granary was their living quarters until the house was habitable again.

Sunday on the Geddes farm was a day of rest... a day for chicken dinner.. a day for company. If there was no company Joe often wrote letters to his mother and sister, Anna, in David City, Nebraska. He did very well at writing Fred when he was in the Army. The places he ended up writing to included Ft. Lewis Wash., Ft. Benning, Georga, Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri, Camp Stoneman, California, and Pusan and Seoul, Korea.

Company on Sunday often consisted of John and Rose (Joe's sister) Petrik and children, Dorothy, Sylvia, Vern, and Johnny, of Platte, SD. They arrived in a Model A Ford with an almost obscured windshield both battered and chipped. Sometimes a hand-cranked ice cream freezer provided a special afternoon treat although ice was a scarce item.

The Masek boys once talked their folks into buying bottles, caps, and ingredients for making root beer. The beer had to age but sometimes the boys and relatives couldn't resist an early sip. Another hazard that threatened the beer supply is that some of the bottled beer shot off caps in the cellar before reaching maturity.

The John Varilek family living nearby were always friendly neighbors. However, John's curved pipe filled the house with an odor that didn't quickly drift away. It was always a must to drag out the pastries (kolache) and coffee if the Varileks drove onto the yard. That's what happened when anybody drove onto their yard. Fred always liked the idea of stopping at the Varileks... It meant that lunch would be served.

Joe and Rose were members of the ZCBJ Lodge, a fraternal Bohemian social club, both at White River and Geddes. At Geddes, the ZCBJ owned a building where dances and some traveling plays were held. At one time Joe was lodge treasurer. He often sold or took tickets at dances and put up with drunken patrons. More than once drunks settled scores outdoors. Fights at the dances seemed to be a real sideshow. Usually it was a fight between the young who were drunk, foolish, and witless.