Bruce Lambert grew up on the farm northwest of Dayton in the 1950s and ’60s, the oldest of four siblings, although he only beat his twin brother Bill into this world by about six minutes. Brother Brian and sister Sandi followed a few years later.

Parents Harold and Lois Lambert married in 1945. She was a stay-at-home mom, while her husband oversaw the farming operation. Harold’s parents, Fred and Jenny Lambert, purchased the Dayton Township farm in 1924 for the then-sizeable sum of $224 per acre.

Fred and Jenny Lambert were both immigrants from Sweden who originally settled in Chicago, where they first met. They would settle down on a rented farm near Paton, but the owner came upon hard times and had to sell out.

That’s when Fred and Jenny Lambert picked up stakes and scrounged to buy what would become the Lambert Century Farm. They could not know the hardships they would face, with the Great Depression just a few years away.

Brothers Bruce and Brian agree that it was hard work — and apparently lots of good, homemade food saw the family through.

“My grandma Jenny had a long life,” Bruce Lambert recalled. “I remember all the cookies she would make. She made rusk from old bread.”

Recalling the hard rusk that was dipped in coffee to soften it up, Brian Lambert said, “Nothing went to waste.”

Potato bologna; ostkaka, a type of Swedish cheesecake; and even lutefisk, made from dried, salted cod, were on the menu at the Lambert home.

“I can remember making potato bologna with my mother,” Brian Lambert recalled. “We used half sausage, half ground pork or beef, potatoes, spices, and lots of evaporated milk. We had a hand-crank, but we took the handle off and put a drill on it, and then we could turn out potato bologna pretty fast.”

Rusk remains a popular item in many farm homes, especially in the cold, winter months. Swedish rye bread, for which Lois Lambert was known in the area, is still a family favorite.

If it sounds like there was a lot of good eating on the Lambert farm, the fuel was needed for the work that had to be done.

“We had 25 to 30 milk cows,” Bruce Lambert noted. “The day we sold them was the best day of my life,” he said with a chuckle, recalling the constant labor that others who have had dairy cows can well understand.

“After that, we kept enough cows just for our family,” he added.

The brothers also remember raising many, many chickens, and being pecked by the hens when they gathered eggs, or harassed by roosters.

The Lamberts also farrowed pigs, and every Saturday morning it was time to clean out the barns.

“We pitched manure every Saturday morning and then we could go to Dayton and play basketball in the gym,” Brian Lambert recalled. “It would take all morning — there was a lot of manure.”

While it was a big job, the incentive of getting off the farm to be with friends no doubt helped speed the work along.

Both of the brothers, Bruce and Brian, still live in the area. Bruce’s twin, Bill, passed away a few years ago. Their sister, Sandi Ward, lives in Ames.

Brian Lambert’s grandson, Carson Lambert, son of Chad Lambert, now lives on the family farm. Brian Lambert is now getting to play the role of grandpa on the farm, something his own grandfather, Fred Lambert, never got to do.

“He died when I was about 5 or 6 years old,” Brian Lambert recalled. “I can barely remember him.”

Passing down the memories, as his grandmother Jenny Lambert was able to do, is something he enjoys.

“I’ve always enjoyed farming and I’m going to farm until I can’t go anymore,” Brian Lambert said.

Fortunately, he added, “I’m kind of in teaching mode now. I’ve got plenty of back-up and everything gets done.”

And the old recipes won’t be lost, either. One of his daughters carries on the tradition of making rye bread, especially for the holidays.

Good food and good farming just seem to go hand in hand.

“No one ever went away hungry here,” Bruce Lambert said.