“In 1960, he handwrote many pages of memories in a notebook,” said Barbara (Wulkow) Gregory, his granddaughter. “We were always hearing the family stories when I was growing up.”

These stories are often sobering. Just five years prior to Ernest’s birth, his father, Carl Wulkow, had purchased 100 acres of Sac County land in Coon Valley Township in 1880. To say times were tough is an understatement.

“When I was 7 years old, I had to start work in the field,” wrote Ernest Wulkow, who received a fourth-grade education before he had to go to work full-time. “My first job was to drag with two horses and a two-section drag after seeding oats, walking all day. Then when I came in at night, I had to chore till dark, then eat supper, then to bed.”

Then the young boy and his family were up at 5 a.m. the next morning to milk the cows.

-Submitted photo
Ernest Wulkow (1885-1979) was born on his family’s farm two miles west and three miles south of Lytton. “In 1960, he handwrote many pages of memories in a notebook,” said Barbara (Wulkow) Gregory, his granddaughter. “We were always hearing the family stories when I was growing up.”

“We didn’t have barns like we have now,” Ernest Wulkow said. “The cows, heifers, steers and bull were all in an open shed. We had to go in there and find the cow we wanted to milk. After we found her, we got her all lined up and sat down and started to milk. Then some darn steer or another cow would come along and bump her in the ‘bettey’ on the other side and upset us.”

The hay was stacked on the north side of the shed. “We would have to cut it with a hay knife,” Wulkow wrote. “The (knife) was dull most of the time and wouldn’t cut. When we would get a fork-full piled up and started for the shed with it, then the good old wind and snow came around the stack and blew half of it away. Those were the good old days!”

In 1894, when Wulkow was 9 years old, his father decided Ernest was old enough to plow.

“He started me out with a 14-inch walking plow with two old horses. One horse was white and the other one was black. The white one was Lena, and she went like hell all the time. The black one’s name was Kate, and she was slow as the devil. I had an awful time learning to plow.”

Wulkow and his older brother, Richard, had to do all the fall plowing.

“In 1895, I started to plow corn,” Wulkow added. “We had a couple of Avery corn plows; they had four big shovels on them. The shovels were 6 inches wide and 10 inches long — big enough to plow your grandmother out of the grave. Later on, Dad bought a riding corn plow that worked better.”

At haying time, Carl Wulkow would send Ernest out to cut wild hay.

“We had lots of ponds in the good old days, and the grass was 5 feet long around the pond,” he wrote. “I had to keep on cutting till I got up to the water. Then my sickle would ball up.”

Despite all these hardships, the family made progress. They built a barn in the spring of 1901, followed by a new home in 1914. Both are still standing on the farm where Barbara (Wulkow) Gregory lives.

Gregory’s father, Reinard Wulkow (1918-2003), the only child of Ernest and Martha Wulkow, carried on the family’s farming heritage after his military service. The 1936 Lytton High School graduate joined the Army ROTC program at Iowa State and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army 13 days after the attacks on Pearl Harbor.

He was part of the D-Day invasion in 1944 in World War II. As a spy who could speak multiple languages, he posed as a high-ranking Nazi leader to gain access to the Buchenwald concentration camp.

After returning to Sac County, Reinard Wulkow and his wife, Eunice, raised their four daughters on the farm, plus he served in the Army Reserve for 28 years. A farmer and self-taught artist, Reinard Wulkow built grandfather clocks, painted pictures, made stained glass creations and served as the Coon Valley Township clerk.

Gregory cherishes these memories. “A Century Farm is a family legacy, as well as a disappearing way of life,” she said. “It’s important to honor the people who shaped your life.”

Wulkow Century Farm

Established: 1880

Township: Coon Valley

Number of acres

in original farm: 100

Century Farm Award: 1981

Generation: 4th