WEBSTER CITY — Butch Klaver remembers tea time as being a daily diversion in his home from a young age. Son of a German mother and grandmother, the tradition began long before his arrival.

As a child of 12, Klaver began working in the fields with his father. Every afternoon his mother would come out to the field to serve tea and homemade sweet treats. This, during a time before electricity or running water. Butch’s mother, Pearl, would have made her cakes and breads daily using a wood-burning stove.

His father was the last farmer in the region to institute the use of a tractor, meaning the work was done with a horse and plow.

Afternoon tea served as a time for the men to rest from the heavy work and for the family to socialize. Gossip was always on the menu as the farms were still connected to party lines with 12 families per line.

During the off season, a daily tea table would be set in the kitchen.

For modern readers, it may seem lavish — with porcelain cups, silver spoons, linen napkins and home-cooked cakes — yet such a table would constitute the everyday in rural 1930s Iowa.

Tea time also extended to visits with Butch Klaver’s grandparents at their farm. He recalls his grandmother, born in the late 1880s, having difficulty speaking English. She preferred conversations in German.

Enter Kay.

Butch and Kay met in high school, and the rest, as they say, is history.

She recollects tea time at Butch’s home on the farm before marriage. Realizing how much he enjoyed it, she knew she would continue the tradition. When Butch was sent to Germany during the Korean War, from 1952 to 1954, she visited her mother-in-law on the farm frequently for tea, and she learned the tradition of gathering.

When Butch was away in Germany, Kay worked as a teacher. When he returned, they married and settled into life on a rented farm south of Duncombe. The house had electricity, but only a cistern pump in the kitchen for water. Undeterred, Kay established daily tea time, meeting Butch in the fields every afternoon after she finished her work at the elementary school. She taught a mixed-aged room of 48 kindergartners and first-graders.

She was 19 years old.

In 1955, they welcomed their first child and she left her profession; pregnant teachers were not allowed to teach in 1955.

As the family grew, so did the tradition of tea time. Kay recreated the same magic for her new family as Pearl had done before her. Every day, year after year, the ritual gathering continued.

Today, Kay and Butch have 125 descendants as a result of their marriage, and tea time is going stronger than ever. The Klavers have 26 grandchildren and 67 great-grandchildren and these days their date book is full. Once or twice per week the Klavers host tea time for their family members.

The Klavers host one family at a time, usually five or six relatives, but they have had up to 15 people at a time in their apartment. Oftentimes, word spreads through the modern day party line of texting; one grandchild will tell another that it’s tea time at grandma’s.

Visits have become centered around tea time. Kay has a collection of tea sets, one made by her mother, Margaret, who crafted and fired the set in her own kiln.

The great-grandchildren will now request their favorite tea set, and the grandchildren will bring treats to share.

The newest member of the family, Graham Jude, attended his first tea time recently at just 7 days old.

Kay believes that tea time is the common thread that ties the family together year after year, generation after generation. The tea table is a place where everyone can sit and feel welcome as conversation flows as freely as the tea.