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Note: REFERENCES: 1. Ernest H. Grubb, son and compiler 2. Obit: 25 JUL 1979, "Daily Journal", Franklin, IN 3. "Johnson County News", Jan 26, 1962
BIO: "BURRIS S. GRUBB DIES WEDNESDAY Burris S. Grubb, 80, Greenwood route one, died Wednesday at his home. Born June 20, 1899 in Johnson County to Nola and Emma (Beard) Grubb, he was a resident of the Greenwood area most of his life. A farmer until 1947, Grubb was a self-employed plumber until retirement seven years ago. Grubb was a member of the Rocklane Christian Chuurch. Services are set for Friday, 2 p.m. at Wilson-St. Pierre Greenwood Chapel. Burial will be in Greenwood Cemetery and Rev. Harold D. Schneider will officiate. Friends may call after 5 p.m. today at the funeral home. Survivors include his wife, Leta Griffith Grubb; one son, Ernest Grubb; three daughters, Jean Downey, Westfield, Mass.; Alice Jane Logan, Greenwood; Martha Locke, Noblesville; one brother, John Martin Grubb, Shelbyville and 13 grandchildren and two great grandchildren." NOTE: Errors in the obit: Jean Downey lived in Westford, MA and Burris' living brother was named John Marden. ****************************************************************************************
JAN 26, 1962-- "NINETY-TWO YEAR OLD HOUSE IS COMMUNITY LANDMARK" (From an article in the "Johnson County News") A ninety year old house which has been occupied by the Burris GRUBB family the past several years, can boast of having seen a great deal of life's various activities. The long open stairway with shiny wood railing has no doubt been polished by the antics of boys and girls as they slid from top to bottom bringing them into a central hall. In 1875, James PARMER bought the farm, now owned by Burris and Leta GRUBB, from the heirs of Joseph HOSIER, who entered the land in 1829. This was among the first land entries in Johnson County. The present house was built for James PARMER in 1870. William Hester and George Robison were the carpenters. It is a large two-story house which was originally painted white, with green shutters at all windows. It had ornamented box gutters and the elaborate trim, which according to Robison, was cut the winter before the house was built. The huge sills are hand hewn of native hardwood. The framework is of rough sawn pine. The basement is walled with rock slabs, undoubtedly from surrounding fields. Walks around the house are huge rock slabs. In 1927, Joseph HOGUE bought the farm from the PARMER heirs. The HOGUEs lived in Indianapolis and he was instrumental in getting the first power line run through Rocklane. HOGUE also installed a coal/wood furnace and two clothes presses were built, one upstairs and one downstairs, at each side of the new furnace chimney. Until that time this eight room house had only one clothes closet. HOGUE passed away in 1931 and the GRUBB family, continued to tenant farm the land until 1944, when they purchased the farm from the Mrs. HOGUE and her daughter, Mrs. Ethel PENSINGER. In 1947, GRUBB remodeled the large barn to more adequately serve as a dairy barn. In 1951 Insul siding was put on the house. The box gutters and ornamented trim were removed. The green shutters were taken down and aluminum storm windows were installed. Two bathrooms were installed the same year, one on each floor of the house. Only last year (1961) was the original slate roof replaced by a composition roof. The four children of the GRUBB family spent most of their childhood and youth years in this house at the east edge of Rocklane. They are Jean, who is married to George DOWNEY, and lives at Nashville, TN with her husband and five children. George is the Youth Director (Disciples of Christ) for the State of Tennessee. Alice Jane, married to Doral LOGAN, with their four children live southwest of Greenwood where they operate a large dairy farm. Ernest is head coach and Dean of Boys in the Douglas, Georgia High School. Martha and her husband, David LOCKE, have two boys and live and teach in Noblesville. From gold panning to dairying, this old farm has seen many changes---times both sad and good. It has seen chicken raising, milk stored in crocks as well as with more modern refrigeration. sewing, studying, slumber parties, more studying, canning and preserving of food, weddings and youth gatherings. Among the other things we might also mention the picking of cherries and persimmons. GRUBB, no longer dairying, is doing plumbing and electrical work. ************************************************** Dad was a farmer until health and allergies forced him to find other work. His and mom's love of and faith in the land are expressed here in one of Henry Ward Beecher's works. After Dad's death, Mom had Kim, a niece, do a work in Caligraphy for her...had it framed, and kept it near until her death in 1996. Parts of it were used in Dad's funeral service.
"I am not sorry when my corn is cut down in autumn. It is one of the most beautiful of crops. There is no more pleasing sight in the world, I think, than a field of Indian maize. Yet, when it begins to wither, to shrink up, and the wind makes harsh whistlings through it, I do not feel bad. Why? Because the ear is there, and it is ripe, and I have my grain. And if I want to, I can plant it again the next spring, and have another harvest the next autumn. And when a man is all withered and shrunk, and dies out of the refuse heap of life, if I am sure that the corn is in him, and that in the other life it will be planted again, and will spring up, and grow and ripen, then there is no occasion for me to feel bad."
**************************************************** The following are some letters that Burris wrote to his father, Nola, who was living in Georgia with his brother, Stanley Roberts Grubb. They are copied as nearly as possible, including punctuation and spelling.
Greenwood, Ind. Jan. 10, 1932
Dear Dad, We received your Christmas present, those pecans were sure fine. The children just go for them. Ernest can crack them with the crackers. He is some boy, he and Alice Jane weigh 39 pounds each. Jean is in school and likes it fine. We are all well have had some cold but are alright now. Leta's father is about the same He doesn't get out much his blood pressure varys so. Hope this finds you all well we have very moderate weather. Have had lots of rain of late Wheat, rye and what grass never died during the drought is looking fine. We had a bumper corn crop this year oats were mostly light though. Tomatoes were poor quality this year. Ours made about $90. an acre. Milk and chickens are about the best property now although eggs are getting lower. Leta sells pure bred hatching eggs to the hatchery now she gets .12 cents premium on the dozen. We have sold 30 hogs have 16 left and have butchered 4 We sold most of the meat. We have 62 fall pigs and seven bred sows. Our hay was mostly timothy this year it was so dry early that the clover never grew very high excepting the sweet clover which only lived on the black ground and was very rank but this hay is woody I guess I should run it through a hammer mill, we are milking six cows have two heifers fresh and one cow to freshen. Feb. 1st We have two more springer heifers and four yearling heifers. They can put away a lot of roughage I have never ground any fodder but have heard it is fine. We cut 200 shocks of fodder but just husked the corn off and feed it in the stock. We are having our wood cut this year a world of timber died during the last to summers. Three of those big beech east of the barn died. Just as soon as we have Martha's picture taken we will send you one. She weighed 23 pounds Christmas day. She will be six months old the 16th. Most people have started plowing I want to get out some more manure before I start I want to sell a team this spring, have a pair of colts to break, every one wants plugs any more something to work through the summer and get rid of in the fall. This has been real weather for sheep ours are so fat they can scarcely waddle along they are running in a rye field we hogged down enough sprouted up to make capital winter pasture, sowed nine acres to rye and timothy for spring and summer pasture. We'll have to sow soybeans for hay as our clover is uneven. Will try tomatoes again if I can get a contract. Would like to see your new barn it must be nice. I would like to have enough mow room to raise some alfalfa. We had to build a milk house this fall it is only five by six with cooling tanks below the level of the ground. It is just west of the barn we put in a pitcher top pump and piped the water from the stock well. The tanks drain out in a tile ditch. It is nice but I think they should pay more for milk with a low bacteria count rather than sending a young army around telling folks what they must do. Let us hear from you soon. give Uncle Stanley and Aunt Mable our love.
Burris
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Greenwood, Ind Nov 6, 1932
Dear Dad -: Suppose you think we are out of stamps or ink. But we have just been very busy and I sure do mean busy to. Late in the summer our hand left and I lost out on the odds and ends and when tomatoes soy beans and fodder cutting came along we were covered up. Leta's father had been is worse condition during october and on Sat morning the twenty nineth he passed away. Heart trouble caused his death although asthma and other trouble had caused a great deal of suffering. We of course realized to some extent his condition. And he seemed unafraid having told Mother a few days before he died that he would like to stay with her a long time but he could not and suffer so. We are all well Mother and John will still live together in the old home. I wish you could see the children now. They are growing so large We have a real girl now so big she is afraid to walk. Leta has a nice bunch of pullets. they aren't laying yet though. It has benn pretty weather and they range a lot. Have forty three fat hogs and forty three pigs. We killed a hog last week it is about the only way one can get any thing out of them. We are husking corn now it is the best we ever raised. Five acres we had in tomatoes last year made four hundred bushels. I planted forty acres and cut up eight. We haven't husked much fodder and have nearly 15 acres standing. Due to milk prices we are separating and selling cream. Have nine cows just feed corn oats and stock pasture. None of them are braking any records. There is some real old time campaign stuff around here. Real donkeys and elephants Last Friday night Mother and John had sixty hens and pullets stolen. They went to Indianapolis and with city detectives found thirty of them This morning John and I went back and found eleven more. Never got any line on who sold them though. Chicken stealing has become quite a racket around here. Mother was strong for locks, but the thief pulled the staple out and helped themselves. Our tomatoes made six tons to the acre. We had lots of them to sunburn this time. I never sowed wheat but have seventeen acres of rye for pasture. Soybeans in the neighborhood were fine most of them used for hay. There has been several hard rains which have made it hard to harvest them. Quite a lot of trouble was caused by soy beans heating in the barn. The summer was real nice here gardens did real well. I fell down on my late strawberry bed every plant died we're going to leave the old bed and start over. Hope this finds you and Uncle Stanley and Aunt Mable well, would like to see you all. Leta is sending Martha's picture. She walks around things she can hold on to. She doesn't talk much but can make lots of signs. This will reach you about election time but don't let it keep you away from the polls. I llok for it to be close. But I'm hoping for a G.P. victory. Politicians are trying to tell us prosperity is just around the corner but imagine we'll find it pretty gradual. Maybe if a fellow can have the breaks he'll wiggle through We have been very fortunate to have had no large expenses. Bur money is very scarce. We have much to be thankful for though. All are in good health and we have food, clothes and friends. We find much joy in our home we all love each other so. Thanksgiving means much to us in our joys and sorrows. I hope your eyes are improving and that you are enjoying yourself Give Uncle Stanleys' my love
Your loving son Burris
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Greenwood, Ind. Aug 27, 1933
Dear Dad Should have written a long time ago. Was glad to here you are better. We are all well. Crops here though are not very good it was so wet in the spring, we were late planting corn and beans. Tomatoes are no good. We never set tomatoes this year. The corn was hardly big enough to cultivate when we had the worst rain and hail storm this district ever seen. Buildings and crops were damaged a lot. Gardens fruit and berries all were ruined, as soon as we could we planted our garden over, but we had sixty days drought for good measure with the result we are just having our first vegetables since June 1st. Leta is canning now peaches from Georgia and Illinois & southern Indiana apples from the Magill neighborhood, home grown corn and beans. Leta raised her chickens with hens this summer. Things are slow up here yet, it is hard to make a dollar and harder to keep it. We are painting the house for Houges it sure was a job on the house so many brackets, shutters and niches. Mrs Houges' daughter and her husband are in Arizona He is interested in a mining enterprise. They reduced the rent last year but they are still improving the place. Jean and Alice Jane are getting ready for school. Jean has taken music lessons this summer we got a real good piano for ten dollars. The sweet corn was so short that some of the canning companys are buying late varieties of field corn to can. We are only milkimg five cows now cream is low and so are eggs. There is considerable old corn here but the price hasn't advanced as much as one would think. The hail ruined the Rocklane wheat many people never threshed at all, some mowed the fields and threshed the loose straw. Six bushels was a big yield. The children have a pony to ride now. It belonged to Houge's grandson. Ernest sure has a time with her but he says he likes to ride the big horses best. He is big for his age and strong as an oak tree. Martha is saying everything now she is big to. She likes to make mud pies and cakes. Live stock prices are hurting many breeders and feeders now people with heavy cattle losing lots of money we bred our heifers and held them over, but I doubt if we made anything by it than more work. We plowed twenty acres with the tractor this spring and disced over a hundred acres with it. I believe we operated cheaper this year while producing corn if frost stays off a while later than usual It was an unusually hot summer Hay was I believe the only crop of real quality and quanity we had. Leta lost one brood of chicks in the storm. Many folks lost all they had even pigs and lambs were beat to death. A funny thing it hailed from the north a while and then changed to the east of course the lights were off and one chimney blew over and the bricks punctured the slate roof. We lighted coal oil lamps and started moping but had to give it up. When the storm was over I went out to see about the chickens bricks were all over the walk but I never noticed them till morning. I hope Uncle Stanley and Aunt Mable are well and happy in their work would like to see all of you I wondered if Uncle Stanley would be going to the fair. Would like for them to come see if they are through here.
Yours as ever, Burris
#################################################################################### Dad was an avid fisherman although he did not get to go much. He and a group of farmers in the area would go to Michigan and/or Canada during the summer after most of the crops were "laid by" and awaiting the fall harvest. Mom found this poem and Kim made a caligraphy of it for her.
A FISHERMAN'S PRAYER I pray that I may live to fish Until my dying day And when it comes to my last cast I then most humbly pray When in the Lord's great landing net And peacefully asleep That in His mercy I'll be judged Big enough to keep. ####################################################################################
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