BLAKESBURG — Though they came empty-handed, Beryl and Anita Proctor still spent considerable time examining the entries in the horticulture display at the Blakesburg Corn Carnival. This is the first year that they have not brought a carload of entries from their big garden on the farm. And won a handful of blue ribbons.

“We have never missed a Corn Carnival,” she said, and nearly always participated. “We have always gardened,” but not this year because “the garden didn’t dry out soon enough to plant.

“We didn’t get it fall plowed because of too much rain” she explained. The couple has been married 68 years. “Well, we didn’t have a garden that first year because we got married in July and it was too late to plant. Beryl bought a bushel of tomatoes for 40 cents from a neighbor, and I bought jars and canned them.”

Forty cents doesn’t sound like much; but a teacher’s pay was only $50 to $65 a month.

Anita regrets not having her own sweet potatoes this year. As usual she started plants this spring, confident that she could find someone to give the plants to if she didn’t have her own garden. She used the extra plants as greenery in her flower garden.

What did Beryl miss the most this summer? “Not havin’ something good to eat,” he said. “Nothing is better eating than vegetables fresh from the garden.”

“A good garden will carry you through from spring to fall, with good vegetables in season,” Anita added. “We had a good apple crop, but squirrels are eating up the apples. I wanted to put some kind of tar out so they would get fast in it, but Beryl wouldn’t let me.”

She has canned some apple sauce salvaged from squirrel-nibbled apples. “I would sure like to know how to get rid of them,” she sighed. “I didn’t know they would eat strawberries, but they do.”

The Proctors lived on their farm near Mt. Zion Methodist Church for 50 years, then moved to Ottumwa where they have lived the past 18 years; but kept the big garden on the farm. While looking over the vegetable display, Anita recalled the year they brought the biggest watermelon to the Corn Carnival. “When we came to pick it up, it was gone. It had taken legs and walked away,” she giggled.

Her first Corn Carnival exhibit experience was 1939, the first year she taught at Brush Creek rural school in Adams Township located southeast of Blakesburg. She recalls the gym crowded with school exhibits. Each elementary room in Blakesburg School and a half dozen or so of surrounding country schools participated. Each school was assigned a booth that was decorated and filled with samples of school work and art projects. Ribbons and prize money were awarded.

Anita taught school until she quit in 1973 to take care of her mother. She taught in country schools until they were all closed, in Blakesburg a year or so then “subbed in Ottumwa where I taught in every school and Ottumwa Junior High,” she said. “Sometimes I tried to take a year off, but then a school would call me.”

Beryl did carpenter work, farmed and operated his own saw mill. He enjoyed the carpenter work and built “a lot of houses.”

Beryl began farming with horses as a child. “My dad put me behind a walkin’ plow with a team of horses when I was 12 years old,” he said. “I sure was glad when dad bought a tractor in 1938. Instead of feeding horses corn, we had to buy gasoline for the tractor.”

The highlight of their life, was winning the Select Speed Contest in 1959. Ford put out a tractor, Select Speed, and as a promotion sponsored a contest: Why do you want a Select Speed. The prize was an all expense trip to Europe or a new Select Speed tractor. At Beryl’s urging, Anita finally entered the contest. She still remembers the jingle that came to her one night in bed:

“I’ve shoved on clutches