Jim brought life to the old farm with sheer muscle

By VIC LUNDGREN

Special to the Menominee Herald Leader

Saturday, Sept. 22, 1979

In late 1960 the Vic Lundgrens and the Vic Mars reluctantly bought the Eugene Salfai farm in Birch Creek.

We checked it out on a bleak November day — the buildings were in ruins.  It had not been farmed for some years and it was a heap of desolation.

Spring came — Birch Creek bubbled — and I fell in love.

There were 14 seedy buildings and a 52-year-old romantic.  I needed either a bulldozer or help.  We were living on the river bank at that time, and my aide-de-camp was Francis LaPlante.  He took one look at the farm, reminded me of his bad back, and said simply, “You need Jim!”

Jim came out several nights later, after working a full day at Vernco, in the maintenance department and he was lean and lanky with a great grin.  As a matter of fact, he was built like a very muscular ironing board.  Very little talk about money, mainly, “Let’s get to it!”

Our first task was to fill up a large open well in the front yard.  Jim Hoffman had dropped off a load of dirt and we went to it.  Jim exploded.  He hit that shovel with his boot as though he intended to bury it, handle and all!  That well never had a chance.  It was a tour-de-force that I shall never forget.  I had the good fortune to have worked with the “Leonardo of the Spade.”  That was his first lesson…

The farm house was a small log cabin built in 1889 by Lars Jonson of Karly, Sweden. He was obviously an old-world craftsman with an eye for proportions but seventy years later it was a sad sight.  The logs were covered with tarpaper.  Not just the ordinary stuff, but that horrible, ochre colored imitation brick pattern.  On the inside they had been plastered over and then draped with oilcloth that hung down like a funeral shroud.  The sill logs rested on field stone and had rotted out.

Jim felt the choice was between a bulldozer and a torch.  I played for time.

        It was two years before I was able to get Frank Piontowski to raise the structure, replace the sill logs and set everything down on a firm foundation.  While we waited, Jim and I demolished six of the ruins.  

Joe Krygoski and Uncle Sam dug us a pond in front of the house.  My slight touch of pregnancy was beginning to show.  

It was good that I had my family because I became an anchorite.  Every night after work, and on weekends, we were at it.  Jim’s kids grew up as orphans.  The dirtier the work the better Jim liked it.  Nothing dismayed him.  He could do anything and moreover he did.
        Our worst job was getting the plaster off the logs.  Jim borrowed a huge wire brush, set into an electric drill to remove the old plaster.  The result would have shocked Ralph Nader.  Our lungs turned to stone and our noses were merely an ornament.  When Jim came out after our first bout, I timidly suggested that just maybe, we should work outside for a bit.  Jim said, “Let’s save the dessert!” and back to the pits we went.  

In case you think he was one of the apostles — forget it.  On Saturday afternoon he would end quite early and apologetically say, “Let’s get an early start in the morning.”

I’d pop out of bed and get things ready by 8 a.m. and wait and wait until I turned blue.  Jim had gone to Crivitz, the place of his birth, and that was always a violent night for Jim and for Crivitz.

One lesson that Jim has never learned, is that on occasion, someone else should buy a drink.  Never a Sunday word from the dog, but he’d be back on Monday evening full of fire, and with no comment except his eloquent bloodshot eyes.

The barn lacked pizzaz.  The pitch of the roof was so steep that no snowflake could hang for long.

Driving down Bay de Doc one day I saw a possible solution, a cupola on a barn similar to mine at the Hoefgen farm.  It was broken down, but nonetheless a dandy.

I measured the barn and sketched the cupola and for two years I dreamed and read about them.  John Gorey gave me a sheet metal weather vane of a running horse.  That fanned the flame.

Each trip in the country was an adventure.  I read every book in the Spies Library and finally settled on coveting my neighbor’s cupola.  Jim built it on the front lawn.  It was large and sexy and my sleep was restless.  The pagoda roof was neat!  The crossed flags of Sweden and America gleamed on the north quarter.

We arranged for a crane to come on a Sunday morning to heist her in place.  All of the neighbors rallied around and were slackjawed.  Children clapped their hands and screamed.  Jim was late.  (He had spent Saturday night in Crivitz.)  Spreadeagled on the roof, he yelled down that things were just dandy.  In the meantime, the wind had carried the cupola back and threatened his rear.  Wow!   

By luck or design, it shifted into position and Jim nailed her down in the critical spots and skun back down the roof to the rolling earth.

Everyone congratulated Jim on his feat of derring do.  My joviality was forced. 

One bad puff and he would have been a panny cake and I would have been honor bound to adopt his family.  It’s the first thing Jim looks at when he comes to the farm and I always check her out, in the early dawn, on my way to the facilities.

         Real terror struck Jim only once during our several years of travail.

Doris wanted him to help hang wallpaper in her bedroom.  That’s where he drew the line!  His excuses were masterpieces.  She finally pinned him down and said, “Jim, this is the day,” and he said, “Let’s do it in the morning.”  Doris said, “What’s better about tomorrow?”

Jim answered, “Maybe I’ll die tonight!”

We do not have a living room in our house.  We have a parlor.  That was the way Jim’s mother had it and that’s good enough for us.          We also learned that you have dinner at noon and that in the evening you have supper.

Jim confessed one day that the guys in the shop had nicknamed him “Bent nail.”  It delighted this depression kid because I was always making do.

  Jim had three washtubs of junk in his car.  They held all of the leftovers from working for Tony Nerat, helping anyone who needed help, and the outmoded stuff that Signal tossed out.  In those tubs we found lots of answers in trying to restore an old house that had no square corners.

I soon learned that Jim would not work alone.  When I was off on an Ansul trip, I would lay out an elaborate work plan only to find zilch on my return.  We enjoyed each other’s company.  I’m sure he felt good about creating something out of chaos.

By this time an overall plan was glimmering and I was six months along.

Then too, we had classy friends.  Jim loved to visit with Jean Worth and the Jacobsens.  We never talked about Jim to anyone and tried to hide him in the barn when friends dropped in  Who would wear the kohinoor to a thieves’ ball?

I was going up the ladder a bit under Jim’s tutelage.  After all you can’t be an apprentice third class forever.

When I got the washing machine going by pushing the right circuit breaker my good wife would smile, emotionally pat me on the head and say, “Just like Jim!”  It makes my day.

Jim liked us well enough but he was critical of my wardrobe.  He confessed that he had owned a suit and a necktie when he was married, but someone else needed it and he gave it away.

Jim’s coveralls were the uniform of the day.  Sure our social activities were restricted to an occasional beer with Carl and Evvie in Birch Creek but he looked good.

Jim was always scouting for treasures.  He bought an old breakfront for $1.50 because he liked the curve of the glass and then gave it away to the first person who liked it.  I also remember the great oak dining room table with five extension leaves that filled my farm for awhile.  He gave that to one of the guys at Vernco for his hunting camp.  The Metropolitan Museum is still cursing.  You didn’t dare say that you liked anything that Jim had.  Never!  Never!

Just to show you, when Jim remarried he brought his new bride to see the farm.  It was like Michael Angelo giving the pope his first view of the Vatican.  Jim and I feel about the same affection for the farm.  When they came in the kitchen for cup of coffee, Doris complimented Carolyn on her purse.  She said it was a wedding present from Jim.

At that point Jim took the purse, dumped the contents on the table and handed it to Doris and said, “It’s yours!”

When Jim was out of town, that meant either Crivitz or the American Legion, he kept his important money in his right shoe.  Now that he makes a bundle in Milwaukee, he walks with a noticeable limp on Saturday night.

Things are changed now.  Jim is a dude with a sharp wardrobe and I wear the coveralls, but he’s still my kinda guy, that Jim Dana.  

Footnote.   Vic Lundgren, a local attorney, and his wife Doris have lived in  the old Salfai farm since 1963.  It took them two years to get the old cabin liveable.

The farm is located off U.S. 41 about six miles from Menominee.

Eugene Salfai had lived at the farm until the late 1950s and had been there since the early 1920’s, farming the land plus working in town.

Although Lundgren originally bought the farm with Vic Mars, former Ansul vice president, Mars later traded Lundgren his share for other land.  Lundgren has since expanded the farm to 240 acres, buying a few adjoining 40’s.

  Jim, the subject of this creative piece, works maintenance for a foundry in Milwaukee.  He visits the Lundgren and the old Salfai farm often.