| Notes |
- 1900 Census living with them
Name: Bennie Montgomery
Home in 1900: Hartland, Freeborn, Minnesota
Age: 9
Birth Date: Mar 1891
Birthplace: Wisconsin
Race: White
Ethnicity: American
Relationship to head-of-house: Step Son
[Grandson]
Father's Birthplace: Wisconsin
Mother's Birthplace: Wisconsin
Marital Status: Single
Article published in the paper describing their life on their 63 anniversary.
Sunday Tribune, The | Albert Lea, Minnesota | Sunday, November 01, 1953 | Page 9
Couple Find Hard Work
Key To Long Married Life
Mr. and Mrs. John Eckart, who were married in New Richland, Oct. 27, 1890, observed their 63rd wedding anniversary quietly Tuesday.
Mrs. Eckart, an energetic 81 years old, passed up a bus ride that afternoon to walk from downtown Albert Lea to their home at 911 Bridge Ave., after a shopping trip.
She often walks home from services at Salem Lutheran church, she said.
Visitors who came to help them observe the anniversary kept, the couple up late Tuesday night. Mrs. Eckart was up early the next morning, though, cleaning house, and making plans for a trip to Wisconsin.
She anticipated the trip to Antigo, Wis., with her daughter Friday, would require about 7 hours driving
"It took me two weeks to make that trip by wagon when I came to Minnesota," her husband recalled. Eckart, who is 89, did not accompany his wife to the town which was once his home. Because his legs bother him, he can not be as active as Mrs, Eckart, he explained. Both agree they've worked hard during their lives.
The couple met in the 80's when both were working at the Chris Jensen farm between New Richland and Hartland. Jenson had persuaded Eckart, who had struck out on his own in the logging region o£ Wisconsin at the age of 16, to come with him after relatives wrote Jenson that land in the area was cheap.
Jenson acquired a farm, and Eckart went to work for him. He met ais future wife on that same farm. Ida Bertha Moldenhauer, pretty, curly - barred daughter of a neighboring farmer, was hired to do housework in the Jenson home for $1.50 a week.
"And I did the washing by hand, with only a washboard," she recalls now.
Jenson lost both his hired man and hired girl when the couple were married.
They started out their married life on a rented farm In the area. Included in the deal was the use of eight cows for $10 a year, Eckart recalls.
After a couple of years, the owner told Eckart that he had only $200 in the farm himself (it was covered by two mortgages) and suggested that he buy it Eckart bought the farm, and in a few years was able to build a house to replace the shack the couple had lived in, and a new barn. Discouraged at one time about 45 years ago, by a hailstorm that ruined crops, the Eckarts moved to South Dakota, found they didn't like it there, and returned to farm four miles outside Albert Lea. About 17 years ago they moved to their present home.
The couple have six children, 15 grandchildren, and five great grandchildren. One son, Elmer, died in 1935.
A daughter, Mrs. Albert (Agnes) Dubberstein, lives in Armstrong and another daughter, Mrs. Edward (Alice) BaRluan, lives in New Richland. Their sons are: Emil, of Austin, Walter of Bancroft, Erwin at home, and George, who lives on the home farm.
Mrs, Eckart complains that arthritis in her hands prevents her from doing as much work as she would like to do, but she still does her own housework, gets up at 5 o'clock on summer mornings to work in her large garden, and does lots of canning.
At one time, when her children were small, physicians in a Roches-ter hospital, did not expect her to recover from an operation. Four years ago, she was in critical condition following a stroke.
"I believe God sets a time for everybody to go, and my time has not come," she said. "But if there's anything that keeps me alive, I'd say it's just work."
Her husband nodded agreement.
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Jindra and Chaloupka Families
1864 - 1957 (93 years)
