Page 147 - 5 Who Fled, The Story of the Obermann-Beck Family
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Grandma Strothman was a proud, stern, hard-working, conservative, German woman. Her hair was pulled back into a small bun on the back of her head. Her gray eyes were clouded by cataracts. She wore long, calico dresses, always covered with an apron. We grandkids thought grandma was grouchy. Named Mary Parma, she was born in Pleasant Grove, Iowa in 1867. She was the daughter of Frederick and Mary Ann Hale Obermann. They had five boys and two girls. Her father, Frederick, was the carpenter in Pleasant Grove and made the furniture and even the coffins for people in the area. Several of his pieces are still in use today by our extended family. Her mother was a descendant of Nathan Hale.
Grandma married Charles Augusta Strothman on December 25, 1892. He was born on February 28, 1862 in Pleasant Grove. After graduating from Howe’s Academy in Mt. Pleasant, he taught for four years before taking over the family farm. Their first home was on the south side of Flint Creek. All of their children were born there — Bertha, Grace Valine, Gladys Carola, Hallie, Charles Frederick and a son who died shortly after birth. A privy fenced off by a trellis covered in morning glories sat north of the house. On the east side was the garden which supplied the food for the family — onions, potatoes, green beans, beets, peas, squash, pumpkins, cabbage, cucum- bers, turnips and parsnips. Grandma wore a narrow-brimmed sun bonnet in the garden. I remember her straightening up and leaning on her hoe as she gazed at all she had done...and all she still had to do.
When the crops were harvested, everything was canned, preserved, pickled or dried. Grandma dried apples in the
oven of the cook stove or on the tin roof of the chicken coop. When dried, they were strung on white string, put in
glass jars or stored in cotton flour sacks where they waited till winter when they were stewed on the back of the
