They covered the ice with, what do you call it, sawdust.  Jim Kaley used to have a little resort down the way with candy and all that stuff and sometimes ice cream.  I'm not sure of the ice cream.  I have my doubts.  My kids used to walk over there, along the lake to get there.  It was kind of fun.   He had bait and boats to rent.  He had three cabins at his resort.  That I'm sure."
Was Goldschmidt Lake a good fish-ing lake?  "Oh, yes," she stated.  "Lots of sunfish.  We all cleaned the fish.  We could only catch thirty at a time.  I believe that was the number.  I used to swim in Lake Minnetonka.  Zumbra was not good for swimming."
The name, "Zumbra," now spills easily off the tongue of even a Gold-schmidt.
"One time somebody drowned in that lake, a relative of the Goldschmidts, maybe Fred's brother.  I kind of think so," said Evelyn.  "I guess there was a little sled and the little girl stayed alive.  It was in the winter time and they found her quick but he drowned.  It all happened before I lived there but I heard the story."
Harold and Evelyn raised their two daughters, Marjorie and Lillian, on the Goldschmidt farm through these trying times along with others in the country during the Great Depression.  "I don't remember that too much," she said.  "I know we didn't get much eggs at that time."
"We had no trouble keeping warm," she said.  "They used wood and fuel oil quite a bit.  They used to make wood right there in the woods with a big hand saw.  They used to take care of the woods in the winter too.  We had a cook stove and we put wood in it and we kept hot water in the back of the cook stove.  I don't remember just how that worked.  We had a windmill up on the hill.  The wind would go and they'd pull the water out.  We had water in a cistern too."
Without the advantage of running water, there was no "bathroom" in the house.  "We had an outhouse," said Evelyn with a shy smile.  "We all shared the same outhouse.  It had two holes.  We had trees so you couldn't see it so well in the yard.  We used Sears for toilet paper.  Sometimes at night I think I had a flash-light.  We never had an indoor toilet there."
"At first we had candles and kerosene lamps," she remembered, "and we didn't burn lights too long.  When it got dark we went to bed and we got up with the roosters.  There was a nice breeze off the lake.  That was a beautiful spot, I tell you!"
Life on the Goldschmidt farm was probably similar to life in town at the time.  "I had homemade soap that we made and lots of diapers.  We had to boil water on the cook stove," she said.  "We had outside clotheslines tied from one tree to another.  Sometimes in the winter the clothes would freeze on the line but we brought them in and they'd thaw out.  We put an iron on the cook stove to heat it for ironing."
Such details of yesteryear are prob-ably memorable, in part, because of the amount of time they consumed in the doing of them.
"We had flannel diapers from the Notermann's store in Victoria," said the old woman becoming young again.  "I used to do a lot of shopping there.  That's where we bought overalls for the men.  We sold eggs to Notermann's and then we could buy things.  We bought sugar and flour with the eggs."
"We had potatoes and chickens at home to eat and carrots and peas," said Evelyn.  "I cooked in those white enamel pans, I think, and a big black cast iron frying pan.  I fried potatoes and hamburgers in that pan or I mashed the potatoes with a little butter and salt and sometimes made gravy from the chicken that I rolled in flour and butter … and maybe pie.  We had a little garden with tomatoes and peas and all that stuff."
Evelyn admits to not being extremely proficient with the pedal sewing machine, but says that she sewed patches on her husband's bib overalls because the knees would wear out.  She wore a house dress on a daily basis, not pants, and sometimes long stockings and old black shoes.  She scrubbed floors on her hands and knees and Harold would help her once in a while.
"In 1955 Harold and I left the farm,"  said the lady who was remembering so well.  "We went to a house in Excelsior down Willow Lane, almost by the Minnetonka school.  Somebody bought the farm from us.  Now it's Carver Park.  We didn't get very much money for it."
The memories continued.  "We lived in Excelsior 17 years, then went to Chaska for a while and bought a home there.  Harold is gone about 15 years now.   I've been living at the Old City Hall there in Waconia maybe eight years now."
When one is 94 years old, nearly 95, there are many years available for living a long time here and there.
"And now in April I fell in the bathroom and broke my arm," she said.  "I was in the hospital for three days, then three days in Watertown.  Yes, it still hurts."  There is a purple bruise by her right eye.  This is in addition to a hip that's been giving her trouble.
Evelyn speaks of the trying times today.  "Now I have to eat with my left hand.  It's hard but what am I going to do?" she asks, knowing that none of the answers is easy.
She speaks of the visits of her child-ren and grandchildren and Pastor Frank Jones of the Lake Auburn Moravian Church, her church since her marriage to Harold in 1928.  Evelyn has two daugh-ters, three grandchildren, and six great grandchildren.
Daughter Lillian Reich and husband Marvin of Victoria have two sons, Michael and Myron, who each have two children.  Daughter Marjorie Klatt and husband Karl of Buffalo have a daughter, Kathleen Peterson who has two children.
What used to make her happy in the old days?  "We used to travel up to Bemidji," she said.  "That was fun, Harold and I, and some friends would go with us, maybe only one day or three to four days.  Four days was the most.  We had farm stuff to do.  We had work and cows and horses.  Herb and Alice used to go too, and then we stayed home."
Where did Evelyn and Harold like to travel?  To North Dakota and South Dakota, to Montana and Banff Lake Louise in Canada, to Wisconsin and Madeline Island, to the Grotto in Iowa.  She's never been to California or Florida or Texas because they couldn't be gone that long.
To what does she attribute long life and good health?  "I used to walk a lot.  I never smoked but I'll take a little wine once in a while.  I like pumpkin pie and cake and strawberries and ice cream."
To what does she attribute long life and good health?  "I used to walk a lot.  I never smoked but I'll take a little wine once in a while.  I like pumpkin pie and cake and strawberries and ice cream."

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