Ida was 18 years old when she married Walter Plocher, nine years her senior, at the same Lutheran church at which she was confirmed, St. John's in Chaska.  The date was May 4th, 1920.  Ida's century was still very young.  The world didn't have ice cream on a stick yet, nor bandaid bandages, nor bubble gum, nor a host of other things we've taken for granted for several decades already.  The young couple didn't seem to mind their lack of material goods.
Was Walter handsome?  "He was not especially handsome," she said.
Was it love at first sight?  "It could have been," she said with a smile, not revealing too much.
After the wedding the couple drove in his dad's car (Model T's were now available) to Swanville, Minnesota.  "We went by his aunt and uncle," she explained.  "Swanville is a little further than Little Falls, and when their kids got married, they would go to my husband's folks.  To me it was nice."
Ida explained that her father in law and mother in law, Albert and Louise Plocher, enjoyed the company when newlyweds came to stay with them near Victoria, for their life was not easy and they didn't get out to see a lot of people. 
"My father in law had all these limbs taken off and my mother in law had nothing to do," said Ida.  "My father in law got gangrene.  He was kicked by a cow and then he shot himself accidentally in the foot.  He was on the operating table 28 times.  When he died he had no arms and legs.  He was always in such terrible pain.  He'd struggle on his wood legs to get to the mailbox to get his morphine.  That's how it arrived, and it always ran out before the next batch.  My mother in law would have to hide it so she could stretch it out and make it last for him."
When Walter and Ida Plocher returned from their Swanville honey-moon, they lived with her parents, the Moldenhaurs, over by Lake Auburn.  Historians came to call the subsequent years the Roaring Twenties.  Ida might have instead called that time her Baby Boom Years.
Daughter Mae was born in 1921.  "It was a hard birth," said Ida.  "I had surgery for appendicitis on March 28th and she was born on April 28th.  I didn't think I'd survive the surgery.  I didn't get a shot.  I got gas."
Today, daughter Mae and husband Nushie Schmid live on Lake Auburn in Victoria.
Daughter Jewell, who lives at Lake Bavaria today, was born in 1923.  She was married to the late Orwin Tietz. 
Son Dale, who was born in 1924, and his wife Lee live in Waconia. Son Albert, born in 1926, probably named after Ida's baby brother, has also died.  His wife Jane lives in Water-town.
Son Floyd, the fifth and final child of Walter and Ida Plocher, was the only one born in a hospital because, said Ida, "they thought I was going to croak."  It was February 19th, 1929, and Ida stayed in Minneapolis with her sister and brother in law so she'd be near Eitel Hospital. 
"It was hard to get places in those days," she explained, " and especially in the winter.  When I came home from the hospital, the snowplow picked me up from Kelzer's corner and from there the snowplow brought me home to Plocher's Lake.  That's when we lived with my husband's father and mother in an apartment on their farm house."
Floyd and his wife Lenore Plocher, now both deceased, were the parents of Rick Plocher who bought Leo's Bar in Victoria and renamed it Floyd's.
Ida's life on the farm with her hus-band and five children was not unlike the life with her parents and brothers and sisters.  "We used oil lamps in the house and kerosene lanterns in the barn." she said.  "There was a looking glass behind the lamps to reflect the light.  We heated our house with wood and coal.  I cut and sawed wood.  My husband had a machine that cut wood.  We used sawdust in the icehouse."
In the winter months Walter would cut ice from the lake for their icehouse which was constructed partially below grade.  Sawdust was packed around the goods inside to help keep them frozen as long as possible.  Sometimes there was still ice until August.
Ida continued to work inside and outside the home.  The Depression Years of Ida's century were not kind to the Plochers, but they continued to work hard and eat well.  "I used to haul milk to the creamery in Victoria," she said.  "The kids got to go fishing and I got to do the cleaning.  We always had fish and fried potatoes for breakfast because there was no refrigeration to keep them good any longer than that."
In 1942 Ida and her husband moved to the Marsh Lake farm, which they purchased, and where Walter, who was pretty good at "carpentering," built a cow barn.  That cow barn has since been remodeled into the distinguished lodge at Marsh Lake Hunting Preserve.
After a few more years of farming near Mayer, Minnesota, they quit and moved to Norwood.  "I had a big garden in town, but it got to be too much work," said Ida.  "There was show to be shoveled and lawn to be cut.  I couldn't get anybody to do that work for me."
In 1979 Walter Plocher died of congestive heart failure.  He was 82.  Ida, then only 73, moved to the newly built Evergreen Apartments in Waconia, where she continues to live to this day.  "I was the first one moved in here," she says.  "I am only one of two originals left here."
Ida continued to bake her own bread until recently.  But she's had to forego her delicious raspberry custard pie because her hands shake a little bit.  Seven years ago she had carpal tunnel surgery on both hands, perhaps due to hours and years of needlework.  Click here to continue.