Strombotne / Specht

Fred Coulter had a 320 acre farm in Felix Township, Grundy Co., IA called The Elms. The farm was renamed Velvet Lawn Farm in 1940 when the old elms were cut down to make way for rural electricity lines.

When Fred was 14, he could pick and shovel a hundred bushels of corn a day - no easy feat. It required walking behind a horse-drawn wagon, picking the corn, husking it with a husking peg or hook worn on one hand, and tossing the golden ear into the wagon. When the wagon was full, the load was hand-shoveled into the corncrib or bin. Fred had a steam threshing outfit with which he did custom threshing (he recalled his Uncle Allen A. Crecelius was his best thresher). Later, Fred did custom bailing and silo filling. Starting in 1915, he became one of central Iowa's biggest cattle feeders, usually raising Herefords. in the 1930s and 40s, he served as Justice of the Peace for Felix Township. (He could have married his daughter Darleen and her husband Leonard in 1946.) In 1944, Fred was the largest hemp grower in the United States. The hemp was harvested in 1943 by Italian prisoners of war, and in 1944 by German prisoners of war. With our hemp supplies from the Philippines cut off, it was needed in the war effort for making rope, helmet covers, landing nets, and thread. A marijuana permit had to be obtained from the federal government before the hemp could be planted.