Farm Horizons
•
Dec. 5, 2016
Poland in 1859 – at the old Waverly church in 1879.
According to the abstract, in 1906, the Gabrelciks paid
$1,500 to purchase 72 acres of land from John Benning,
who had settled it in 1860. That property, which has expanded to 92 acres, is the Gabrelcik century farm.
The original home built on the property was moved to
Delano and is still standing.
Peter Gabrelcik built the existing home in 1924 after
buying the property from his parents.
According to the abstract, Peter paid $500 plus “other
valuable considerations,” which included 60 bushels of
corn every year, four tons of tame hay, three tons of tame
hay from the second crop, 25 cords of mixed hard wood
measuring 18 inches long, and four head of cattle.
Before settling in Franklin Township, though, he
worked for the Great Northern Railway and also as a
boilermaker in Havre, MT. He married Frances Purkett,
who was also from Poland, Sept. 13, 1910.
They lived on the farm until 1946.
The brothers’ parents, Art and Priscilla Gabrelcik,
purchased the farm for $12,000 in 1954, after living
there together for a number of years.
The brothers have fond memories of growing up on
the farm.
Gary and Gene remember their dad pouring an 80foot-by-20-foot concrete pad by hand.
“I scratched the date, 1950, into the concrete,” Gary
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said.
Don remembers a milking parlor being established in
the 1950s. Gary added that the farm had a stanchion
barn first.
The brothers remember hauling cattle to the cities,
driving right down Hennepin Avenue. Their dad would
always make the most of those trips.
“Dad used to pick up 50 pounds of bananas,” Gene
said. “Mom would make banana brea, muffins, you
name it. This table was full of banana bread.”
Art would also pick up bulk amounts of donut mix,
plus peanuts and chocolate around Christmas time. With
10 kids, everything had to be made in bulk.
“Mom made more than a loaf of bread a day and a
pound of butter a day,” Don said. “Her sister, Marcie,
was the youngest. She lived here for a while when mom
had one of the kids and was on bed rest. She said she
made three different kinds of cookies, triple batch, and
she told mom, ‘You’ll have cookies here for two weeks.’
Mom said, ‘No, it might last a weekend,’ and by the
weekend, it was gone.”
The farm was a place of ingenuity.
“Dad made a lot of stuff,” Gene said.
One of those things was a tall clothesline that used a
pulley system.
“The pole was real high – they saw it in Canada or