Memories of Grandpa’s Farm Near Eagle Lake, Minnesota
Charles
Macbeth: 1828-1913 (Maternal Great-Great Grandfather)
Walter
Macbeth: 1860-1955 (Maternal Great-Grandfather)
Ivan
Macbeth: 1904-1972 (Maternal
Grandfather)
The farm
where I grew up is, thankfully, still in my family: my brother now farms it,
and his son may choose to take over in the future. But the other farm I feel
connected to, my maternal grandparents’ farm near Eagle Lake, Minnesota, was
sold years ago. The new owners have made many changes, and I hardly recognized
it when I last drove by a few years ago. But that farm, the Macbeth homestead,
still lives on in my memories of what it was like in the 1960s and 1970s when I
was young.
My
grandfather, Ivan Macbeth, took over the farm his father Walter bought and where
Ivan grew up. Ivan’s grandfather, Charles Macbeth, had moved his family from New
York to Minnesota around 1866, settling in Le Ray Township in Blue Earth County
by 1869. He bought a farm south of Eagle Lake, as shown in this plat book entry
from 1879. Charles’ son Walter worked on his father’s farm as he grew up. He
appears on the 1880 census at age twenty.
At some point, Charles Macbeth traded his property for a forty acre parcel on the opposite side of the road. Walter married Lucy Dane on March 12, 1890. Walter was 29 years old, while Lucy was only eighteen. I believe he purchased his farm around the time of his marriage. Walter's property wrapped around his father Charles’ farm, so they were close enough to help one another when needed. This 1914 plat map shows the two properties and their arrangement.
 |
| 1914 Plat Map |
My mother believed
the house, barn and some of the outbuildings were already built when Charles and Walter
acquired the farm. The farmhouse sat atop a small hill; the barn and pastures
lay below, with a driveway coming off the road toward the barn, and another
drive entering up the rise past the house. The two drives met at the rear of
the house. The front of the house faced the road. However, since the rear of
the house faced the working part of the farm, the “back door” was the one
everyone used as they went in and out to the barns and outbuildings.
Walter and
Lucy raised six children in the small farmhouse. The house had six rooms: a kitchen,
living room/parlor, and four bedrooms, one downstairs and three up a narrow set
of stairs on the second floor. Heat came from a pot-bellied stove in the
kitchen and a fireplace in the living room.
 |
| Walter and Lucy Macbeth in front of the Macbeth farmhouse, circa 1940s |
Walter and Lucy’s eldest son, Harold, became a
building contractor and moved off the farm, so their second son, Ivan, my
grandfather, took over the farm and the farmhouse when Walter and Lucy retired
and moved to nearby Mankato. They lived in an apartment building Walter jointly
owned with one or more of his brothers; he served as the building’s manager.
Ivan Macbeth married Nora Hoffman on April 14, 1926, and they moved into the Macbeth farmhouse. Ivan rented the farm and house from his parents throughout the 1930s and 1940s (census records show he was a renter).
 |
| Lucy and Walter Macbeth with their six adult children. Ivan Macbeth on far right. Taken following Great Depression, probably late 1930s. Poverty still obvious--peeling paint and wear on house. Slope down to barn and pasture on right. |
He eventually became the owner
of the farm and buildings, possibly after his father’s death in 1955. Part of
the property was sold after Walter’s death as directed by the estate, leaving
Ivan with forty acres on one side of the road, and another forty acres—the land
his grandfather Charles had owned—on the opposite side of the road. My brother
and I have now inherited Charles Macbeth’s parcel of land.
 |
| 1962 plat book showing Ivan and Nora Macbeth's farm |
By the
time I was born, my grandfather was raising milk cows, and would go down to the
barn each morning to hook up the cows to the electric milking machines. The milk
was stored in a small, cool concrete “milk house” next to the barn, and was
loaded onto milk trucks that would stop by to collect the silver-colored metal milkcans.
Grandpa Ivan
was also raising hogs in a separate fenced pen and building, and for many years
my grandmother had a flock of chickens that provided eggs and chicken meat.
Grandpa Ivan also farmed corn, soybeans and wheat.
 |
| Macbeth farm, aerial shot from 1938. |
Grandpa
Ivan’s health began to fail as he reached his sixties, and he eventually sold
off his animals and rented out his farmland, essentially retiring. He was a
long-time smoker, which left him with emphysema. The strain on his heart
eventually from the emphysema led to a heart attack, which killed him July 7, 1972
at age sixty-eight.
My
grandmother continued to live on the Macbeth homeplace until the mid- to late-1980s,
when she moved to Mankato to live with her son, Rex Macbeth and his family. All
the old furniture and possessions were sold at auction, and the farmhouse was
rented out. Following my grandmother’s death on April 7, 1994, my uncle
inherited the house and forty acres surrounding it. He chose to sell the
property. My mother kept her parcel, Charles Macbeth’s former land, and willed
it to my brother and me.
The
Macbeth “homestead” stayed in the family for over a century, from 1890 until
1994. Charles Macbeth’s land is still in the family after 150 years, from 1869 until
now, 2024, although Macbeths didn't own the parcel for about forty years between 1914 and the 1950s. This land has a place in my heart. In the following post, I will
talk about the house, outbuildings, and my childhood memories of my grandparents’
home.
Sources:
https://maps.dnr.state.mn.us/airphotos/usda/bip/y1938/bip11016.jpg
https://maps.dnr.state.mn.us/airphotos/usda/bip/y1964/bip04ee027.jpg
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