Person:Delbert Meier (1)

They purchased the Peebles farm, 120 acres, four miles northwest of Martinton in Iroquois County, Illinois, in 1955. Buck was Martinton Township auditor and a volunteer fireman with Martinton Township Fire Department. They were members of Zion Lutheran Church, Clifton, Illinois and Buck is buried at Clifton. In an interview September 1976 with Norma Meier, Buck said about his Grandfather Strahl, " A heavy set man - German. He'd peel the potatoes - go uptown everyday, regardless of how icy - how slick - to get his groceries and his meat - take a market basket with two handles - go to the post office - get his mail. Grandpa Strahl, on icy cold mronings, he'd come into the store, they'd ask how the weather was. He'd tap his cane and say, 'it's dom easy to kiss your arse mit the sidewalk this morning.' Gramma Strahl was small, petit, wore long dresses. She never had a harsh word. Grandpa spoke German all the time, to us kids half German and half English. Gramma cooked snapjack cookies - lots of boiled dinners, everything put together, carrots, potatoes and pot roast. They kept their money for their budget in a sugar bowl. If they gave us any spending money, it came out of the sugar bowl, a dime a day when I stayed there - wasn't too bad for a farm boy in town. He had surveying instruments in his trunk in the basement, set up on stones, that was one of his skills in Germany. Gramma Strahl, she was a seamstress in Germnay, she sewed for members of the royal family and he was groomsman for the horses and he would drive them, they worked at the same house for the same family. Some say he did surveying after he came here. His surveying books were in German. Grandpa Strahl would sit on his front porch and warn the kids coming home from school to stay off his grass, but Gramma would give candy out to the kids, never knew her to be without hard sugar candy."