Farmer, Soon To Turn 100, Has Cultivated A Full Life

Hans Fabricius’ 100th birthday isn’t until next week, but friends and family will gather here today at the grange to celebrate.

“We decided to have the party today instead of Tuesday so more people could come,” daughter Wilma Mason said.

She and her mother, Minnie, plan to serve birthday cake to all who stop by, beginning at 1 p.m. It could be a long afternoon and a lot of cake considering that Hans Fabricius has spent more than 70 years here, farming the quarter-section of land just below Indian Mountain at the south end of Harrison Flats.

Much has changed since Hans and his brother bought the homestead and Hans brought his bride to live there.

“In the beginning, we were diversified,” Hans said. “There were cattle to feed, cows to milk, chickens, gardens, fields to plant and harvest.”

Minnie carried water from a well for cooking, washing and baths before electricity arrived and Hans was able to bring running water into the house.

“My, that was work, particularly after Wilma was born,” she said.

The couple has one daughter who, with her husband Bill, lives in Spokane. There are two grandsons; Dale, also of Spokane, and David, of Hillsboro, Ore.

Hans admits to having to slow down in the past two years.

Until recently, he cut and baled his own hay, hiring some help to stack it in the barn. Now Wilma and Bill come from Spokane to get the job done. Last summer, all of the bales were sold directly from the field. Two years ago, Hans also sold the last of his cattle.

Until this fall, Hans continued to cut, saw and stack wood to fire the basement furnace that warms the house when winter winds sweep across the flats. But now the centenarian says he doesn’t quite have the strength to pull the cord to start his big chain saw.

Still, he goes down to the basement on chilly mornings to stoke the furnace.

Physical strength may be failing but friends will tell you, “His mind is sharp. Get him started and he can tell you great stories about the old days.”

He remembers how it was before the Post Falls dam raised the level of Lake Coeur d’Alene.

“We lived on Harlow Point and my father pastured cattle on the grasslands around the delta of the Coeur d’Alene River. All that’s under water now.”

In those days, his father, who was from Denmark, sold milk to families around the lake. “He built a sailboat to reach his customers and carried the milk in two cans suspended at each end of a yoke on his shoulders,” Hans recalled. “He dipped out milk into containers supplied by housewives.”

Transportation around the lake has changed considerably, too. When Hans was a boy, there was no bridge across the Coeur d’Alene River.

“There was a ferry then,” he said. “I remember once this fellow borrowed my father’s team and wagon to go to Harrison. When he got on the ferry he didn’t set the brake and the horses ended up in the river.”

Fortunately, the man had a knife and was able to jump in the river and cut the team free before the horses drowned.

Hans also remembers well the steamers that plied the lake and supplying wood from his property to fire the boilers of the Red Collar line’s Georgie Oaks.

A lot has happened in the span of Hans Fabricius’ life.

Theodore Roosevelt was president when he was born. A new century was about to begin. Still ahead were major medical advances, heart transplants, two world wars, air travel, radio, television, computers, flights to the moon.

Now, Hans has reached the closing years of another century, and how does he feel about all that has happened?

“It’s been a wonderful time to be alive,” he said with a smile on his face and a twinkle in his eye, leaving the impression that his life is not all in the past.

It’s in the here and now with his wife, his family and friends. What does he say is the secret of long life?

“Just never quit.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 photos (1 color)

MEMO: Jeri McCroskey, a freelance writer and antique collector, lives with her husband at Carlin Bay. Panhandle Pieces is shared among several North Idaho writers.