The Depression Years Accentuated by an Untimely Accident

​When Charles and Mary Helms undertook the building of their farm operation, there were no farm tractors working routinely in the fields of Iowa and essentially no automobiles, except perhaps in scattered towns and cities where a few particularly adventurous citizens chose to challenge the horse and buggy mode of travel. The First building erected on the new farmstead was a 40 foot x 16 foot chicken house which boasted plastered walls and temporary ceiling. This simple building served as shelter for the young family during construction of other facilities. Essentially all other structures were in service (two barns, hog house, two machinery sheds and red tile silo) when the family was able to move into the near-completed permanent home at the end of 1905. By that time an additional child, Ralph Helms was added to the family.
The initial farm was 86 acres in size. 40 more acres were added in the following 5 yrs. By the time Charles Helms lost his life in a 1928 farm tractor accident, Helms farming operations had expanded to include a total of 840 owned acres. However, as is painfully and equally true in todays 2008 housing market one must have cash to meet scheduled mortgage payments or lose/forfeit their investment. Mrs. Helms (Mary Ellen) was able to retain ownership of only a fraction of the total 840 acres. Fifteen years elapsed (mainly depression years) before she was able to retire the mortgage on what had been the original farmstead. The rest of the land had been surrendered to mortgage companies.
Mr. Helms was a highly energetic and enterprising farmer. One of the first activities added to his original farming operation was hog and cattle buying for shipment and sale to buyers at the Chicago stockyards. On the site of the present crib they installed a scale house and Fairbanks-Morse large platform scale for weighing groups of hogs or cattle prior to making shipments. Ernest Johnson, who farmed NE of Madrid joined Helms in buying and shipping operations. They collected livestock into the shipping yards located along the north side of the Chicago-Milwaukee Railroad lines lying to the south and east of the Capitol Hill section of Madrid. Shipments of several rail cars of cattle were often sent on to Chicago. For several years after Mr. Helms death Chicago buyers sent Christmas remembrances to Mrs. Helms.
Charles Helms was vigorous in promoting Madrid as a business community. He was a member and served as chairman of the Madrid Commercial Club in the early 1900s. A lively participant in Free Masonry in Madrid, he also was an active Shriner. He wore the badge of deputy sheriff in the northern Polk County for a time in the prohibition period. Russell and Helen Helms were the only children remaining in the Helms household at the time of Mr. Helms death. The 3 other children had pursued their own lives elsewhere. The two sons then returned to Madrid and alternated working the farm until Mary Ellen’s death in 1974. Wm. Keene Helms, after a few years on the farm moved to take up the livestock trade (buying and selling). Ralph Helms then assumed the farm operation and continued in that role until his death in 1982. During the last five years of Ralph’s life and up to today, the actual physical farming operation was and is done by others who also worked several other farms.