It’s a tradition, now, to write in this old book started by my great-great grandfather. I’m the first woman to write in it. The farm is mine now.
I want to start my part of our family’s story by telling about the best day and the worst day of my life. The best day was my wedding to Richard Wines in 1953. It was held in the front yard of The Home Place, under the shade of the grove of oak trees. With the warm sun coming through the leaves, it was a perfect spot for a wedding.
That same day, Richard and I drove to Nashville for our honeymoon. We stayed at the Maxwell House, a fancy hotel downtown. We saw the Grand Old Opry and shopped at the big department stores. Nashville, the state capital of Tennessee, has a beautiful capitol building at the top of a hill. We even drove out to see President Andrew Jackson’s home.
When we came back to Kentucky we moved into the old house with Mom and Dad. It would have been nice to have our own place, but they insisted. We all got along pretty well. The farm was close to the school where I was teaching and to Richard’s job at the grain company. It was a good thing we both had jobs, as it turned out.
The worst day of my life was in February of 1955. I was pregnant with little Henry, our first child. I woke up in the middle of the night and smelled smoke. I woke Richard, and he woke Mom and Dad. Somehow we got downstairs and out the front door. There was nothing we could do but watch as the flames roared and old house burned to the ground. We lost everything we had except for the stories my forefathers had written. They were safe in a bank box in town. Everything else went up in smoke.
It was a good thing that we had insurance. The fire started in a broken flue when the chimney got too hot. When we got our settlement from the insurance company, we decided to rebuild. We built two smaller houses rather than one big one. One was a small, two-bedroom house for Mom and Dad. Ours was a bigger house with three bedrooms, since we had a baby on the way. Both houses were the new ranch style with modern furnaces and good wiring. Now farm people live as comfortably as people in town.
After the fire, Richard and I did talk about moving to town. We decided we wanted to stay here and let our baby have the same kind of childhood we had. Growing up on the farm is a special thing, and we wanted that life for our kids. In 1957, two years after little Henry was born, we had our daughter, Debbie. Our family was complete.
Of course they did not have the same kind of childhood I had. Time does not stand still. The one-room school was gone by the time they were old enough to attend. Now we have a new consolidated school. It has separate grades and lots of things to help kids learn, such as colorful maps and a good library. The teachers all have college training, too.
Transportation is no problem. The kids ride new yellow buses to school. We live on one of the school bus routes. The county school district has a whole fleet of buses to carry kids to school. The only problem is the weather. When it snows or floods, they cancel school because the buses can’t get through. When I was a girl we went to school no matter what the weather because it was nearby and we could walk.
When our children got old enough to start elementary school, I went back to my job teaching home economics at the high school. Richard wanted me to stay home, but I told him my job was important to me. I studied hard to become a teacher, and I was proud of my career. I love teaching, and my income really helped when we had to buy new equipment for the farm or things for the house. I put aside a part of my salary each month for our children’s education.
Going back to work meant that I really had a lot to do at home in the evening. One thing never changes on the farm, and that is the work! We don’t have the same chores as our parents and grandparents, but we still have lots of them. We got rid of all the horses, the hens, and the milk cows. Now we don’t have to be home to milk every morning and night. We just keep beef cattle and hogs. They don’t need the daily care that chickens and milk cows did. We can even go away for a weekend now and then, as long as someone will help feed the animals.
I grew up having to work with the chickens. I gathered the eggs, washed them, boxed them in paper cartons, and got them ready for market. I helped my dad with the milking and had to clean up the equipment each day. I don’t miss any of that! I’m happy to get my milk and eggs from the store.
When I was in high school we finally got rid of the old wood cooking range and got a new stove. We also got a furnace. Both the new stove and the furnace burned propane. We put in a big propane tank behind the house. A truck from town comes out to fill it up when we needed more gas. We no longer have to chop the wood and carry it inside for the stove or carry out the ashes. Without all that mess, the house is a lot cleaner. People who talk about the “good old days” have forgotten how hard we worked just to cook our food and keep the house warm and clean. Give me the “good modern days” every time!
Also, when I was in high school, we got electricity. The REA (rural electric agency) brought their lines through in 1947. We finally got electric lights and a refrigerator. A few years later we got a big freezer. How much easier it is to freeze fruits and vegetables than having to can them in jars! We do still can a few vegetables. I think green beans are better canned, but I love that freezer!
The Korean War began in 1950 when I was in college. Richard was drafted, but he did not have to go to Korea, thank goodness. Our neighbor Bob Cline was killed in that war. He and I were good friends. We had gone to school together since first grade.
We got a TV set in 1956. Daddy and Richard said they wanted to watch the political convention, but I think they really wanted to watch the World Series and the football games. It was a black-and-white set with a ten-inch screen. We got a great big antenna, but the picture was often fuzzy because we were so far away from the stations. Of course, now we have a big color TV and a satellite dish, so we get more channels than anyone can watch.
Having electricity meant we could also have a good water system. We put in an electric pump and a big pressure tank that serves both houses. We built two bathrooms in each of the houses and a laundry room as well. We put in a big water heater, and now we have all the hot water we want. I remember as a girl taking my bath in a tin tub in the middle of the kitchen on Saturday night. Those were not “good old days” by any means.
So many changes have happened in our family. Dad passed away in 1972 and Mom died in 1977. Uncle Billy retired in 1978 from his job in Cleveland and wanted to come back with Aunt Sally to The Home Place. Since Mom and Dad’s house was empty, they moved in there. We were glad to have them with us. Billy always came home every year to help us strip tobacco. It was good to have his help here. But they both died, too, in the 1980s.
Our children, Henry and Debbie, are grown up now. Henry went to the University of Kentucky like his father and got his degree in agriculture. We were thankful that Henry did not have to go into the army. The war in Vietnam was still going on when he turned 18, but he got a high number in the draft lottery, so he did not have to serve. Several boys from our area did go to Vietnam, however, and two were killed. I had taught both of them in high school. What a waste!
We thought Henry might never marry since he was nearly 40 years old and still single. Then he met a lovely woman, Marjorie, at a Farm Bureau convention. Turned out she was the widow of one of his college friends. Her husband had been killed in a car wreck. Henry and Marjorie got married about a year ago at our church. They moved into Mom and Dad’s house, which has been empty since Uncle Billy and Aunt Sally died.
Our Debbie went to Western Kentucky University, where I went many years ago. She loved science and went on to medical school at the University of Louisville. She is now a doctor and lives in California. It is hard for me to realize that my little girl is a doctor and is living so far away from The Home Place. She seems happy out there, and that is what is most important. She comes back to visit now and then. We try to get out to San Francisco in January when the farm work eases up. Now that I am retired from teaching, I go out there by myself sometimes just to see her.
Richard and Henry have worked hard so our farm can make a profit. Farming today is so different from the way it was even in the 1950s. We have decided to spend our time growing grain and raising cattle and hogs. That way we get the best use of our equipment and land.
My dad just kept a hog lot with a few head of hogs, but times have really changed the hog business. We now have a large hog house. We breed our sows to our own boars, and we can decide just when the pigs will be born.
Kentucky has some really big hog operations now, but we don’t want to get any bigger. I hope we can stay in the hog business, but it is hard to compete against the really big farms.
Handling animal waste carefully is important on our farm. All the waste goes into a pond where it ferments. Then we pump it out and spread it on the fields as fertilizer and plow it under. That way there is not much odor. Since our hog pens are not close to any neighbors, the smell does not bother anyone. We do not cause any pollution of the water system.
We finally stopped growing tobacco ourselves and leased our tobacco to a neighbor. Since Richard and I both worked away from the farm, there just wasn’t enough time to strip the tobacco and get it ready for sale. This way we still get a little money from the tobacco, but we don’t have to work until midnight in the stripping room.
New equipment is always changing the way we farm. Dad got our first corn picker in 1941. It was a one-row picker that shucked the ears and pitched them into a wagon. What an improvement that was over picking by hand! The whole family worked long hours picking by hand in the “good old days.” I remember always putting in a few hours working in the corn field when I got home from school. The family always hoped for clear weather during the October full moon because the moonlight allowed us to work after dark getting in the crop. Sometimes we would be in the field until 11 o’clock. That’s why the October full moon is called the Harvest Moon.
Around 1946, just after the Second World War, we got our first combine. It cut and threshed wheat in one operation. It was called a combine because it combined the jobs that the binder and the threshing machine used to do. No longer did we have to follow the binder to shock the sheaves or wait for the threshing machine to arrive to thresh the grain. The combine did the work of a whole crew of people in one operation.
After we got the combine, we began to grow more wheat. That machine was so expensive we needed to have more use for it. Our neighbors, the Clines, were thinking of retiring from farming. We leased their land so we could grow more wheat and soybeans. That’s the way we could justify buying the combine.
The soybean has saved many a family farm like ours. It came from Asia and was first grown in the United States around 1900. My daddy remembered when the first soybean crops were grown around here back in the 1930s. Some farmers began growing soybeans and cutting them for hay. They grew them because the plant adds nitrogen to the soil, which corn and tobacco need. Later on, a market developed for soybean oil, and the price began to rise. Today soybean oil is used for all sorts of products from margarine to candy.
The biggest change in farming in the 1950s was the coming of hybrid seeds. With the hybrid seeds we could plant much more corn. In the old days, we used a corn planter that planted a hill of corn every 36 inches in rows 36 inches apart. With hybrid corn, we plant every 8 inches with rows 32 inches apart. The new corn grows better, too. I remember how excited we were the first year we averaged 100 bushels per acre. Now, that amount would be considered a poor crop, but back then it was great! My old grandaddy was happy with 40 bushels per acre.
Now we have a new combine head so the combine becomes a corn harvester as well. It can pick and shell the corn in one operation. The corn cobs get left behind in the field as mulch rather than taking up room in the grain bins. No longer do we have to shovel corn by hand into the crib. Now it is unloaded by electric augers into big grain bins.
We set up our own grain storage bins so we can dry our grain on the farm and hold it for the best price. The price is usually lower at harvest time when lots of farmers are selling grain. It gets higher later. We like to hold our grain for a higher price or sell on contract for future delivery. We have to do everything we can to make money, because our costs are so high.
Because of the new hybrid seeds and harvesting machines, we had to make lots of other changes. To grow the new seeds, we must use lots of chemical fertilizers. Weeds choke the combine during harvest, so we often have to use weed killers. We don’t cultivate the corn any more. Weed control is all done with chemicals.
Modern farming is becoming expensive. Just to plant a crop of corn or beans, we have to buy fertilizer, herbicide, seeds, and fuel for the tractor, and we have to hire extra labor. If we have a flood or if a late freeze kills the young plants, we are in real trouble. But farming has always been a gamble. To be a farmer, we have to take risks with the weather each year just as our ancestors did.
All this investment pays off in the good years. Our corn yield is now about 125 bushels per acre, with some fields running as high as 140 bushels or more. The new technology helps us keep pace with the growing cost and the growing markets. We certainly could not feed the world’s population using farming methods from a hundred years ago!
Now we have tractors with air-conditioned cabs and radios to stay in touch with the farm office, which is our house. Richard can plant more corn in an evening after he gets home from work than my grandaddy could plant in a day.
The new tractors are big and powerful, but we still love the old 1936 John Deere. Richard has restored it, and we still use it for little jobs. He really enjoys playing with it. He just regrets that we don’t have the old Fordson. My family gave it to a scrap-metal drive during World War II along with some other old tools.
I’m glad that we gave the old things to the scrap drive. It helped us win the war. Still, I like to go to farm museums and look at the old tractors and other equipment. They bring back memories of my daddy and grandaddy. How impressed they would be with what we have today! They would be amazed by our computer and how we figure costs and profits by just calling up a computer program. Now that is really the “good modern days!”
We work hard at soil conservation on the farm. We have to take care of the land if future generations are to survive. We build ponds in our pastures to store water for our cattle and to prevent the soil from being washed away. We use chisel plows to break the ground while still protecting it from washouts during heavy rains. On some of our hilly land, we use no-till farming, which doesn’t require plowing at all.
We are beginning to restore our woodland. Most of our pastures were woods in the old days. Now we are planting trees to help hold the soil and to act as windbreaks around our fields. Some of our neighbors think we are crazy because windbreaks reduce our crop land by a few rows as the trees get big. We think it will be worth it if it saves even one inch of topsoil from being washed away by rain or blown away by wind.
I like the old Native American proverb that says: “We did not inherit the land from our fathers. We hold it in trust for our children.” This proverb has a special meaning for me now. Henry and Marjorie are expecting! Richard and I had about given up hope of becoming grandparents, with Henry being too busy to get married for so long and Debbie with her medical practice. But now we are going to have a grandchild.
Henry and Marjorie have been to the doctor and have just come home with the news. They are going to have a little boy. The eighth generation of our family will soon be living on The Home Place.
I wrote at the beginning that my wedding day was the happiest day of my life. I may have to change that. I believe that I could not possibly be happier than I am today. I just pray that my grandson will want to live here and farm this land. I hope he will treasure it as his forebears have for all these generations. It will always be his Home Place.