Faye at https://thechickengrandma.wordpress.com/2018/07/10/faith-and-farmers/ wrote about the faith of her husband as he tills the soil, sometimes over and over again. It made me remember the blog I posted in April, 2015. Many of you were not with me then so I’ve decided to copy and blog again. Remembering Faye’s husband, my daddy, and the other men/women who work at feeding families and nations.
DADDY WAS NO WHINER
Known for being a part of the Dustbowl history of the 1930’s—sometimes called the Dirty Thirty’s—my home in Southeastern Colorado in the 1940’s had changed considerably. Roosevelt’s programs, the WPA and the CCC, had made improvements in land conservation. Also farmers had learned new methods to care for their fields with the benefit of the modern equipment of those days. So by my twelfth year, I was bothered little by dustbowls which were rather rare by that time. Of course that was good news. Bad news: still little rain. No irrigation for us. Little, if any, for neighbors. Daddy planted crops, and looked to the sky in hopeful faith that the rain would come in time to save the seeds and give them the moisture to sprout into life. And the rain would come. Often gully washers. Replanting. Looking. Praying. All over again. But I never remember a crop failure. Did we have them? I don’t know, daddy was no whiner. Farmers didn’t whine. We were “carried” by the bank until harvest time. Bankers didn’t whine. The grocer kept a separate statement for most of the farmers. They would be paid twice a year. Once when the crops were sold; once when the steers were sold. But the grocers didn’t whine. Men were as good as their word. If disaster struck, all would go down together. But disaster didn’t strike. Instead prosperity* came.
So I am left with memories. Walking to school. Picking prairie flowers. Gathering hens’ eggs. Reading library books. Sunday and Wednesday church. Two week revivals. Entering spelling bees. Churning butter. Fried chicken. Baby sister. Extended family. Health. Security. Love. Jesus. Looking back, I wonder, “Was life really that good?” I guess I’ll never know. You see, Daddy was no whiner.
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*I chuckle a bit at using the word “prosperity” because most folks would still say we were poor. But we did buy a new car! And probably became a little bit more independent of the banker. I don’t know. Because as I said, Daddy was no whiner.
image: Pixabay
Delightful tribute to your father and all those farmers doing it tough … sounds like a great community spirit but now banks are only about greed and profit 😦
When one’s business is reduced to paper work and account numbers a lot is lost.
so true, loses that power of the antidotal
This is a wonderful post Oneta and thank you so much for the link to my post. Your dad sounds like my husband and so many of the farmers around here. They don’t say much….they just dig in and get back to work.
Perseverance, resourcefulness, and faith – and not much choice! 😀
What a wonderful tribute to farmers, faith and perseverance. Such too were the early days in Australia. I wonder sometimes indeed if modern life has made of these great nations what in the years of struggle they set out to be. Thanks for sharing. Inspirational!
Thank you, Faye. We have had some powerful and wise people in our past. Many of whom gave witness to the Lord God as their provision as they continued the struggle in faith.
Oneta, thank you for reposting this. Otherwise, I would have missed it. I’m finding that as I age, I’m thinking more and more of how life used to be.
You are welcome, Judy. I find things when I look back in my first few months of blogging that I still feel are important. Readers come and go, so I might re-post more. Another thing I did not know how to use pictures, categories, and tags so I like editing for those things.
Such an interesting peek into the past. It makes me wonder how the farmers who are left are going to fare with all the changes going on in our political system. That’s been on my heart for weeks now. Been praying they would all be able to feed their families and keep their farms. Banks are too greedy to work with folks now the way they did back then, I’m thinking. I never heard it called the “dirty thirties”, btw. How perfect an expression is that!