My Farming Heritage

I have strong roots in agriculture, but my parents were not connected directly to any type of farming. They did not believe it was a good way to go because of bad experiences their parents had, but they did not know the heritage they enjoyed because of the influence of farming on the character of their forebearers.

My grandmother (mother’s mother) grew up on a farm and her husband taught agriculture on the college level. My grandfather on my father’s side also grew up farming, but later became an insurance salesman.

My mother’s mother is named Norma, and she had many experiences on her father’s farm in Southern Alberta, Canada in the 1920’s and 30’s. They were sheep herders and they raised grain. Their farm was close to town and they could see the lights, but it was still rural. They lived there in the summer and had a house in town where they would spend their winters. Norma said she remembered her mother was wondering what she could cook for supper one summer afternoon. Just then, she saw a prairie chicken out the kitchen door. She got her .22 long rifle and shot it right there. Her mother said she must have hit it in just the right place because all of the feathers came off. Norma loved living there. She was very young, so she did not have a large portion of the work, but she does remember herding sheep and riding horses everywhere they went. Her father hired men to watch the sheep and they called it the sheep camp. She remembers the hired men had a phonograph and would play records for Norma and her sister.

Norma’s father bought a new threshing machine and a truck that was going to help him a lot on the farm. It was 1929 and when the stock market crash hit, his loans for the new machines came due immediately. He was not able to pay, so he sold half of the farm and the farm buildings including their house to raise cash and pay the debt. They always lived in town after that and eventually they let their relatives graze their animals on it when her father found other work.

The depression was a hard time and was part of the reason my family is no longer farming. The other major reason was, after the depression, money making careers off the farm increased, as farming became more and more productive and our country became more wealthy. There were fewer farmers needed to do the same work, and many farmers, including my family left their farms.

But today, with the local food movement, many of these more efficient methods are being laid aside for more natural methods. I support the choice to buy higher quality food that is grown by more natural means and love the idea of doing something similar to what my family did generations ago. I am grateful to my Farming ancestors for their sacrifice and I would like to live the sort of life they lived, working fields and raising animals in the wild of the open land.