I often heard my father describe wheat harvest during his youth with both fondness for the memories of working with family, and the dread of the hard work. It was before the Great Depression and farmers cut their wheat and tied them into bundles or “shocks” and stood them in the fields to dry. Once dried they loaded the bundles onto horse-drawn racks to be hauled to the threshing machine, a stationary steam-powered contraption in the center of the field.
“The neighbors all got together and butchered steers so we could eat steak three times a day during harvest,” he said. “And the women brought all of the hands eggnog to the field in the mornings and afternoons.”
That massive calorie infusion was necessary to keep a “hand” going through what was a grueling daylight-till-dark weeks-long chore.
The pay for a good hand? “All you could eat steak and eggnog,” he said with a laugh.
Farming and ranching were in my grandfather’s blood before he purchased that quarter-section in SE Kansas in the 1890s. My great-grandfather had traveled by horse from southern Indiana seeking a spot to settle and raise his own family, and my grandfather was born in Kansas in 1871. Once old enough, my grandfather moved a little further west, likely seeking a farm he could afford.
Jess and Orah, my grandparents, had their first children, a girl then a boy, before 1900. They would have 11 more before they were done, my father number nine but only the third of four boys. That was important then as children – boys especially – were needed to help with the farm work. (Please don’t read that as an insult to women and their ability to do hard work. That’s just the manner in which it was told to me long before I realized “sexist” was a descriptor I needed to avoid with great enthusiasm.)
As I have traveled across America visiting farmers and ranchers over the years, I’ve always been intrigued by their own personal stories. “How did your grandfather end up here, 40 miles from the closest blacktop road?” Or, “Why didn’t your grandfather …” I’ve always wanted to know the story behind a ranch family – their grandfathers and grandmothers. Each story is unique and often fascinating.
I’ve met cowboys with sun-leathered faces who take immense pride in telling how their great-grandfathers landed in a particular spot. I’ve also met bankers and lawyers and engineers who relish in describing how they grew up on a farm or ranch and how that experience shaped the type of person they are today.
This Thanksgiving as I celebrate with my family – including a 16-month-old grandson, our first – and crack jokes about the poor souls eating turkey while we enjoy steak, I’ll give thanks for all of my family’s blessings, sure. But this year, maybe more than those in the past, I’ll give thanks for my grandfather (and grandmother) for struggles and sacrifices that gave me the opportunity to grow up on a ranch.
As the ninth of 13 children, my father was the one to keep the home place in the family. Oh, it wasn’t inherited. The Great Depression made sure of that and drove dad’s brothers and sisters away. As soon as they graduated high school they scattered like a covey of quail. Some to the oil fields in west Texas, others to California, but all with the same objective – escape the hardship and uncertainty of farming/ranching in what would become a decade-long economic depression.
I remember my aunts and uncles coming to visit when I was young, driving slowly down the lane so as to not kick up rocks on their shiny city cars. They were always happy to visit the farm and reminisce about old times. Tales of how they hung wet sheets in the screened-in porch at night to catch the dirt from the Dust Bowl were always popular. So, too, were descriptions of how poor everyone was.
Like a lot of farm/ranch kids in those days, I couldn’t wait to get away from the constant chores and solitude of country living. Indeed, I spent my youth working to put that lifestyle behind me. And, honestly, I’ve spent most of my adult life yearning to go back to that little spot on the prairie that has always been “home.”
I’m thankful for all my blessings, including that little niche in the prairie my grandfather carved out providing my father with a smorgasbord of cattle and horse chores to assign to me. I believe a lot of ranchers feel that way. Yes, I’m thankful for my grandfather even though he died nearly a decade before I was born.
