Early in the twentieth century, in the United States of America, on a farm in the Middle West, a farmer’s wife went into her vegetable garden to pick some potatoes for the evening meal.  It was October, the potato vines had wilted and the potatoes were ready for the harvest.   Beneath a dried up vine, she pushed aside the mound of good earth under which she would find more than enough potatoes for the evening meal. 

      God willing, she would take the potatoes into the house, she would build a fire in the old kitchen stove with a little paper and kindling, she would then add a little coal from the bucket that was kept beside the stove, and when the fire began to burn well she would add more coal and put a pot of water on the stove to heat.  Then she would go down into the basement where she would select a quart Mason jar of meat, probably chunks of beef in brown gravy, plus a couple of jars of canned vegetables, probably sweet corn or peas or lima beans or string green beans.   She would heat them on the stove while the potatoes came to a boil, she would hand mash the potatoes, adding a bit of milk, she would put out a pitcher of milk and several glasses, cut a few slices of her homemade bread, perhaps put out a jar of jam, and her family’s meal would be prepared.   She was proud that everything they would eat would come right from that 72-acre farm on which she and her small family lived.

      That was her plan.  But God had a different one.  As she picked up the potatoes, suddenly she felt what women have always known to be the final signal that a child was about to be born.  She went into the house, stopping at the back porch to ring the dinner bell that hung from the ceiling.  This would notify her husband to come in from the fields and take her to the hospital. 

      That woman was my mother, Maude Miller.  And this was my earliest memory.

      There was some concern about the birth.  My mother had married late in life, and when her first baby was about to be born, a Cesarean section was needed, but in that place, at that time, there was yet to be any doctor who would perform such an operation.  The decision about who should live and who should die was made by God alone.  He decided that the baby should die.  But Maude Miller lived to try again. When she approached another childbirth, she journeyed to Pittsburgh, where a birth by Cesarean was successful.  The doctors told her, however, that one Cesarean was all that one could have. She must not have another child.

      But she did, and I was that child.  Born on June 8, in the Year of our Lord 1919, in the 143rd year of the republic of the United States of America.  I entered the world just as Julius Caesar had entered it almost exactly twenty centuries earlier, and the world that I entered was not greatly different from that of Caesar.

      I lived on that family farm for the next 21 years.  At the time it seemed that nothing of much importance ever happened, but now a few things stand out.   I remember  ....

      ... at about age 3 or 4, carrying the lantern for my father out in the barn on winter nights as he went about his chores milking the cows and feeding the livestock.  This was before we had electricity.  The lantern was fueled by kerosene, as were the lamps in the house.

      .. catching a chicken for Sunday dinner, cutting off  its head with a hatchet and watching it jump all around the yard until it finally stopped convulsing so that Mother could pick off the feathers and prepare it for the pot.

      .. each of my two brothers and I having our own little plots in the garden.  I planted mine mostly in different kinds of radishes.

      .. my mother helping Dad string barbed wire to reinforce the fence by the cow pasture.  We three small boys were standing by, not quite old enough to be of much help in this task.

      .. picking potato bugs off the potato vines, knocking them into a bucket with a liquid in it that killed the bugs.  One could do this kind of work well before the age of ten.

      .. brother Jim and I following the seed-drill as Dad drove the horses and we planted wheat or oats.  When a piece of sod or stone would clog the drill we had to hustle to remedy the situation. 

      .. John and Maggie Hartzell coming for dinner one Sunday in their buggy.  We unhitched  their horse, put it in our barn and gave it some oats to eat while we entertained our guests.

      .. my mother entertaining the neighbor ladies at a quilting party.  The half dozen women chatted as they kept their needles going, some taking stitches too large or uneven so that next day mother would take those stitches out and do them over again.  Mother made most of our clothes, canned our vegetables and meats, and helped Dad with milking the cows and other chores until we boys were old enough to help

    .. walking down into the woods in the early summer mornings to bring back the cows for their morning milking.   Sometimes when the dew was right I would take a pan and fill it with mushrooms en route.  They would be fried for breakfast after the milking was done.

      .. sometimes one of the cows being missing.  When they had a calf they would usually hide in the woods and we had to search for them.

      ..  my milking stool.  It was an old piece of wood about 5" by 10" nailed to the end of a discarded bed leg.  I balanced on it as I sat by the cows' rear right side and milked my quota of two cows before having breakfast and going off to school each morning.

      .. the bull.  This was the animal we treated with respect.  He had his own pen in the barn and was usually kept in it.  Every five years or so, to avoid inbreeding and to improve our herd, we bought a new baby bull from some miles away.   When its horns began to sprout, we cut them off.  At the same time, we cut a hole in his young and tender nose where we implanted a ring.  When taking the bull from his pen we used a six foot pole with the end snapped into his ring

      .. the threshers.  Once every summer, along came the threshing machine, pulled by an old coal-fired steam engine.    The threshing machine was placed at the top of the hill at the entrance to the barn, and its energy source was the belt attached to the steam engine some fifty feet away at the bottom of the hill.  All the neighbors pitched in to help.  The wagons brought in the sheaves of grain, we threw them manually onto the conveyor at one end of the thresher, while out the back end came the straw that was blown back into the back hay mow.  Out the side came the grain, funneled into sacks which we carried into the granary. 

      .. the threshers' dinner.   At noon all the threshers would stop for a big meal.  They would all "wash up" outside, removing most of the dirt, dust, and chaff from their faces and their muscular and hairy arms. 

      .. getting the house wired for electricity.  A big event in our lives.  Until that time there was no refrigeration other than a cool, damp cellar - not really very cool in the heat of the suummer.  We did have inside plumbing - a windmill pumped the water into a large tank in our basement, building up the pressure until a pressure relief valve above the kitchen sink would make a screeching noise and release water into the sink, whereupon we would run out into the yard and turn off the windmill.  This facility made possible the inside toilet, a luxury not enjoyed in our neighbors' homes nor in our one-room schoolhouse.

      .. going to town (Alliance) on Saturday night.  Mom would take whatever eggs we had collected during the week and sell them to Fraraccios, the proprietors of a little store, who would give us sugar, salt, or whatever provisions we needed in exchange.   Money was scarce.  Our cash income was often less than $100 per month, and as Mom had said, Dad spent most of the money on his cows.  By that it was meant that all the farming expenses, for farm equipment, fertilizer, hardware, etc., were devoted to raising the crops that were consumed by the cows which gave the milk which produced our only cash income.

      .. installing automatic water fountains in the barn for the cattle.  At each cow's stanchion was a bowl-like water fountain with a lever in the bottom so that when the cow put its mouth in the bowl the water would fill it.   This made the cows give more milk.

      .. butchering a beef and hogs each winter.  The beefs were skinned, but the hogs were dipped in a barrel of scalding water and the hair scraped off.   The hams and bacon strips were cured, some sausage was made, and some beef was dried, but most of the meat was canned in Mason jars in a pressure cooker.   The cans of meats joined the many canned vegetables, fruits, and potatoes in our cellar.  We had plenty to eat and a good variety.

      .. spending my weekly pay of ten cents, usually for a 5 cent ice cream cone, and saving the rest for big things.  Like the wallet I bought when I had saved enough coins to convert them into a big one dollar bill.   I proudly made my choice, put the dollar bill in my new wallet and was about to leave with the new wallet and the dollar bill inside when the clerk reminded me that I couldn't spend my money and have it too.  He took the dollar.  I took an empty wallet and never forgot his comment.

      ..the first time I plowed.  I was about 12 and Bill Fenton, a neighboring farmer, let me hold the handles and drive the horses with the reins around my back and one arm.  I was quite proud of myself.

      ..driving Bird and Bess, our team of old gray work-horses, as they pulled a harrow or a disk or a roller over a freshly plowed field being prepared for planting, and stopping to talk with Uncle Ralph at the end of the field where our farm adjoined his.  He enjoyed talking to his nephews; he had no children.

      ..a dog.  When city folks wanted to get rid of a dog sometimes they would drive by our farm and drop it off.  One I took a liking to and we kept it for a few days before I heard the shotgun go off in the orchard and I knew that Dad had decided that this was one mouth we could not afford to feed.   Our hired hand caught me crying in the haymow.

      ..my ponies,  Betty particularly.  Each summer we would get a new pony, on loan from a man who raised them.  The new pony would be young and untrained.  I would  "break" it so that after a month or so it could be ridden, responding  properly to the reins and a person on its back.  After about a year, the owner would come and take his pony back, giving me another one to break.  Somehow I kept Betty for two years.  She was a bay and in my memory as beautiful as any Kentucky Derby winner. I could jump on her back and without saying a word she knew if I wanted to start off on a gallop, stand still, or whatever. Together we were like one animal.  In the summertime we would let our cows graze on the second growth in the alfalfa field next to the corn field.  I would stand guard on the pony, letting the cows get close enough to the corn so that we had to gallop full speed to head them off just in time.    At nighttime in the summer I  would ride Betty up to the schoolhouse area, a couple of miles away, and visit my friends.  In the pitch black of night she knew the way home and would get us there without a word or any guidance.   The saddest day in my life up to that point was when the owner came and  took Betty away.

      ..riding into town with my father on the seat of a wagon behind Bird and Bess.  The wagon was about ten feet long.  We would take grain - wheat, oats, and shelled corn - into the mill where it would be ground into a meal that we served to the cattle particularly in the wintertime when the weather prevented their grazing.

      ..going out to the granary in the barn where I would get a pan full of wheat, pick out the little black cockle seeds, and Mom would boil the wheat for breakfast.  Good and chewy, with milk and sugar.   But usually for breakfast we ate rolled oats with milk and sugar and a few pancakes with syrup.  Mom made the syrup on the old coal stove simply by boiling water and adding some white and brown sugar. 

      .. sharing chores with my brothers Jim and Walt.  Jim was two years older than me and smarter.   He could explain how everything worked, so I looked up to him.

      ..watching Uncle Ralph churn his milk - he sold butter rather than milk - and Aunt Stell patting the butter into big rich-smelling chunks.   They had Jersey cows which gave milk with a butterfat content of something like 4%, whereas our Holsteins gave more milk but only about 3% fat.

      ..crop rotation.  We rotated the four basic crops - corn, oats, wheat, and hay (timothy, clover, and/or alfalfa).   Each cultivated field was about 5 acres, more or less, at least one each devoted to corn, oats, wheat, and then hay.  The hay fields would last for several years, then be plowed under in the spring and the rotation would begin again.

   ..hoeing the corn in the summertime.  Working all day long in the field, hoeing one row after another, cutting out all the weeds and cultivating the ground around the corn stalks.  Dreaming about growing up.

      ..being twelve and thinking how lucky I was to be the best age of all.  I had read an article by Booth Tarkington about the joys of that age -- big enough to do so many new things for tthe first time, but still not having or caring about the problems of adults.

      .. our big red barn.  On the lower floor were a dozen milk cows in their stations, a team of horses and the pony in their stalls, the bull in his pen, a large central room with a water tank in the middle, a stairwell with steps leading up to the second floor and through which we threw down the hay for feeding the animals.   An attached silo from which we carried ensilage in a wheelbarrow to the cattle.  A large manure shed out back.   The great top story with its cathedral ceiling, where we would walk along the 12” square beams that had been hand-hewn by my grandfather, or hang from the rafters and drop into the haymows.

      .. the chicken coupe out back, with poles on one side where the chickens would roost, and nests on the other side where they would usually go to lay their eggs, which we picked up daily.

      .. the garage, a separate building for accommodating not only the car but some farm machinery, a work shop, a place for butchering animals, a corn crib, and an attic for storing lumber and other things.

      .. the orchard out behind the chicken coupe, where we had a variety of apple trees including bright red Jonathans, yellow Grimes Goldens, pears, peaches, plums, and cherries.   It was fenced in and doubled as a pig pen.

      ...making hay.  We cut it with a mowing machine.  We used a tedder to throw it up in the air to aid in the drying process, a raker to rake it up into swaths.  Each of those two-wheeled machines in turn was pulled by the team of horses.  Then the horses pulled a hay wagon, and Dad, Jim and I hand-forked the hay up onto the wagon, one of us on either side of the wagon between the two swaths of hay, the other on the wagon to fork the hay around so that we had a nice even load well secured and stomped.  When the load was so high that it was impossible for the long-handled forks to reach the top, we took it into the barn.  We placed the wagon in the upper level of the barn, and a large two-pronged fork about 18" wide and three feet high came down from a rope on a track and would be jabbed into the hay and locked.   A horse harnessed to the far end of the rope would strain its muscles as it went down the hill and the big fork full of hay went up into the mow.  One of us drove the horse, one handled the big fork, and the third was in the haymow spreading the hay into the far corners.  It was hot in that haymow in August.  Dad made root beer in the summertime and it sure tasted good after coming from that haymow.  Then back to the hayfield for another load.

      ..hand-cutting the corn in the fall, with a machete-like corn-cutter, stacking it into large bundles and tying binder-twine around it so that it stood alone.

      ..bringing in the corn in the winter.  One horse could pull the sled in the snow.  One of us would grab the stack of corn and place it on the sled while the other would stand by with the 12-gauge shotgun to shoot any rabbit that might be hiding under it.  Sometimes in the snow the rabbit tracks alerted us to what the evening meal might be.

      .. raising domesticated rabbits.  I started with two and learned about procreation and multiplication.  I dressed and sold them to make "spending money."

      ..Uncle Cy and Dad talking about "the depression" when he and Aunt Florence were visiting us on a Sunday.  Uncle Cy was a home builder and had lost a good part of his fortune in the "crash."   One day he said, "I think the depression will end soon, because all my suits are about worn out, and when people have to buy something, it will start the recovery."  That was the first time I had heard anyone express the theory of demand economics.  I thought that wealth was created by working - that's the way it was on the farm - the harder and smarter we worked the more we produced and the more we had. 

      .. my first experience with dandelion wine.  At harvest time, all farmers pitched in and helped their neighbors.  I was about 16 and with a couple of others was out in the field throwing the large bundles of ensilage (green corn) up onto wagons.  It began to rain and the farmer sent out a gallon jug of dandelion wine to keep our minds off our misery and reward us for working in such weather.  Soon I was throwing the bundles clear over the wagon and quickly learned that sometimes the appetite is bigger than the capacity.

      .. Sundays.  My father and mother both respected the Sabbath and on Sundays we did only that work which was absolutely required, like milking the cows morning and night, feeding and tending the livestock.  After morning chores we went to church in Alliance, and we had the rest of the day off for recreation until evening chores.   We rode bikes, or the pony, to the Uniontown (our grade school) area and played on softball teams.  In the fall, I remember climbing hickory trees, shaking the limbs, and collecting the nuts.  In the winter, we might sledride, occasionally read, listen to the radio (no TV in those days), play games.   Sometimes we played cards.  My mother liked euchre and 500, games that are a little like bridge.  My Dad and his friends sometimes played a card game called pedro. My Dad  spent most of his very little spare time in reading.  He always read The Literary Digest, the popular newsweekly magazine of the time.  But the neighboring farmers were interested in little beyond the task of making a living on the farm.  There were few people, mostly relatives, whom my father would find conversationally interesting.

      ..Dad resisting the sales pressure of a tractor salesman.  When the man said that Dad should buy the tractor and equip his farm so that his sons could follow in his footsteps, Dad said that he wasn't going to obligate his sons or tell them what occupation they should pursue because there might be a better way to make a living than by  farming.   Thanks, Dad.

      .. So when we three boys, Jim, Walt and myself,  grew up and went away to work, to war, or to college, we had no inclination to become farmers.  Then when Dad was nearly sixty-five, he was driving our team of horses pulling a load of hay on the road in front of our house.  Some hardware gave way which resulted in the horses getting out of control and galloping down the road until the wagon overturned.  A wheel ran over Dad and broke his jaw.   This was the beginning of the end of his farming days.  Like his father before him, he sold his cattle and farm equipment at auction, and then retired to the house in Alliance which he had built while he was a contractor during his pre-farming days.   Walter took over the farm as his residence, while he worked at a job in the city.  For a while, he rented the fields to neighboring farmers, but soon the land was worth more for the coal and rock beneath its soil than it was for farming.  It was strip-mined, and when I last stopped by, the great voids from which had come the coal and rock were flooded with water, the great barn in which I had worked and played and the house in which I had lived for 21 years were all in shambles, the area deserted.   The days of the fields of waving grain and contented cattle grazing in the pastures were gone.  Our family farm is history.