My early childhood memories of Dad are about farming life. Dad made sure his boys were in the barn during chore time, mornings and evenings, feeding the animals, milking cows, cleaning, shovels and pitchforks to put cow poop onto wheelbarrows, making straw fresh straw bedding for the animals hay making straw beds and more
In the amish culture hard work is revered, holding a place of prominence nearly as important as godliness! On a farm there is always so much work to be done and everyone pitched in to help. In time though farming sort of took a back seat to the more lucrative carpentry business. Making a living on a forty eight acre dairy farm without electricity or or modern equipment was difficult and not enough income to raise a family of five hungry boys. He worked hard and much.
One evening after working 9 hours in the hot sun on his carpenter job, then finding a red sign posted on the milk house door saying that we were “Shut Down” again! Shut down by a surprise visit from a milk inspector prodding through our barn and milk-house. Dad had enough! Times were changing and he had to change something too! Dairy farming now required electricity and compliance to more and more rigid standards of dairy farming regulations.
Regulations required milk to be stored and cooled in large stainless steel holding tanks. Being Amish without electricity meant that we could no longer sell grade-A milk. Now we could only sell milk to the less regulated cheese houses. Most of all it meant taking a substantial pay cut, making it even harder to make a profit. He and mom decided to sell the cows and get out of the dairy business, keeping only a cow or two, some beef cattle to raise and the buggy horses.
This adjustment in his occupation, going from farming to full time carpentry was a significant change in our family life. No more early morning and evening chores at 6am and 5pm with all hands on deck to help. No more milking cows by hand into stainless steel buckets, pouring the milk through paper strainers and into metal milk cans, and the constant chores dairy farming required. These changes were playing out on our farm in the late 1950’s and early 60’s. I was eight years old in 1960.
Evenings after supper, while mom and I cleared the table and washed dishes, dad loved to settle into a green recliner and quietly read the newspaper. Our daily newspaper, The Canton Repository, kept him connected to the world beyond our small farm and amish community. When he was done reading it and the pages were all rummaged…I’d read it too, but not before dad.
Sometimes we’d sweet talk dad into sing his funny dutch songs, play the harmonica, of which he was a master, and to tell stories about when he was little. On a really good night he’d get down on the floor with us we’d all do the pumpkin roll, which in Pennsylvania dutch was called “kaupsah wrolla.” It was simply scrunching oneself into a ball, pulling your feet up tight to your belly and then just sort of rocking and rolling around the room uncontrolled! It was fun and even more fun to watch the zany uncontrolled collisions bodies bumping into each other.
He was a disciplinarian ascribing to the old scriptural adage of “Spare the rod and spoil the child” One Sunday after church, a group of guys, all around ten-fourteen years old, somehow got a pack of Camel cigarettes. So to the woods we went to smoke where the cigs were passed around freely. We coughed, choked and smoked flicking ashes as big shot smokers do, but mainly we just choked, coughed!
The following week I found myself in line, watching and waiting in line for my turn to get punished for smoking. There in the barn, while the horses watched, Dad gave each of our little butts three hard lashes from a leather harness strap. The hardest part was waiting my turn seeing and knowing what was about to happen The three of us grabbed our sore behinds, hooped hollered wailing loud and long. It was years before I tried to smoke another cigarette!
Amish and English folks alike, frequently stopped at our place out of the blue to talk to dad. He’d stop whatever he was doing to listen, laugh with the visitors. I was a shy kid often hiding somewhere nearby within earshot to listen to the conversations. Stories of travel, politics, farming, horses, homebuilding communism. He was kind man, respectful to everyone no matter what! He loved meeting and getting acquainted with all types and all manner of people, and people generally also loved him.
Looking back, I realize how dad embodied much of the ancient Stoic philosophy teachings with his calm easy going, ready to face anything demeanor. Not that he studied the philosophy of course but many of the virtues heralded in stoic thought, seemed to be natural to him. Virtues such as discipline, thoughtful in speech, courage, selflessness and sacrifice were a part in his life.
On any given day when it looked like rain and if someone would say something like, “it sure looks like rain today” one of his favorite little come-back quips was, “Well…we’ll just do what they do in the old country when it rains” to which someone would always take the bait and ask, “what do they do in the old country?” With the hook firmly set and a slow smug grin spreading across his face he’d reply… “we’ll just let it rain!”
A Grateful Son,
6-28-2021
paul