What was it like where you grew up?

I grew up on a Sea Island south Charleston SC. called Edisto. It was covered with the remnants of old cotton plantations our farm was a portion of one and grand parents lived in the overseers house when they bought it in 1937. Truck farming was most prevalent. Tomatoes, potatoes, cabbage, cucumbers, watermelons etc. We had cows and pigs and grew corn and soybeans. Dad did all kinds of things to support his farming habit commercial fishing and most any honest work. He had a 51 F6 Ford flat bed dump truck that He used on the farm and hauled dirt with (Loaded by shovel) and graded lots on the beach with the farm tractors. Dad had an 850 Ford that he put a loader on to load dirt. That is why I love those tractors I felt like they saved my life when we didn't have to load them by hand. He was also the Magistrates Constable and to most people he was the law on the Island. Back then they would call Dad first and then call the police. Dad would grab his shotgun and be there in a few minutes and the police it would take 45 minutes to an hour. Even if they didn't call dad the police would come get him first because he knew every body particularly if it was a domestic. During the first Moonwalk Dad and I were investigating a call where some one had backed into this Ladies house with a truck. We had to follow the truck tracks (dirt roads) till we found it. The Guy was drunk and had gone by to see his girl friend and backed into her house.
Dad bought matching 3010 JDs and my brother and I would work together. Dad planted watermelons one year and lost money. Years of bad weather and poor land.Better schools and finally gas prices, Dad quit farming in 73 and we moved to town as we were working there all the time doing construction work. I thought I was going to die. I always meant to move back but never have. Most of the people I cared about then are not there anymore.
Where did you come from?
Ron

Growing up we hand milked an average 10 cows twice a day,had a hog operation,had laying hens,raised turkeys on range,some beef cattle,
used an AC small round baler,AC 60 combine and B,CA and WD tractors.Heated with wood,had gravity powered water,1947 Chevy 2 ton truck,1950 Ford car and a
Ford pickup.I used to raise Game Roosters and help a local Moonshiner to tote sugar and corn to his operation to get spending money.Bought a place in the neighboring county and my sister and I got the place we grew up on which has been in the family since the 1800's and thats where I live now.Still mostly heat with wood and have redone the gravity flow water system comes in when the power is off and can't use the wells.

Red bank NJ. I was born on Ft Monmouth NJ and dad served until I was 16. We stayed in NJ while he went where he went and returned to Monmout for stateside assignments. We har a reverse coner lot about 7/8ths of an acre and dad had a Tiget garden tractor with all the emplements. Mom and dad put in a garden every year and I learned to plow on that tractor. When he retired we moved to MN (what a strange place, folks here are from Mars I think) and dad bought 200 acres. In 73 he started milking cows (another starnge thing). By then I had run full sized tractors to include an 826 and a 4020. I also spent the summer and fall of 73 working on a custom combine crew. Got married in Dec 73 and with jobs being hard to find joined the Army in 74. Spent my leaves helping dad with hay and milking till he retired from farming in 83. I retired in 96 and am still on the farm except now I'm trying to get the farm part of it working again.

Rick

I grew up in a small town in southern Indiana, back before the Interstate highways came through. There was downtown, nestled into the valley where two creeks met, and there was the "residential area," which was everything in the surrounding hills. I lived on the south hill. When I was born, Dad and Grand-dad were Hudson dealers, had been IH truck dealers until about a year before, and still handled IH and Farmall tractors and implements as a sub-dealer for the franchise holder on the northernmost edge of the county.

The town was about 20 miles from the Louisville, KY metro area as the crow flies, but about 35 miles and 45 minutes away via the two-lane blacktop. So we were close enough to Louisville to get TV reception, but far enough away that the main reason to go there MIGHT be for Christmas shopping. And we were far enough away from Indianapolis to be essentially ignored...as long as we paid our taxes. At that time, long before casino boats and their related tax revenue, southern Indiana ended at Bloomington, as far as Indianapolis was concerned.

Back when I was a kid, the area was primarily agricultural. There were a few Farmall "hundred" series, but the bulk of the tractors were red, and had letters like C, H, and M and their variants. The Allis dealer down the street and across the south bridge sold a few units, and while Dad was a dyed-in-the-wool Farmall guy, he respected the tractors Allis-Chalmers built. He also had a healthy respect for the few Case products in the area...but the nearest dealer was in the next county, and for all practical purposes most farmers simply weren't going to drive that far for parts and service. There was also a healthy and thriving Deere dealership in town, but the competition was friendly. Many, if not most, of my school friends were farm kids. Lots of their parents and grandparents were customers at my family's garage. We had an IH refrigerator in the house, an IH air conditioner in one of the living room windows--apparently I'd been sickly in my first two years--and an IH deep freezer on the back porch.

In 1959, the downtown area flooded. My family's business, in a leased building, had 3 feet of water in it. A lot of time was spent washing away "flood mud" from everything. And then Grand-dad decided that he was going to move the business. So he got out of the car franchise, which by then was American Motors/Rambler, and took on the project of remodeling, and adding to, the barn that was located on the knoll behind his house, across the south bridge from where the business had been located. He ended up with a building that was about 1/3 the size of the one we were leaving, but it had an 18" high steel beam with a hoist on a trolley in the center of the garage area...so we were set up for servicing tractors. We could do 2 at a time, as long as we weren't splitting one.

So I learned parts counter skills the summer I was 8 years old, when Grand-dad was hospitalized TWICE for ulcer surgery. Later, I learned to twist wrenches and to re-face valves in that tiny shop. In the summertime, a lot of the work went on outside in the gravel driveway when the shop itself was full. Dad would paint tractors outside, as long as the weather allowed it. He'd first clean them well with the old steam jenny and some 49-s lye-based compound, and then he's allow us kids to help with putty knives and wire brushes to deal with any flaking paint or anything else the steam had missed. He did the sheet metal prep himself, of course. Since Grand-dad had the garage in the back yard of his home, business hours were just an approximation; when planting or harvesting time came, closing time was whenever the last customer had been dealt with.

The old 60-ton hydraulic press was set up at a corner of the building outside. Gears and bearings by the hundreds were pressed there, along with the straightening of sickle mower cutter bars on occasion. The welder and torch rig were Grand-dad's area, and no matter how much we begged, he always said that "you boys" [even if there was only one of us there, we were still "you boys"] didn't need to learn about that stuff. So I was past 40 when I learned to weld.

In the mid-1970's the interstate came through. By the mid-1980's the atmosphere of the town had changed. By 1990, downtown was pretty much dead, except for the courthouse. In the late 1990's, a new jail and court building was built on the west hill, to deal with jail overcrowding lawsuits and to free up space at the courthouse, which was built in [and for] 1929.

In 1978, I married and moved to the city. In 1980-'83, I moved back to my hometown temporarily. In 1983, I moved back to the city with my wife, and lived there for another 10 years. My first wife passed away in 1992, and I moved back to my home county, but not the old hometown; it just didn't feel like the hometown I'd left. In 1994 I remarried and bought a house in a subdivision in a small rural community, a mile outside an unincorporated small town. For work, I commute to the city; and I'm happy here in the country, surrounded by corn fields and soybean fields and woods and cattle farms and deer, squirrels, rabbits, and wild turkeys.

Grew up on a Cattle and sheep operation in east central louisiana, my Dad was a country vet and cow/hog/sheep buyer for Swift and Company out of Jackson Mississippi, he bought slaughter cattle for them from the early 50's until they closed up in 68 or 69 and continued as a feedlot buyer until retiring in 1982. He had an office but was never in it, he traveled all over Treating livestock during the day and to sale barns in the evenings and week ends, I traveled many a mile with him and met people and saw things I will never forget. My brother and I did the majority of the farming from an early age because my Dad left the house every morning at 4 a.m. and was seldom home before dark but he never liked equipment anyway, he was raised behind a team of horses and he never had much use for a tractor though he had to own them. He was the smartest, most honest and best man I ever knew in my life and he would help anyone that needed it, he had respect for anyone who worked for a living and he never really cared a hoot for aquiring money, all money was to him was a tool necessary to live.

I grew up just outside of Wayne, Michigan, a little factory town about 20 miles west of Detroit. When I was young, there were still some farms in the area, a feedmill downtown, and we occasionally saw a tractor. Almost everybody worked at GM, Ford, Chrysler, or a supplier plant. My father and grandfather both worked at Cadillac Motor Car. They raised strawberries and chickens on 5 acres. In the early 60's, my dad was making 5K per year, working full time at Cadillac. He was making 2K, part time, on strawberries. My mothers family lived a few miles away, my mom's dad milked some cows, and did some truck farming, along with running a diesel repair shop.

When I was growing up we lived so many place that by the age of 5 I had lived in more towns then I was old. Born in Alabama but then shortly there after moved tpo Missouri then in a couple different towns in Missouri then up to MN where we lived for a few years then to KS then to NE then to TN and then to MS and then the navy and all over the east coast in the navy including Charleston SC. And when O got out of the navy O moved here and have been here ever since. My dad was a college prof and a preacher so I was lucky to live in the same town for 3 years

Grew up on an old 97 acre dairy farm. Dad retired from dairying before I was old enough to help much. Dad got a few ewe lambs and raised dairy heifers (part of the payment for the cows) He grew hay and rented 50 acres of irrigated riverbottom for peppermint. He had a Farmall M and an H, Traded the M for a diesel 400 Case, later the H for a DC Case because he needed more power for silo filling. I left home and my older brother farmed with Dad several years. Parents sold the farm in 1980....James

Grew up on a 240 acre farm my grandpa bought in the mid-30's here on the plains of NWIA. We raised corn, oats, hay and some soybeans at the time. We walked every acre of the corn and beans pulling weeds until dad started using 2-4D on the corn. After that we only walked the beans.

Dad milked one Short Horn cow for our dairy needs. Dad never let me crank the Montgomery Wards table top separator. He claimed I'd crank it too fast. Saturday mornings in the winter my job was to crank the butter churn. My reward was the sweet butter milk. After the butter was made it was time to grab the pitchfork and clean buildings. I did some corn shelling during my school years but it was mostly during the summer months but by then most of the corn had been shelled out for the year. Got into a LOT of corn shelling after I graduated.

Summer meant the usual baling with our neighborhood baling ring. When I was maybe 12 I started driving the baler. 14T Deere pulled by a Deere 60. Then we updated to a 24T pulled by a 730 gas. Did that till I was in the 16-year-old range and then I 'graduated' to the other end of the baler-the flat rack. The owner of the baler and I rode the rack and stacked hay together for maybe ten years or so and by then the baling ring was beginning to dissolve. He was thirty five years older than me, smoked, drank too much sometimes and was overweight but he could out-work me. Course I didn't admit it at the time. Went to large rounds after that and I've never missed riding the rack.

I still live on that 240 acre farm only it has grown to 640 now, plus a few rented acres. The livestock is long gone, our family is raised and now the grandkids are running around the farm. Jim

When and where I grew up is right here in the '50's, in northern Maryland. Dad had returned from WWII, and settled down here. He was raised in a town about 15 miles from here, and had married my mother a few months before the war started. When he returned, he eventually started working for the government, and was living with my G-dad at his farm. G-pop was a veterinarian with a widespread, large animal practice. Dairy farms were the norm in this area then, and, riding with him as a kid, I knew most of them. I started working with animals at a young age, and planted 6 acres of corn on his place when I was 13. After high school, I went to work for the phone company. G-dad had died and the farm was sold. Then, Vietnam started, and I was invited to participate by my Uncle. After I returned, I went back to work for Ma Bell, and started helping a few friends on their farms. That led to me renting a few acres, then buying this place and starting to build it into what it is today, about a three hundred acre beef operation. I retired from Ma Bell 11 years ago, and have been full-time farming since.

The area has 'urbanized' from what it was, as we are now much a bedroom community of Baltimore, about 30 miles south. All but a few of the dairies are gone, and many have been developed into homes. There are still a few large farms left, and many smaller tracts where people bought ten acres, got a few horses for the kids who have moved away, and now I farm some to keep them clean. Plus a few larger tracts, and some smaller. There are even a few that comprise one larger field made from three or four 'back yards'. The area has changed, as the people. But it's still home. Guess they'll eventually plant me here, too.

Grew up on an 800 acre grain & livestock farm in the Red River Valley in North Dakota. Farming in the middle 50's was not very profitable so I went to college.

After my Dad passed away, I turned the farm over to my younger brother and went to work for equipment manufacturers. At the time, I felt that the farm wasn't large enough to support 2 families. For convenience, we lived in cities, close to airports as I had to travel a lot.

I like to keep up with what is going on at the farm, but only visit there on occasion. I didn't realize when I left the farm how my allergies were making me sick a lot from various sources on the farm - especially farm chemicals.

In hindsight, it was the right thing for me to do when I left the farm. Younger brother was successful and has a comfortable retirement, as my wife and I do. It worked out well for both of us.

Grew up on a 150 acre farm on a gravel road. It was grandpas farm. Dad worked on the railroad. We lived next door to grandpa. Had hogs, white faced herefords some sheep and about 150 laying hens. Road island reds they were and some white leghorns too. Milked one Jersy cow for milk and butter and took eggs to town for trade. Baled hay, mostly clover, some timothy and alfalfa. Raised wheat, soy beans and corn. Had a Massy Harris 30, an Allis Chalmers WC, and a Farmall Cub for gardening. Butchered a hog for meat. Ate a lot of fresh pork and salt cured ham and a rabbit or phesant for supper was a real treat. Went to college for GM and became a Machine repairman machinist journeyman. Would go back to those days in a heartbeat. Thanks for asking.

I will make this a short story. I was born and raised for 4 short years on my maternal grandpa's farm. We raised dairy cows, farrowed sows, had lots of laying hens, raised ducks for meat also. We had 135 acres of land. My parents walked away from the farm when I was 4 years old in 1972. My mom said my dad and grandpa couldn't come to an agreement on how to transition the farm from generation to generation. Something with borrowing money from the bank. My grandpa didn't buy anything unless he had the cash. My dad wanted to borrow the money to farm, but grandpa said no. So my family moved to a 2.5 acre building site less than 10 miles from my homeplace. I always held some resentment to my parents about them not taking over the farm, until I was told about the transition situation. Needless to say, the farm site and some acreage was sold to a stranger and an old neighbor bought the other 120 acres tillable. So I finally bought my own little farm almost 15 years ago where I now raise beef cattle and have a few acres tillable. I would love to have more land, but unfortunately in today's economy that will never happen. I am happy to have the little farm I now have. At least I am part of the agriculture world. Even if I am only a tiny fraction of it.
Kow Farmer (Kurt)

Born 1950. Grew up on 120 acre farm on a gravel road in central Michigan.

Attended a 1 room school house that housed grades K-8 and had one teacher. School house had a more-or-less modern furnace and running water, but restroom facilities were outhouses. Walked a half-mile more-or-less to school, every day, any weather.

My last year there was grade 4, attendance was down too far to justify paying a teacher and keeping the building up. Got bussed to the county seat (St. Johns) grades 5-12.

Dad farmed the 120 and worked full time at Federal-Mogul as an industrial electrician. We raised wheat, soybeans, corn and hay, fed out beef critters, kept a few hogs.

I'm 5th of 6 boys, no sisters. We ALL did chores morning and evening, kept the grass mowed and the place looking nice, helped Mom with cooking, canning, gardening, laundry and housekeeping. Never knew anybody that didn't until high school. I was absolutely floored by the attitude of "city" kids that had no chores and wouldn't dream of washing dishes or helping Mom with the cleaning. That sort of attitude in my house would've resulting in getting extremely hungry at best, and a serious butt-whipping at worst.

Started driving tractors ('49 JD-B, '50-something Super W-6) as soon as we could reach the pedals. Forked manure by hand, made hay with an Allis Rotobaler and thought we'd died and gone to heaven when Dad went in with a neighbor and bought a square baler. Spent many, MANY mind-numbing hours on the JD-B with a four row cultivator and shields cultivating just emerged corn and beans.

Kept a couple of acres of grass around the house and outbuildings mowed with a 20" push mower with a Clinton engine (remember those?)

Entertainment was getting out the door after chores and playing with the neighbor kids. We might be anywhere within a couple of square miles until dark. Nobody knew exactly where or cared, as long as we were home by supper time.

Around 1962 or so, Dad relented and bought a TV. Black and White, 3 channels, antenna rotor was a pipe wrench on the mast and somebody hollering instructions out the living room window.

You learned responsibility and self-reliance and the value of a person's word, neighbors helped neighbors without being asked or thinking of reward. Wouldn't have missed it for the world, and count it as a huge loss that so many kids (including mine) couldn't grow up that way.

We lived with mom near Grampa Kennedy's farm in Carmiecheal, CA till I was almost 5 then Grampa K bought 160 acres 5 miles out of the small town of Loomis, CA Loomis had about 350 permanent residents and one block of stores. There were 7 packing sheds for the fruit comming in from what was called The Loomis Basin and 13 bars. All the bars and all but one of the packing sheds had burned down by the time I was in high school. Fruit was slowly loosing it favor on the dinner table and most of the big farms were disappearing by the 70s .
We had a million acres of nothing behind the farm so we had lots of places to go hunting and fishing. A river to swim in and more places to just goto where we all alone no houses or people just open space and that was just on our side of the river which we were not allowed to cross. I could for 10 miles in no time and not even get up a sweat all those hills and land to see just kept me in good shape.
During the war WW-II Grampa milked about 25 Jersey cows and sold the cream which was picked up by the train in town every morning. He fed the milk mixed with dried cull fruit from the packing sheds to the hogs. Gramps would make us kids work until noon then we could do what ever we wanted to do the rest of the day. It was a great time we were so far out that the war was nothing to worry about. NonTV and only a few stations on the radio that were hard to here so we lived all to ourselves out there on the Ranch. I had three uncles in the war and grandma would worry about them but never around us kids they all came home after the war we were happy to see them.
Well better let someone else tell his story.
Walt

Too lazy to write mine right now; anyway, my wife of 45 years says i am still growing up. Injoyed all the others though.

Born in 1950, I was raised on 80 acre farm in North Central Oklahoma. Mother and Dad raised 5 of us there. Dad worked off the farm for the ASCS, where he retired. They are both still living there, though they have sold the place to my youngest brother. We hand milked cows, raised hogs and chickens to help make ends meet. Always something to do or explore. Creeks to swim in or fish in. Never felt that we went without. I have a small place in SEKs. I bale hay off the place, always enjoyed that.

My folks brought me home from the hospital to the house where I still live. The changes have been so gradual,I have to stop and think about there being any at all.

Raised on a small poultry farm in north central Ohio. Dad had 2,000 layers on the floor, no cages then. Sold eggs at the house, got by on very little. Somehow Dad & Mom managed to feed two kids and his parents until Mom went back to work as a school teacher when I was 10. Went to a one room school until I was 9 when they closed and we went into town. Dad had an Allis B and a JD H. Lost track of the H, but I still have the B. I left for college in 1961, married in 1964, and tried living in town(about 9,000 people). That didn't work and we bought our place in 1973. I'm still farming my 12 acres with my newest equipment about 70 years old and having a ball. Can't wait for next year to go at it again. Meanwhile there's always something in the barn that needs fixing.
P.S. My brother ended up with Dad's #100 McCormick manure spreader, I don't miss pitching that thing full 6-7 times every Saturday morning. He's welcome to it.

I grew up about 3 blocks from downtown Pontiac, Michigan. Spent as much time as I could at grandparents farm in Hadley, Mi about 40 miles north of Pontiac.
I need to quit thinking about how thing used to be or I will go nuts. I spend a lot of time thinking about the period from 1945 until 1960 which, in my opinion, was the happiest time period we ever had.

Don't feel bad, when you come to think of it, every Farmer is a small part of the Agricultural World.

born and raised in central okla,lived on the farm in summer, went to school in town in winter and worked the farm weekends.raised mostly cattle,wheat, cotton,and a large garden. grandad milked about 25 head of jerseys by hand and sold cream.dad had his own trucking buisness for years hauling sand and gravel and worked at OGE nights in the garage.when he went to days he sold the trucking buisness.I worked as a kid picking cotton,peaches,blackedyed peas,general farm work,about anything we could do for money.married right after high school,and worked so many jobs making ends meet then i cant hardly remember them all. was asked to take this job as a personal favor to a old freind, and spent last 18 years as a contractor for the gov. still farm and raise cattle as i have right along ,but getting too old .sold most the cattle and farm very little anymore.

A lot younger than most of you. My parents built a home on a lot from my dad’s parents farm. Like some other post, when my dad wanted to buy the farm his dad didn’t want to sell and when his dad wanted to sell my dad couldn’t buy. So 100 acres of prime land was sold to a developer. The developer sat on this for 15 years while we “truck farmed” it. About when I was finishing high school (early ‘90’s) they started putting the first couple of houses up. Now the farm is gone and all the home lots are sold and developed. Sure wish dad would’ve worked something out with grandpa, as this would’ve been a great area to keep undeveloped. Or if he would’ve purchased it, we would be sitting on a gold mine and I wouldn’t have to go to work…. :lol:
Anyhow, my wife and I purchased 10 acres of land, build a house on it and now do a small amount of “truck farming” to keep my dad’s memory around. Not a farmer but I get to get my hands dirty on a regular basis