Growing Up on the Farm

Growing up on the Farm will rekindle fond memories for seniors and provide a useful device for stimulating discussions of childhood experiences with their offspring. My uncle is now 89 years old and he found these stories about life leading up to 1960 very exciting and enjoyed discussing his own experiences from that time with his children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. Readers who share this book with their elders can use its stories to bring forth memories about their family lore that might have never been discussed.

A remarkable transition took place on farms across the USA as recently as the 1940's and 1950's. At the beginning of that period most rural homes did not have electricity or running water and most farmers still used mules to farm about 50 acres or less. Very few had electric lights, refrigerators, indoor toilets, telephones, and, of course, and no one had central heat and air, TVs, or computers.

Tractors were being introduced and the size of the average family farm was exploding. Technology was having an impact on all aspects of farm life and causing a mass exodus of people from farms to the cities. But in most farm families, every decision was still influenced by the Great Depression, which the parents had recently experienced as youngsters. Many farm families were almost self-sufficient. They raised cows, chickens, and pigs and had huge gardens where they raised most of the food they ate.

By 1960 tractors with four row farm equipment (as opposed to a single sweep plow - pulled by a mule), one man hay balers, corn pickers, cotton strippers, combines, fertilizers, hybrid seed, insecticides, cars, pickups, and trucks had transformed farms from the "dark ages" that were common back when I was born into substantial businesses.