Sharecroppers

Family history has always been of great interest to me as generated from the vivid stories my dad would tell. He had endearing respect for family and I do not recall a negative word of blood relatives. Motherhood commanded total reverence, as he lost his mother to cancer when he was ten. His dad, Jay was resourceful but basically a sharecropper and subsistence farmer. Before marriage at thirty in 1916, he had been to twenty-three states and five provinces of Canada. Traveling to Saskatchewan for the wheat harvest, of the weather, he had told of a newspaper blowing against the side of a building and staying there for three weeks. His new bride, Mina was only eighteen. Within a year she bore a son Earl and my dad came four years later. About the time my dad started school they lived in a cabin west of town. In the winter months, Jay worked in lumbering down the road. With his team of horses, he would pull cut logs out of the woods. His day started before dawn and he returned after dark. At night Mina would have hot stew prepared and the wood stove ablaze. My dad and his brother stood vigil listening for the team, run to meet their dad, and take the team to the barn. My dad was too small to hang the halter up so Earl had to do it. Typically, after tending to the horses their dad had fallen asleep in his chair by the stove when they returned to the cabin.
The boys had a cash crop of potatoes which they sold roadside near the cabin. On one Saturday they had two dollars and fifty cents after a few good days of potato sales. The family loaded into the old Ford coupe and headed to town to buy groceries with mom holding coins in her lap. It was routine to have a flat tire on such a trip. Jay had stopped just past the last curve going into town and called for a tire check. He checked his side and Mina got out checking her side. When they got to town the money was gone. In tears and panic, they returned to the tire checkpoint and searched until dark along the roadside. My dad said he returned to that sight for many years thereafter. I sigh of their hardship when I round that curve.

I would expect lessons in life were by example. Work for what you get and be thankful for what you have.