Unfortunately however we lost my Grandmother Vaiden of 97 years only a few days after Christmas. Tears were shed but yet we can’t help but be happy for her. Grandpa Walter had passed probably a good 20 years ago and Grandma continued to live on the home farm taking care of herself up until the last two days of her life, if only we could be so lucky. Of Course being on this earth for that many years doesn’t come with some heartache as well. Aside from her husband, she had to lie to rest her only daughter after a tragic accident when she was only in her early twenties, my father, one of his brothers, and several grandchildren, as well as all but two of her siblings from a brood of thirteen.
Having seen the horrors of two world wars, the great depression, numerous plagues and epidemics, one has to wonder what the hell we have to bitch about. But seeing your world going from walking and horse drawn wagons, to steam engines, gas engines, horseless carriages, tractors, cars, the industrial revolution…….. it had to be amazing. Some day one of my Great grand children will ask me what it was like witnessing the birth of the computer age, I will tell them stories of having to boot up a computer, using DOS, and their wrist watches having more megabytes than my first computer, they will look at me with wide eyed disbelief, but yet it can’t even be compared to what she has lived through.
Our families have all gotten our love for tinkering and mechanical abilities from our Grandmothers side of the family. In one of her journals she wrote that as a little girl she loved to do the house chores her mother had taught her, being the book keeper for her father’s honey bees, (he had 140 hives at one time) and she also liked to be a mechanic. She had helped her brother Gordon rebuild an early Fordson “and it worked well for many years after”. Her Father John Stilen had farmed not far from where I live and was the first farmer in the area to go from horses, to steam, to a tractor with a plow, and own a car, a Fordson and a Model T, and did much custom plowing with The Fordson over the years.
After Grandma and Grandpa were married they worked on several farms in the area as farm hands. Grandma a midwife and Grandpa operating the equipment. During WWII they moved to Milwaukee and Grandpa worked at a foundry as an inspector of big gun barrels. Shortly after the war they moved back to the area and purchased their own farm. 120 acres, 20 of it wooded and on the Embarrass River, don’t ask me how it got its name but I spent a lot of time playing in it as a young boy. They farmed here for many years, probably had 30 plus milk cows, hogs, and I’m sure a bunch of chickens running around. They started out with an early Fordson, maybe a N or a F (don’t know my early Fordson very well either way), a “little Ford” as it was always referred to, and then in the early fifties their first new Major (note the round precleaner). This one was traded in later for another new Major with live PTO. The second one now being in the possession of my youngest uncle Harold, who is also the little snapper sitting on the seat of the little Ford. The pics are with the earlier Major, I believe the date on the picture was 56. The last pic is of Grandma in the early seventies showing of an exceptionally nice crop of soybeans.
Never be afraid to give someone you love a hug.
Pat
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