Broadening the Time Frame

Most of what my Dad, Charles, has written is about the farm in his comments on the "Haying" post (below) are about a period when he and my aunts and uncle were young, the 1920's and 30's. This is what I had originally thought was most interesting to me, and what I think Sara thought was most important to get recorded. When we were kids, the horses were long gone, the road between the barn and house was paved, and electricity was a necessity not a luxury. Sara commented that we should get more people involved, particularly our cousins and my Mom, and my brothers including Paul Andrew. But Paul Andrew was born after we had moved from the farm. Many of my cousins are a few years younger than me, and I moved from the farm when it was sold in August 1962. At this point, people have to be 50 or close to it to directly recall much about the place. So I guess that era is also receding into history!

On the other side of the 20's and 30's, we are incredibly lucky to have Harry H. Cooley's "Randolph, Vermont: Historical Sketches" or probably even more interesting to us, subtitled "To Which Are Added Personal Reminiscneces of the Author." This was published in 1978 by the Randolph Town History Committee and the Randolph Historical Society. Here is an excerpt from a chapter titled "Farm Boys":

THIS IS AN ATTEMPT by a father of five and a grandfather of nineteen and a great-grandfather of three to tell the youngsters of today what it was like to grow up in rural Vermont at the turn of the century. It is frequently stated that one difficulty with young people today is lack of some useful employment. Whether this is a disadvantage or the opposite may be argued, but it is a fact that the modern way of living has brought about great changes in the use of time. I believe we are now in a period when we are beginning to realize that not all such changes are entirely good. At my age it is quite customary to speak of the "good old days." Even some of my grandchildren speak enviously of "way back when you were a little boy" although I know they do not entirely believe that I was that "little boy." I was born in the country town of Georgia, Vermont, on November 13, 1893. My parents and grandparents were farmers, and the principal farm operations were milking cows and raising crops to feed the cows. Sheep raising was largely in the past although both families still kept small flocks in spite of disastrous experiences during the 1870's and 1880's. I think that more changes in farming have come about since 1900 than at any time in the history of agriculture. With the exception of mowing machines, the Vermont farmer of 1900 carried on much as his father and grandfather had done ever since their ancestors came from Massachusetts and Connecticut in 1790.
What is the significance of this in a discussion of the use of time by the young? It is in the presence of so much work done by hand which was necessary to keep the family a going concern.
Consider the use of fuel for heat and cooking. Very few families used anything but wood-wood for the cook stove, wood for the heating stove, wood for the fire to boil sap and heat water. This wood had to be cut down, sawed, split, piled and seasoned, piled again in the wood shed, and carried into the wood box daily and fed into the fire with continuing judgment and punctuality. A 10-14-year-old boy was expected to do his regular woodbox chores after he had spent long hours getting it ready.
He was also expected to hoe the garden and the cornfield, with some older help. In haying he drove the horse on the hay rake, then "tumbled up" the windrows into "tumbles" which were of suitable size for the man who "pitched on' 'to pick up with a hay fork and pass to the "loader" who drove the team and placed the hay on the rack in a regular system so it could be "pitched off" onto the mow at the barn. He also "raked after" or raked "scatt'rin," cleaning up the scattered hay which the pitcher left. Sometimes he did it with the horse rake and sometimes with the "bull rake," a hand affair more properly named a "drag rake." How the "bull" got into the name I know not except for the Yankee "Bull strength and ignorance." The horse rake referred to is the old-fashioned sulky drag rake with two wheels 8 to 12 feet apart, and long curved steel teeth which gathered the hay and dragged it until the teeth were full. It was then "dumped" by the operator as near as possible in the same line as the last dump. The horse (usually one horse) worked between two "thills" and the boy rode in the center on an iron seat.
After the wagon was loaded our young man could follow it to the barn, gulp a drink of water, and ascend into the mow or "scaffold" where he was supposed to help level and pack the hay as it was thrown off the wagon. As the work progressed, and the mow became higher, the temperature up under the roof became higher and there was less chance of a breeze. But it was standard that the "boy" was high man since he did not have to lift the hay.

The time that Grampa is writing about is a time that seems, to me at least, to be closer what my Dad is talking about in his comments on "Haying" than to the time when I lived on the farm. But more importantly, it shows that it would be great to get any and all recollections about the farm and family from any time. They don't need to be first hand. If you read this, and remember the farm, add your story, or better yet stories.