PRESSED BETWEEN THE PAGES
DeAnn (Wolkow) Kruempel
We Just Did It!
“Nobody ever died from hard work.” Our father said it many times.
The folks had grown up during the Great Depression. 750,000 farms were lost in our country to foreclosure or bankruptcy between 1930 and 1935. A bushel of corn sold for as little as eight cents. The economy had recovered, and rains renewed the prairies by the time Mom and Dad started out in the late thirties. Hard work and perseverance did not guarantee survival, but our parents knew they would need to go the extra mile to even have a chance.
Farm youngsters were taught the importance of getting the job done, no matter what challenges came along with it. Weather always loomed over us; a hail storm, heavy rain or early snow could quickly wipe out a bumper crop. So, when the fields needed planting or harvesting or the garden produce needed preserving, we did it.
The guys in the family normally handled the jobs demanding physical labor, though our mother was known to work right alongside them. Hauling and stacking bales, scooping manure, shoveling snow all had to be done. Never was a job put off because it was too hot, too cold or too smelly.
It seldom failed that on putting-up-hay days, the temperatures hit 90 or above and the typical South Dakota breeze decided to take a break. Likely, when the hay mow needed filling, it was the most sweltering place on the planet. Or the wind reached hurricane force on combining or discing days, clogging eyes and noses with itchy dirt. Pressed between the pages of my mind is a memory of Mom using a broom to sweep the dirt off Dad’s neck and shoulders. She didn’t complain about the muddy laundry to come. She laughed; probably she thought it was funny to take a broom to her farmer-husband!
When I texted my sisters about working hard growing up, they claimed they had it easy; they seldom had to do the hard labor. We all picked rocks, hoed thistles and pulled sunflowers, but the girls most often helped our mother. Garden and kitchen chores may not have worked fingers to the bone, but we girls pulled our weight in feeding the family and preserving produce.
On corn-shelling days, we fed the extra hands, the neighbors who came to help and the corn- sheller guy. Meat, potatoes, salads, vegetables and plenty of pies fortified the workers. All that cooking and baking turned the kitchen into a sauna, but it had to be done.
Though we were all expected to work hard, I believe both our parents wanted their children’s lives to be easier than theirs. Dad welcomed labor saving machinery. Mom did not want her daughters to have to milk 40 cows by hand. Does every generation wish for lives of less toil for their children? Is that a good thing?
Though we did not realize it at the time, all that hard work reaped invaluable rewards. We learned perseverance, responsibility, accountability, dedication and the willingness to go the extra mile. We learned to pull together. We learned commitment, determination and the importance of finishing a task, in spite of nearly insurmountable obstacles. We learned what it was like to fail, to have to start over—and over again. But nothing compared to the thrill of finally succeeding.
Strong work ethic. Valuable skills that built character. Accomplishing the “impossible.”
We had no idea growing up on the farm in the 50s and 60s, that hard work was shaping our futures as well as the futures of generations to come. We just did it!
Stop in and visit the author at the Holiday Open House events at the Harrison County Welcome Center on November 20
