Collaborating with a Sister on Farm Memories

Collaborating with my sister on farm memories is proving to be delightful.  She is writing poetry and making sketches as well as paintings of life on the farm as we recall it.

Although we live in different states, we do a great deal of mailing of thoughts, sketches, photos and family history back and forth.  I feel it's important that we compile this information for our families and future generations.

I write about some of this on my blogs, as well as including some of these thoughts in my "Country Kitchen" column for the McKenzie River Reflections newspaper in Oregon.

Currently we're working on:

• A history booklet of our farm
• Seasonal memories
• Poetry and paintings about the family farm
• People important to our youth on the farm

You need not be writing about a farm, simply about your childhood home or homes, the village where you grew up, the school you attended, friends you remember.

Developing a Family Farm History Booklet

I've developed a farm history booklet for my husband's home where he grew up.  I got the idea from some articles my mother-in-law wrote about life on the farm as the eight boys were growing up.  She wrote them just for memories.  However, a friend suggested she send them to the local newspaper which had a memories section.  The paper published the articles in eight segments.

Her friend Ginny cut the articles out, made photocopies, then put them into a booklet for Mum to give each family for Christmas.  Over the years, all the families except my husband and me (I'm a packrat when it comes to family memorabilia!) had lost or mislaid the booklets.

So I decided to make copies, add a history of the farm given to Mum by former owners,  and include photos of the farm.  I discovered they were very popular among Mum's children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and friends.  So I need to make more in which I'll also include copies of two paintings I've done of the farm.

My Own Childhood Farm

"Why don't you make a booklet of the farm where you grew up?" a distant cousin asked.   "I'd like a copy."

So now I'm digging out from my files my parents' reminiscences (I got them to write down some of their memories before they passed away) and old deeds which record my dad's purchase of the farm and deeds of former owners.   I'll include some articles and poems I've written about the farm, along with photos and the copy of a painting I've done.  My sister also has made sketches of the family farm.

Record Your Memories

Record your memories of growing up on a farm or your current experiences there for children, grandchildren and their descendants.  It's an enjoyable project.

Riding the Snow Plow

Snow storms on the farm, meant clearing the driveway to the barn so the milk truck could get through.  Father also made a path to the chicken house behind the barn, so we'd easily get there to feed the chickens and collect the eggs.  He often plowed across the front lawn.  I'm not sure why, because we never drove the car up there.  But it was his custom.

We didn't have snow blowers or small tractor powered snow plows.  Father made a large V shaped contrivance from wood with pieces across to hold it together.  Initially a chain from the point of the V was hooked behind the horses who pulled it to clear pathways.  When Father got a tractor, he pulled the plow with it.

What fun we had sitting on the cross pieces as Father made the rounds of the farm.  Our weight helped hold the plow down so he could make a deeper impression with the plowing.  Somewhere I have photos Mother took of us children on the snow plow.

Of course, we had to hand shovel paths to the wood house, to the plowed driveway, down the front walkway.  There was a lot of shoveling and plowing on the farm, but I don't recall any of us complaining.  Perhaps we did, but generally we knew we wouldn't get out of the work, so sputtering about it did no good. 

The sooner we got the shoveling done, the sooner we could make a snowman!

Books About Your Farming Heritage & Memories

Many people write about their childhoods on the farm or their current farming experiences.  Those I've seen are written for more than family memories.  However, start with recording for your farming heritage for your family and then find if others might be interested, too.

If, like in my husband's family, there are a number of children (eight boys), then there will be an extended number of family members who would like a copy of these memoirs.  In fact, my mother-in-law wrote a six-part series for the local newspaper about living on the farm as the boys were growing up.  A friend compiled these articles into a booklet for Mum to give as Christmas gifts to each of the eight.  It's something we treasure and which I think of reissuing, with photos, because the grandchildren and great grandchildren have expressed interest.

Some published books about farm life:


Next Year Country by Lorney Faber
Remembering the Farm by Allan Anderson
Down on the Farm: Childhood Memories of Farming in Canada by Jean Cochrane
Pictures from the Farm: An Album of Family Farm Memories by John Allen
This Old Farm: A Treasury of Family Farm Memories by Roger Welsch

Are you writing your family memories?  If you live on a farm, do you keep a journal?  After I married and lived half way across the country from the family farm, my mom wrote me letters about their activities.  Some were very humorous and others simply a daily accounting.  But I've kept those letters and should compile the anecdotes into a booklet for family members.