By John “Butch” Dale
Guest Columnist

When I was a high school senior in 1966, there were 35 students in my graduating class. Twenty of us, nearly 60%, lived on farms. The make-up of farms has changed drastically since those times, and I would imagine that less than 10% of the kids today are farm kids.

John ‘Butch’ Dale

Just take a look at the number of students who belong to FFA today compared to earlier times. Many students today would like to have a job to earn extra money, but those jobs are hard to find. But farm kids in the old days didn’t have any trouble finding a job. They had lots of chores to do right there on the farm … everyone had to help out!

I knew of many farm wives who tilled the fields, helped with the animals, took care of the garden … and on and on, in addition to tending to the children and household. And they expected their kids to pitch in, too.

Unlike today when most farmers till several hundreds or thousands of acres, most farmers in the 1950s and ’60s farmed perhaps 150-200 acres on halves, splitting the profit with the landlord. My Dad farmed 140 acres, planting corn, soybeans, wheat and oats. We also raised beef cattle, hogs, chickens, sheep and had four milk cows.

Our machinery consisted of a Farmall H tractor, two-bottom plow, a small Ford 8N tractor, four-row planter, eight-foot disc, tractor-mounted corn picker, cultipacker, sickle-bar mower, and a few other odds and ends. Farming was a labor intensive, time-consuming occupation … and kids helped provide some of the much needed labor.

As a typical example, I fed the animals, cleaned out barns, gathered the eggs, chopped weeds in the fields and garden, painted anything that needed it, helped with the harvesting, dressed out butchered chickens, and helped bale hay and straw. When I turned 13 years old, Dad let me disc the fields with the tractor, and the next year I was allowed to cultivate corn and plow fields.

I also helped my mother … sweeping, dusting, hanging clothes on the clothesline (and folding them), and many other things … such as babysitting my two youngest siblings as our family increased to five children. I also mowed seven yards in town, worked for nearby farmers … and to top it off … worked for DeKalb Seed Corn for three summers detasseling corn at 60 cents an hour! Since I participated in three sports and had my lessons to do each night, I didn’t have time to get into any trouble!

I believe that working on the farm instilled in us a work ethic and prepared up for the “real world” where almost every adult has to work for a living. It developed a sense of responsibility and also helped us learn valuable skills along the way. However, there were a couple of farmers who perhaps had their kids work a little too much.

One boy who was a few years older than me was treated more like an unpaid slave laborer. He worked and worked and worked … mornings, evenings, and weekends, and never had much time to enjoy other aspects of his childhood. Later on in life he had a lot of troubles with alcohol. The vast majority of parents let their kids balance work, school, and their free time, which included sports and hobbies. Parents knew that kids must be allowed to be kids and enjoy their childhood.

A few boys absolutely loved farming. They wanted to be farmers or have a farm related job when they left school. My uncle and aunt, Lloyd and Ruthie Wells, with sons Kendall and John, lived across the road from us. All four loved working on their farm. Kendall and John both graduated from Purdue, with Kendall becoming a veterinarian, and John a very successful farmer.

I also remember a 13-year old boy who lived one mile north of us on the next road over. He tagged along with his farmer dad all day long, and enjoyed working and learning all about farming. The two of them were inseparable. But tragedy struck in 1965, when his dad died at the age of 39 of a heart attack. A few days after the funeral, this boy rode his bike over to our house. He wanted to help our dad on the farm.

Every morning he showed up bright and early and spent the entire day tagging along with Dad and helping with the farm work … doing the work that my brother and I normally did. The boy missed his dad. My father and all of us felt very sorry for this boy. He was just doing what he had been used to doing every day. After a few weeks, the boy finally realized that he was substituting our father for his dad. He began working at his farm again and helping his mother, a very sweet lady with four younger kids still at home.

As I said previously, there are just not that many farms today … and jobs for kids are few and far between, especially in a small bedroom community like our town is at present. In the 35 years that I have been a librarian, I have hired many young people to work part-time. They love to work, and of course … the extra money. If you have the opportunity to hire a young person, give it a chance. It’s a win-win for both!