Of Sweat and Soil Part 6: A Place of Their Own

Of Sweat and Soil

Part 6:  A Place of Their Own

 

By John W. Vander Velden

 

I began this series describing what we found here on this farm on Redwood Road.  If you have read the pages between that description and this part, you have just a bit of understanding of the mindset of Nel and Jacob Vander Velden.  They had spent almost 24 years in pursuit of their dream…more than half their lives.  Dad at forty-seven surely must have wondered if the window of possibility neared closing.  He was never a patient man, and as the year count of his life grew his impatience did as well.  Some might say that impatience drove him from his homeland, impatience drove his return from Florida, impatience led to the purchase of this farm.  

I would disagree. They saw hope and possibilities, even among the broken and discarded.  Dr. Burke’s farm offered a way to at last reach out and almost touch the dream.  For the dream lay ahead, beyond the tumbled down fences, beyond the worn buildings, it would be what they could make out of this clay they found.  It took years and determination, endless hard work and sacrifice, but in the end it was possible. 

I know this part of the journey first hand, for I became a full time member of the team.  I witness each step forward and back, and shared in the sweat and blood given without regret for that dream’s success.  I witness the semi load of milk cow’s arrival.  The herd purchased from a farm near Indianapolis.  I also helped load most of those same cattle and several of our own over the first months at this farm.  Cows destroyed by incomplete repairs to the milk system, done by inept workers.  That disaster and crazy weather nearly caused the dream to be stillborn.  Only the immeasurable aid of those that believed in our family were we able to hold onto this small piece of Marshall County.  Five families, that came before us, had gone bankrupt on this farm, but the Vander Veldens would not be number six.

But commitment and self-sacrifice at last gave the dream its life.  There were good years and in those we advanced…buildings and silos stand testament to our growth. Over the years, the value of crops rose and fell, but milk was our buffer.  If figured by the hour, dairying might not seem worth the effort, but twice a month a check comes, and with care the bills will be paid.  

Like I said in earlier portions of this story, mom and dad were used to doing without.  It was that willingness that made everything possible.  Their last years were financially successful.  But just when everything began to fall at last into place, dad became ill.  In 1982 he was diagnosed with MS, and he fought that disease, like everything else in his life, with all he had.  It can be understood that depression comes with a disease that steals your abilities little by little.  A disease with chronic muscle and back pains.  Dad dealt with that as well.  And though we did our best to help him, we could not really understand what he went through those last twenty-three years of his life. 

In his last years he envied those who had better ground than our little patch.  I told him it was ours and we should be grateful.  But these last years I have come to understand…more.  This farm is unforgiving.  This season’s mistakes haunt you for years to come.  Should we judge someone who would like land that was less hard to farm and gave more in return?  For the soil on Sunrise acres is hard, hard to till, hard to harvest, and just plain hard the rest of the year.  You do not farm Teegarden Clay, you go to war with it.  Maybe dad felt he had settled, that the dream was not really reached.  Who can say? 

Whether he became victor of victim in that war I can not say, but dad fought the battle with honesty and integrity.   He gave it all he had to give…we all did.  But as I walk among all the building we built these forty-five years, I measure myself against the man I respected most, and find myself lacking.  But perhaps I am not the one to judge, and with time others might see things differently.  For I, like my father, and his father am merely man of sweat and soil, no more but certainly not less.    

 

(744 Words)  4-22-2017