Harvest Time

October is a month when many people in our county find themselves looking back to a simpler time. Some remember when the family farm came first above everything else. Mothers and fathers stepped right out the door and into the fields, working from late summer sun into the cool of fall, all leading to harvest time.

For many, harvest was a season when the entire family was involved. There was even a time in our county when the schools adjusted their schedules around the needs of farming families. In a recent survey I conducted, many residents recalled shorter school days, or in some cases school being canceled altogether, so that children could help bring in the crops.

It is difficult today to grasp the impact that tobacco once had on farming families in our region. My own family lived it in the early to mid-twentieth century. My father’s family were tobacco farmers, working under what was known as sharecropping. A portion of the crop and labor went toward paying for the land they farmed. My dad later explained that no one got rich from sharecropping, but they “got by.”

He also told stories of how farm responsibilities shaped his life. His brother Bill was drafted into the Army during the Korean War, which meant my father’s school days were cut short. He was needed in the fields. He recalled learning to drive a tractor, struggling with locking the brake and turning at the end of the rows. The field edges, he said with a laugh, bore the marks of his inexperience. I smile even now, remembering his story, because I later discovered for myself just how tricky it can be to turn a tractor in a tight space.

Many of those fields now lie quiet, and the old log tobacco barns lean at the edges of unused farmland. These structures once held nights filled with tying tobacco or long vigils tending the fires that cured the leaves. By my time, factories had replaced many farm jobs, offering steady work and benefits that made life seem more secure. The era in which one grew up often determines whether farm life is remembered with longing or simply as hard labor.

For those who grew up in it, the very mention of “priming tobacco” brings back vivid memories of both sweat and laughter shared with cousins, aunts, and uncles. Some of the most unique stories came from those days. One family story tells of childcare improvised in the fields. My father-in-law wore a small bell attached to an ankle bracelet when he was a toddler. He was tethered to a chair in the shade, and each adult was expected to glance at him when they came to the end of a row. The bell made sure he could be found if he wandered. Another common practice was to place babies in a crate or on a pallet of blankets in the shade, checked on as the rows were turned. It may sound shocking to us today, but families did what they had to do, and great care was taken to balance both work and family.

My grandfather Lowe once told me that he carried his tobacco to market only to find the price so low that he hauled it back home and used it as fertilizer for the next year’s plant beds. Stories like his remind us how dependent families were on the success of their crop.

The close of harvest was often marked by joy. Our county fair was once one of the most anticipated events of the year. Families looked forward to going to town, sometimes only once a year, to sell the crop and buy supplies. Those trips might also mean a piece of candy for the children or a new set of clothes.

Harvest time may feel foreign to us now, but its importance is still etched in the memories of those who lived it. We tend to think that our lives today overshadow those of earlier generations, but listening to their stories reveals something different. The “good old days” may, in fact, have truly been good.