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How a Blizzard and a Cow Fed Grandpa’s Family

by Gail Jackson   

My dad grew up in a big family, eight kids.  He was the youngest of the four boys, and he had four sisters.  My grandpa was a farmer, of 6 acres.  But, he used that small acreage to the fullest advantage he could.  He raised chickens and sold the eggs for a cash crop.  He also raised a few pigs and a cow.  Grandpa always had a horse on their little farm.  There was usually a steer to fatten up for meat to get them through the next winter. 

They raised rabbits for meat and to sell to their neighbors.  Plus they raised all their vegetables.  Grandpa leased the neighbor’s field and raised tobacco.

My grandpa was a strong, quiet, gentle man.  He was born and raised on a farm near Bellefountaine, Ohio.  After he went to college, the first in his family to do, he went out to North Dakota and taught school and worked on a ranch.

Grandpa was only 5’2”.  A little short man, but people treated him as if he were John Wayne.  Somehow, he demanded respect.  His quiet work-ethic, the way he treated others, I believe is how he got their respect.  Every one liked him.  I said he was quiet, well, he was.  But, if pushed too far, he’d let you know.

When I was old enough, I followed Grandpa everywhere.  I was only 9 years old when he died in 1970.  But, I was the oldest grandchild who lived nearby, so I got to spend a lot of time with him. 

Every morning, at sunrise Grandpa would go out to the outhouse.  He never used the inside toilet that my dad and uncle had put in the house for them.  I would sit on the back step and wait for him to come out of the outhouse.  Then we’d walk to the barn and milk Lilly, the old red and white cow.  After we’d taken the milk to Grandma, Grandpa and I would head to the chicken house.

The chicken house was a large one story barn that held all the chickens.  Big, white Leghorn chickens.  Grandpa would put his hand under the chicken and pull out the eggs.  Once, he had me do it, and I got pecked.  I cried and cried and he laughed.  The old coot.

Grandpa worked in the garden every day.  Every day he had the same breakfast, Wheaties cereal, two pieces of toast, two pieces of bacon, and eggs.  Grandpa made his own wine.  He would let me get in the big metal tub and stomp the grapes.  He’d sit near me and laugh as I was having a ball jumping up and down on those grapes.  I remember getting out of the tub and my feet and halfway up my little legs would be purple.

Grandpa would tell me stories about when my dad and aunts and uncles were kids.  I loved to hear these stories.  Grandpa would sit on the picnic table and I’d get as close as I possibly could to him.  He’d put his arm around me and tell me some story.

My Uncle Kenny, the oldest, was a teenager and of course wanted money to run around on.  So, he devised a plan to make money when there wasn’t any money around.  They lived in Scioto County, Ohio.   Kenny would go out in the woods and catch a rattlesnake!  Yes, you read right, a rattlesnake.  He would put it in a barrel and drive to Hillsboro.  Hillsboro was a bigger town and he’d park the old pickup on the town square and charge people money to look at a live snake.  He always got money doing this.  

Grandpa said that the boys would have to sleep out in the cornfield at night in the summer to keep the raccoons out of their corn.  The boys took turns being on guard.  They were like cowboys on a cattle drive.  Once in a while during the summer, the boys would bring home a ‘coon’ that Grandma would cook up for supper. 

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