Farming Roots

We had an assignment to trace our farming roots.  Although I didn't know a lot, I knew that on my dad's side of the family, there had been farmers.  It was interesting to learn more about our family history and to make some historical connections as well.

My father has an ancestor named James H. Saunders, who was born in England in 1806.  He immigrated to America in his teens, and became a sheriff as well as a farmer.  He settled in Southern Maryland, where every generation after him farmed until the 1950's.

I learned from my dad that they mostly raised wheat and corn, and then at some point began growing tobacco as well.  He said that the state specified how much tobacco you could raise, based on how much land you had.  It was a very lucrative crop, but also very labor intensive.   My dad worked on his grandpa's farm in the summers, so he got to experience this process first hand.  After the tobacco grew about four feet tall, you would spear the cut ends and hang it to dry in the barn. Then, months later, you would take the tobacco off of the sticks, pull the leaves off the stalks, and put them into a basket.  The leaves would be piled about three feet high, and then tied on the sides to hold it all together.  A buyer would come to the farm to get the leaves, and then the stalks were thrown into the manure spreader and thrown back onto the fields.

My dad's dad did not continue farming after he married.  My dad was born during World War II, and because his dad already had five children, he was not drafted into the military.  His dad got a job as a crane operator in a shipyard in Baltimore, Maryland loading and unloading ships.  This is consistent with the Agricultural Timeline, as it points out that beginning in the 1940's, many southern farmers left farming to get a war-related job in the city.  As my dad stated, his dad "followed the money," and as a father of a growing family he needed a larger income.

  Another thing I learned is that my dad said after the war, quite a few Navy ships were being retired, and his dad was able to bring home these hard chocolate candies that were on the lifeboats.  He said that chocolate candy was not available during the war, so they thought they had "died and gone to heaven!"

I don't really remember my grandpa, as he passed away when I was very young.  I do know that he was a good, hardworking man, and that these traits were passed down to my dad as well.  Growing up, our family had a hobby farm or farmette.  We had a few acres and raised goats, chickens, calves, and sometimes pigs.  Our farm experience has helped me cultivate these traits as well and I hope to instill them in my own children.