The Home Place

The home place is what Dad called it where I grew up on our farm. Dad sold the property in the late 50's and moved to another place about a mile away, and continued farming. I go past the home place all the time, as it is on the way to town. Now everything is gone, and a now nothing but new houses. As I passed it today I thought back on how things were so much simpeler then. All I had to was to keep out of trouble. I was wondering if others here that still live around where they grew up, and the buildings are still standing. Stan

I live in a house my wife and I built several hundred yards from the original farmstead, including the house I grew up in.

The house, a wooden grainery, and an old grinder shed with the roof falling in are all of the original buildings left. A three stall metal garage stands where a chicken house once was. My shop stands where the original barn was. And the farmhouse, now rented out, is still there. The other outbuildings, corn crib, cattle sheds, etc are now gone. (Mercifully, I might add).

Nancy and I have my granddaddy Howell's farm that he purchased back in the early 1920's.

We spend every weekend at the farm.

My dad always called the farm the "Home Place" becaues that's where he grew up.

The old barn granddaddy built in the 1930's, the barn door covered by license plates from the 50's, is still standing and in good shape.

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Granddaddy's house, that was moved from town in the late 50's, stands vacant across the road.

My uncle sold the house and his share of the farm in the mid 60's.

The Home Place is joined on the North side by 120 acres called the "Ragan Place".

My dad bought the Ragan Place in 1939.

It was once a cotton field and the Ragan house built in the 1890's still stands.

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The Home Place is joined on the South side by 5 acres called the "Hunt Place".

My dad spent a lot of his childhood with "Granny" and A.S. ( Anglo Saxon ) Hunt.

We tore down the Hunt house in the mid 60's and used the lumber in my parent's home built in 1968.

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A lot of the 100 year old lumber is still stacked in the "potato house".

The "potato house" built in the 1900's still stands.

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Probably more history than y'all wanted to know, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Mom & Dad sold the home place in the late 70's. New & still present owner only wanted the ground. So the buildings diappeared 1 by 1. The last barn was leaning badly for over a year. Dad had passed away late 80's. 7 years ago, the day Mom died the barn fell over. Last building was an oak corn crib that fell over 2 month ago.

I'm living in my greatgrandfathers house and typing this on his oak dining table. Farm was bought in 1883 and was paid off in 1885

thanks for the story and pictures.
ed

I own the place I grew up on. I don't live there. My oldest son bought from my dad. When he died at 40 it came back to me. I never thought I would out live my son. Avery hard row to hoe.

Still live on the farm and in the house I was born in. The house was built in 1892, I came along in 1940.

Joe in Ky.

Glad to share it with you.

All these homes, including the potato house, and the old barn keep the memories of my granddaddy and parents alive and well.

Over a year ago the Ford 2810 developed some real problems.

Went to the New Holland dealer where my dad bought the tractor in 1983.

They sent one of their oldest drivers, with me as navigator, to pick up the tractor.

Just a lot of small talk during the trip to pass the time.

When i got out to open the gate, the old fellow got out of the truck and started walking around the immediate area near the old potato house.

He started smiling real big and laughing.

Started telling a story of his parents, his older sister, and himself as share croppers back in the 1930's.

Walked over to the potato house and stood for a while, then said "We once lived in this old house."

Talked about Mr. A.S. Hunt being a hard working man with a lot of livestock.

The more he talked the more he remembered; one of the best history lessons I've ever had.

It was funny that he kept saying "I need to get back to the shop, they'll be worrying about me."

After he would make that statement, he would "find" another one of our old JD tractors to look at.

Both of us had a good visit that day.

Don't have a lot to contribute on my own behalf (Dad bought the home place in 1948 (110 acres), kind of a hard-scrabble place that was all he could afford- dairied until 1960, sold in 1973, buyers still there). But I went to an "open house" for locker meat customers of the Colvin Ranch near Tenino, WA last Saturday. Fred Colvin, who I went to school with, is fourth generation on the ranch- 560 acres (which is huge for this area)- his great-grandfather Ignatius Colvin homesteaded it in 1854, and it has come down through the family. Ignatius owned the whole valley- 3,000 acres- at one time, but the family ran heavy to girls, and of course none of them wanted to farm- so parts gradually sold off through the years, down to present size. The ranch house was built in the 1850's, and the place is on the Oregon Trail (after a fire, Fred saw wagon tracks when he was a kid). House was a way-station for stage coaches, each bedroom on ground floor has a door to the outside for the convenience of the guests. He sold the developement rights to the state for nearly a million bucks a few years ago, has the money invested at interest (thankfully, not in the stock market), and his sisters have agreed to split that money as their birthright when his mom dies (she's 96, still going strong- she remembered me from when I came over to do a social studies project with Fred about 50 years ago!).

Fred's doing a great job managing the ranch and keeping the heritage alive. Started selling "grass fed" beef a few years ago. Also, since he hated haying and was not mechanically inclined, he "pencilled out" the possibility of buying feeder calves in the spring to eat what they would have put up for hay, and using the proceeds to buy hay- says it is just about a push, and he so pleased not to have to deal with making hay in the solar-challenged Pacific Northwest.

He's really keyed into the heritage of the ranch (and his responsibility for carrying it on)- but not too sure what will happen with the next generation (two daughters).

My Grandparents bought this 80 acre farm in 1914. Mom and Dad moved into the old farmhouse in 1939 and Dad started farming it with a team of horses and a Farmall F12. He got a Farmall H in 1943, and I came along in 1944. By then the farm was 120 acres. In 1952 the farm became 240 acres, and we added a Farmall M. A 300U came along in '55, and a Super M in 1960. By then we were farming close to 400 acres. My grandparents lived in a house less than 1/4 mile north, and I was around them a lot.
I left the place for college in '62, and in 1970 my wife, kids, and I moved into the house my grandparents had lived in. In 1974, my wife talked my parents into building a house in a grove of trees on the south edge of the farm. We moved into the old farmhouse where I grew up.
My children got to grow up with their grandparents less than 1/4 mile south of us.
Brenda and I still live in the old farmhouse I lived in as a child. My parents are both gone now, and our son and his wife and two kids live in the house my parents built in '74. Three generations of grandkids growing up on the same farm within a quarter mile of "home."
I was able to buy the original 80 acres after my parents were gone. Our son bought a 5 acre tract from us that contains his house and a barn built in 1943.
My place has the old farmhouse built in the late 1800s, and a barn of about the same era, as well as a pole barn built in 1970.
Other than fewer fences and no livestock, the place has many similarities to the way it looked when I was a kid. Same gravel road, some of the same neighbors (or their children) and some of the same trees my sister and I played under.
I still have the Farmall H, M and SM that we used to farm with. They don't work the farm anymore, and neither do I.
There's a good feeling to being able to live in a house that's as comfortable and familiar as an old shirt. And it's so enjoyable to watch my grandchildren walk down the lane to the pond at the back of the farm the way their father did when he was a boy, and realize that they are taking the same journey I did decades ago.

Grandpa bought the farm in 1912, Dad took it over in the late 20's. After Dad died in 1995 at age 95, my brother and I split the farmland and sold off the buildings and two acres. We both lived too far away to take care of it. Still go back a few times a year just to check on it and remember. Maybe my grandkids will get something out of it, I'll never sell it.
Paul

Well I live across the road from where I grew up and my dad lives in the house that was is dads and his granddads. Been here since about 1910. The house is not much older. He always said the house down by the other place as it was always called Is much older as it has hewn timbers for support timbers. His house has sawed timbers and lumber as does the house I"m in as well.
The house I live in is the old neighbors house The buildings are all the same except the barn fell down and was cleaned up to far gone to save it.
All the buildings are the same on dads place except for the one shed/grainery. It used to be on the other place as a hip roof barn I think. And is now the shed/grainery on the home place. The buildings have been added to since then too. A 40x80 pole barn with 20 ft added later and a leanto added to the back of it and a 60x62 freestall barn with parlor and milkhouse added to the front and end of the old hip roof barn. The barn was 90 feet long before the addition to it.

This discussion makes me think of a song my dad sings with his bluegrass group called the "Old Homeplace." Luckily I am still living on our farm, but I think about all the changes in the neighborhood in the last 30 years and wonder will anyone else remember the old ways and times someday?


Old Home Place
(by the Dillards)

It's been ten long years since I left my home
In the hollow where I was born
Where the cool fall nights make the wood smoke rise
And the foxhunter blows his horn

I fell in love with a girl from the town
I thought that she would be true
I ran away to Charlottesville
And worked in a sawmill or two

What have they done to the old home place
Why did they tear it down
And why did I leave the plow in the field
And look for a job in the town

Well my girl she ran off with somebody else
The taverns took all my pay
And here I stand where the old home stood
Before they took it away

Now the geese they fly south and the cold wind blows
As I stand here and hang my head
I've lost my love I've lost my home
And now I wish that I was dead


Many people from rural areas could probably could associate with the song.