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The Wingham Advance-Times, 1974-03-21, Page 15• V lfd Cros pro ads the VisekAyb toyew J we .Baeler,. A41V01100.0 »OrOtt COON* 411starthnsit of Opted* - tgased sit roOderli .#e Of' SAO *mei.) Each and every word of this article Is dedicated to my . rural grandmother and grandfather ---and to yours. published every we The Listowel Banner, The Winaharn Advance, Tirnes and Th. Mous* Forest Confederate by Wenger Bros. 'f By now you must have noticed the hungry flocks of antique buffs and Canadian-rural-Meinorabiiia huhters darting around madly to scrounge np fragments of the by- gone days. when the little old shack 'out back and the feather- . tick mattresses were as common- place on the farm as television sets are today. They're Like vultures, Oleg* "collectors". Picking clean the bones of yesteryear to ' recon struct them in some split levy: home with a sunken living arooi' • BROKEN UP—Mr. and Mrs. John Nanninga, a Mount Forest area farm couple, take a breather from doing chores. Mrs. Nanninga believes rural areas; by and large, are being broken up. She says, "City people are buying farms more andmore and to towns because the rura used to be." rural people are quite I community is not as often going active as It WARMEST SPOT This pooch has found the warmest spot in a country horny ; under the wood stove. It's a sight that, • perhaps, represents the rural other, life more vividly, than any in outer suburbia, or some drafty museum down in Toronto. Nature's law dictates that a vulture strips clean a carcass only when it's dead. So, maybe these "vultures" are just a little too anxious. Or are they? Is the rural community spark that kept our grandparents in sunshine even when the storm was upon them being snuffed out? Can that constantly -asked question, "How do you keep them down on the farm-?" be answered with '"You can't0? ,.ls the rural: community dying?. Mrs. John Nanninga, RR 2, Mount Forest, believes that the rural warmth. and hospitality, as our grandparents knew it, is cer- tainly fading out. "Rural areas are being broken up,. More and, more rural people are going to towns for entertain- ment and community -minded projects because: the rural com- munities are not asactive as. they used to be." A farm wonnan all • of. her life, Mrs. Nanninga can be best des- cribed as .the "modernized farm wife"•. That means that although she doesn't 'exactly do the milk- ing .with a mini -skirt on, she is very much aware of her ever-changing role as a woman the farm. c, "I work less. in the house than my grandmother or even my mother did and many farm .women are either working x), full-time at an outside job or are taking greater interest in_ com- mnutty w ," Mount Forest Figure Skating Club, Mrs. Nanninga has also served on an aims and objectives committee for the Grey County Board of Education, taught all eight grades for two years at the now non-existent Stoneywood Public School in West Luther Township and was active in Junior Farmers and 4-H Club work "before I was married." However, her lighter house- work duties. do 'not come about through advanced technology, but because she has had tb make a choice between "feathering the nest" and getting out on the farm right beside her husband to work at it due to increasing economic pressures on today's farmers. Shehelps her husband "milk 40 cows twice a day, seven days a week". Andif you drive by the Nanninga homestead on a sultry summer afternoon chances are you'll see the lady of thehouse behind the wheel of the tractor, doing her part to see that the cattle have enough hay to eat during the coming winter. And that's not all! Aside from raising four children, ranging from six years to thirteen, and working alongside her husband on a daily basis, Mrs. Nanninga cites another fairly recent change in the overall role of the farm wife. "You've got to be a hired hand outside and a bookkeeper inside. The farm wife of today has to be more businesslike than ever be- fore. I don't think you'll find many farm women who don't know the business aspects of the operation fairly thoroughly." Now, you're probably thinking, "Well, hell, my grandmother knew just as much about the business end of the farm as the farm wives of today." • Granted, grandmother was just as interested in the business operation, so let's not paint a generalized portrait of the "little woman" kneading bread dough and pickling cucumbers fifteen hours a day without a clue about how the overall farm operation was standing up. It just isn't se. BHT, grentlmother didn't have a brand new, shiny wingdang- doozler that did the family wash- ing or a whizzit machine that po- lished her floors, made ice cubes, sliced her roast beef, brushed her teeth and kept her and her hus- band warm at night, all for the pittance sum of $20 down and $15 a month. And if they had the op- pb*tunity they would have turned it down because CASH did the talking., not a lot of mortgages aild loan agreements on a monthly payment scheme. They lilted to sleep nights. And what MORE BUSINESSLIKE—Mrs. John Nanninga, now operating a term with her husband in the Mount Forest rural district, has been a farm woman all her life. She says the role of the farm woman has changed considerably. "The fam wife today has to be more busi- nesslike than,perhaps, her grandmother or even her mother was . You've got to be a hired hand outside and a bookkeeper inside." they didn't have they until the full amount required was raised through hard work, a cent at a time! So without all the modern niceties that many of today's "unfortunate fortunates" have, grandmother had to first tend to creating a good home for her family before becoming involved with the balancing of the books every month. And, another reason why she wasn't as active in a "farm wife executive" capacity was because, business dealings in her day were „r comparatively simple next to the paper work `a modern farm re- quires. It was a cash -on -the -barrel - head, make -it -yourself, do-it- yourself type of life. And each member of the rural community knew they could count on their neighbor for a helping hand during those times when it was needed ... like threshing. "You don't see large gangs of threshers, assembling at each other's farms to get the job done, now. You're doing well if you can find paid help to give a hand," says Mrs.. Nanninga. I used the term "unfortunate fortunates" ,because, with the arrival of technology and its time -saving, labor-saving de- vices, comes, always, the bill. And with the bill, (pluralize that) comes the worry and pressure. I asked Mrs. Nanninga if she thought that modernization has really made the farmer's life easier. "Oh, heavens, no! If anything it has caused more worry, more work. I run twice as fast to make ends meet. Our grandparents, she Says, "didn't have the mental pres- sures farmers cope with today." She adds, "Maybe we're causing them, 1 don't know. But, they didn't bring as much anxiety onto themselves because they were , too busy with just getting by on a day to day basis, instead of al- ways worrying about what to- morrow might bring or the bills at the end of the month." Another factor working as didn't deed weight to burden down the rural community spirit still more is the diminishing number of mixed farms. Mrs. Nanninga says that almost everyone ran a mixed farm only a few years ago,. so they had a common denomi- nator; something to compare notes on and talk about. Now, much of farming is streamlined; beef cattle here, hogs there and maybe a chicken farm, all on the same country road or, at least, in the same vicinity. - "They don't have the same business interests now as the mixed farmers did. You just don't see as many mixed farms as you used to," says Mrs. Nanninga. "With farmers having varied interests due to their types of operations, they sdmehow don't jive together as well." Another possible theory for the flickering rural community flame might be the purchasing of farms and rural lands by people from cities. "There are a lot of city people buying up property in rural communities and some- times they just don't have the "time fbr mixing as much with their neighbors," says Mrs. Nanninga. Please turn to Page 2 THE RURAL ROCKER --Many evenings have been spent in comfortable rockers such as this throughout rural Canada. They're good for deep thinking or lust a friendly chat. The cane is about as natural as you can get. It's a sapling that had a vine growing around it in such perfect formatloh than all it needed was some staining.