Document text
February 27, 1939.
David Snelson and
lira. Otto Wells
Leicester, I. C.
Dairy farmers
Anne Winn Stevens, writer
Douglas Carter, reviser
MOUNTAIN FARtUlIG AT ITS BEST
Original Names
David Snelson
ilars. Otto wells
Changed Names
Brad 'Ilttles
Largaret willis
kOUETAIN FARMING AT ITS BEST
Farmers in the Worcester section agree that if anyone
in that mountain region knows farming, it is Brad uttlesi
but Brad is modest, and, when questioned, grins and says,
"The first principle of farming is to learn how to fast."
brad, c.2, stout, good-natured, ar. rudy-faced, moms to
have fasted little, however. His graying hair is closely
clipped, a:1U wen be ohich le often, ne anoi.s lover
teeth conspicuously built up of gold. On the farm ha wears
dark blue denim work suite, but in town he dresses like the
average business man. Aaice the death of his wife,
his clothes been mended and kept in good trim by -.4trgaret
Willis, his widowed sister-in-law. Like most famer4 "in
these parts', brad keeps on his felt hat in the ouse.
There are two rams under Brad's manatxuc,t; one, known
locally as tne Alttles far, as inherited by. Jrad's two
children, John, 16, and Andrew, 10, from tshdrew Perry, tneir
grandfather, fatner of ,-argaret Willis and Louise .4uttles;
the other, referred to as the illis fam, was owned by
Burton 4illie, deceased husband o M&rgaret, a nd vas left
to her for his, and uon her death to the auttles children.
irad and kargaret are jartners, :fter a fashion the arrange-
ment betwc.n them being infomal ,ind it naturallytalle
to him to attend to the actual management of the Valles, while
she keeps house for the family. The frms are obviodely
and Ilrad and 'eargaret are generally regarded as
well-to-do, but neither will admit making more than a living.
i,“)desty again. trad is the leeal guardian of his Children,
as well as their natural guardian, and therefore his partici-.
pation in the a,rangement, oflicially, is in their beha4.
Periodically he is required to make detailed reiorta to the
uperior Court on the administration of his ward's eetate.
-len irad is asked about his education, he says'1a4ghingly,
"After you talk to me a.,hile you'll know I ain't had muCh."
he loves to make in,ormal speeches, though, and has a rat
deal of influence in local olitics. His speeches iavai7iably
border on the humorous, and his listeners are alwaya
ehtertaiLed while ..lrad is puttinw over tLe serious asveots
f the suO,Ject. 4ihen matters of 1. -cal interest are ;.-441ding
in the legislature, tared often cet)s to the otate capiel
as a lobbyist, e...:metimes appearing beiore the committeSe,
out doing flioet of his work in the hotels :Ana on tha streets.
This is strictly a side line with hih., however. he hail
soueht, ana held, only one public offices he wae a depty
sheriff or a short time. Primarily, and wholeheartedly,
he is a farmer.
E:rad likes to talk of his early days. "My father," he
says, "was with Lee's amy, an was wounded in the ,-;,even
arouhd Mchmond. After Lee's surrender, my
father came back to the mountains, married 1,4:: settled down
to farming his own land. .her I was two years old, he was
killed in an accident at his sawmill. There were ten
children in the family. the younge-t born after my father's
death."
Brad's mother carried on with the farm, and :)rad says,
"There wa two ni-orti living on the i:laos who helpea with
the wcrk uurine; my father's life, out after he died they
soon left, nu my mother ha a no help except the children."
Aork, as ‘.rd remembers it on the farm, was continuous. They
got u at four o'clock in the morning anu worked all ciay.
In ha..vest time, after a harcl day's work in the fields,
stripAne foUd,r, cutting corn toe, anO eAtherin6 corn,
the would shuck the corn by the light of lantern until 10
o'clock at night. Lis mother e;:t cows, hotAi inu step.
he washea wool from her own ehesp, croded it, si,un it, and
wove cloth. 3rad remembers tlat Lis first suit was macie
for him ny ie .other out of cloth which aht au woven her..
self.
hoolink, was desultory. "There was a ra. Abbott. a
Presbyterian laud from hilaaelia," ;area says, taught
in a ohe room school in the neighborhood. The term ran Irom
throe to /our months, but many of the chil en couldn't be
spared much rror ork on the farm, anu got very little
education." Jut as krs. Abbott boarded with the suttles
family, 6hc often taught brad at night. he also taught
at home by Ale wife of one ei his oloer brothers.
"Young ,aeile today are not like when I was growing up,"
says Lira-. "They don't havt to work like we did. Imagine
a boy ,orking 14 hours a day- new every day'. The, don't
think ahead any more, either, and it or 't even seem like
theycare anything about owning their own homes. They uohlt
think aoout anythth but their :leasuree, like rushing -err
to town to see a show. Now they can go more than 100 miles
in the time it used to 1 ke us coez.try ;.eo-le to to 10 miles
when I was boy. We never went anywhere, anyhow, out you
ought to see lem go nowt" In hie own youth, -ad contends,
"There wasn't no amusements. The ohly recreation was
Christmas and camp meeting."
His mother, he eaintains, "had a reaarkable memory. °he
would sometimes entertain us until 11 e'clock at night with
stories of her yeung days. .11te °W.s a good conversationalist.
The trouble with 6.6 conversationalist6 is
they tell you o zuch tikit (wilt nappen."
The 72 -acre suttle6 larm, whch has pelonged to direct
descendants ot the pioneer settkr, Oohn hichards, ever since
he cleared ana developed -.he tract, is almost all oottom land,
anu very fertile. It is remarkably level for a mouhtain farm
indeed, it is suite flat. en the tsarth anu east is a shelter-
ing range of low, wooded hills, wnich rotects the valley Ulm
a huge arm, curved defensively. aome of the s ur ridges
have treeless, grassy sloe, where the farm's herd of
Guernsey cattle may often be seen ixazing. At the base of
one of these al -A:ets are three weather -bleached tenant cabins.
A iAtved highway for the western boundary of the farm. Trom
the highway, Graham Creek, a olegui., ehallow stream, meanuers
.cross the farm to return to the highway at the enu of the
fields. hear the house the stream is shaded by huge sycamores,
and beyond the sycamores is an apple orchard.
The 1)resnt farmhouse, ouilt by Andrew ierry nea the
highway bridge over the creek, is a two-story structure of
the Colcjrdal t,Te seen often in i,e* ngland. Facing south
toward the eycamures and the winaing creek, it has a tall
Chimney 4,7t either end, and is framed and irotected by a hill
on the north. There is one immense boxwood near the small
front orch. Aptween the house and the eastern ridges are
the barns, silo, fields ut oats already green, and lar,c, ;.lowed
for corn an,. ;as. "tain corn is bOf a bushel," says ;rad,
"the onl way to 'e it ,ay is to feed it to cows."
The,,ey I visited the lam, arart willis invited M4
into a large, high-ceilinged ::00j with *int:lows on i.hree sides.
There was an oi.ain fire, aha through the wihaows were i:leasant
views of the wooded hill, ray with gnarled boughs of white
oaks. Frog the back iiindow cola be seen a low ell, oseu as
a kitchen, with the acjoinint; grouna neatly flagged with slabs
of local.- Lone. The rooms, simi-ly 4.urnished, IT papered
inconspicuously in a design harmonious with the linoleum
square on the floor.
kargaret, a slender figure in a neat blue cotton house
dress and small apron, murmurea :An akology before finishing
a tale mat that she haa been ironing. he placeu it on one
of tht neat iAles of freshly ironed articles on the couch,
snaiqed off the electric iron, laced more wood on the lire,
anu seated herself in a rocker near the fireplace, nor bands
quiet and relaxed in her lap.
ohe is an alert, graceful woman of about fifty, with
soft brown eyes ,Arld iron -gray hair ,arted in the miaule and
folds° 'Jack from htr loreheaa li&e wings. her voice is soft
and leasant.
"T was oorn in this house," 6rie tOIG me, "ana sent my
childhood here. John Richarus, mi ancestor, who settled this
farm, lived in a mall house od the hill."
From her account, 6urton, he husband, seems to nave oeen
ambitious and restleas. be tho..ght farming in the wountains
was too slow, so, li'tle more than a ooy, he went to the 4eat.
Sheriff
his father, e,uty/Nillis, we a well-to-uo farmer, out there
were many chiLdren to share his ,roeerty. As zrau exidains,
"Thirty to iorty years ago, when you coulu still get lree
lund in th.- aect, lt o young men went out there from
those mountains. The wanteu to own thsA.r own land, and
settle where con itions were not so hard, and they could get
-7..
along faster." Among them was burton Willis, taut after 16
-ears on the plains he came home to vieit, and fell in love
with slender, dark -eyed kargaret 't'erry. He wanted her to
return to the with him, where he nau oeen engaged in
raising c. ttle, but the :rospect was not oleasink to Margaret,
and he gave it up for her sake.
For several years the couple lived on a modest, enady
street in the neighoorini; resort town, 6urton having becone
a deputy sheriff, like hs father. 4:)ut he longed for the
plains, a rd ne felt that raiding cattle should be his lite
work. ventually-, he talked margaret into migrating to
Canada, and they took up 160 acres of ;rairie land in Alberta,
where they livea six years. rgaret loved it. They raised
Guernseys and planted wheat and oats. "A; 1 we Lau to uo,"
said ..;argaret, "was to put the seed in the ground and watch
it grow. smade as much money Viers in one year as we did
in six years of farming here. The bik horses and the high
trade, up-to-date machinery helped to make the work easier.
In the 4.iun,er the cattle *ere astored on the rains, anu in
the winter the did not seem to ir the cold, as long as
they had comfortable barns to sleep in. I have often seen
the cattle core knAlas in the afternoon -.ith snow two or
three inches jeep on their backs."
Into this .1-osperous aaventure came the outbreak of the
World war, followed uy en unusually severe winter. Then
ourton uevelopeU rneuzatism. Younib rianranchmen
volunteered- or military bervice and were bent to -r'rance,
kood for the cattle coula ho lon6er o bQUiAto In btort,
ever4thint„ went wruna t once, anti tney were torte tu bell
out. '.'he cattle *ere lu at a ,rofit, Out the land only
Orou6lit ,000. :hen they returneO to their native otate,
irto, uout„ht, 1Q2 :0, ,,,nU 64 -acre farm near is wifele
no,,a. 4 en he *ab able, he oought more Cvuernseys, and
to,;k ock fariah6. he .146 a0out 10 years ago.
.bbiues raibin cattle .4 -or ale, ..)rad ano fAriAret keep
fro to each farI,. iehant aiii, one
to each t4ral, i)4 atter tne cattle anu uo the miikin6,
which each kaaiily iba 0 a slionth. rr any. work beyond
that, ecr. ..brzun ib ,ai 41. uuay.he tehants raise iiiost
of .the leeO Ior tile cattle, anU all of the ve6etables for
the nuubeholO.
a art albo own a tract of mountain t-abture
lre
42.4 ta641,U iyr suaJ,wr dZLms
'las tract nab oh it a
o k.nar ib careiully cultivateo oy ahother
tenant Ihis roitil, ih return .ir x•.otectinE the
cattle Uurihe, the buoalic ahu tenuin the orcnaru, is „iven
the 1,;i cabin, the law Jalar the cabin to cultivate
for foOepnalf I the aiikles 6atherea.
The iri L..„41-ns 1-1u ail e,juipment are ret,ularly iLa,ectild
nLsaith authoritieb, a;Au are keo, u, to the ni neet
etanuarue. erd u tut:Attu three tiirtaes et sear ior Li ease,
iro:ouced moat cAut the requirements or the otate
luite oerero it c as. ola. Lilkiht„ eutjhs at oix o'clock
in Lhe 4;14 the IJ.k io collected by trucks at aOout
ire :1-oUuction io solu to a createery at the
county eat. .Jr
Lir to
q -lied ,ir
oonueht.
Wiararet 4 Of "The reaoon aon't fliake rauch wore than
a liv1h iutoor far=
4*
main kira4.1
is t1 it .6o much hao to be uone to
Id in .:Irtte years wc lost 7 CQWS trom
i.aXebi are heavy, too; iartly Oecause *e doroar
iOr quite a W143."
%110CA.dL
i.ure-Ored
lo 14:ept ror horze use,
i..4,141,aret oaci d.u.r car:- li the irule and ve6etsoles
hettueu throtop,h the
int
uutiets oy ah -1-e skirteto
oten ,ith e oeot s. st ouL:.-,,er they e eu a
"T irjwa„, always
wuntin. e4 actga, r ,A.rk Q.Cte:1 hwa to oe UCLe UVOr,
40Q we 6et aloht ,00tt, Vit;11 without her. (ter all, this
try to keei.', it sicara4 iurnished.
tjvi ar,
anU ,,ar6aret ev ry r ouu or thu hin
p
is assiotea in ner household
s. Lowe, has
out -avaret
1i ut ft t'ill'i:;.L.S.oLitiClo and
the housewort.
Ja.4 coil aLtehtion to its lar60 outter.
i'ney have lectreity ir 1.4„hts ana houaehold con-
veniences, li' their water IS ;1172i_0(1 4.rom aroved well.
And they are thinkint; or inotailin a bathroomi