SEGMENT: GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS, CHANGES IN FARM EQUIPMENT, & MILKING
Mary Stark>NIU Collection>NIU Collection, Segment 20
| <-Previous Segment | Next Segment-> |
- CHILDHOOD ACTIVITIES
- Helped with Church work. As a child played jacks, hide & seek, describes "Andy-I-Over" [sp?] a game where you throw a ball over a shed. Got together with the neighbor children.
- HIRED HELP
- Father's farm wasn't too big, brothers could help, rather than hiring a hand. Mary and Harry never hired outside help either, only on the big dairy farm.
- MILKING
- Discusses the changes in dairy farming, talks about milking processes, including collection, transport, & milking machines. In days past Harry's mother helped with the milking, describes "stripping" the cows.
- RETIREMENT ACTIVITIES
- Today, Mary talks courses at local college, wood carving, relief carving (describes that). Husband goes too, jokes
- GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS
- No winter crop, just corn and soybeans. Set-aside acres for government. Stark's have crops in bins, government will take it. But won't participate in that program anymore. Yield goes to Ottawa, then down the river. Conscious of government policy. Mary's dad was farming before social security, after farming he got a job and worked enough years to get social security.
- FAMILY
- Tells about her grandparents, wonders what people, or her late brother, would think of farming today.
- CHANGES IN FARM EQUIPMENT
- Mary talks about harvesting by combine. They used to pick corn by hand with horses & wagons. Now you can harvest acres per day! Still hard work though.
- FAMILY
- Harry enjoys his work, perhaps it's time to quit though, but he's gotten along fine. Mary would like to travel more. She's always been happy as a farm wife, would've been nicer to have a family, but they've enjoyed their nieces and nephews. Close family.
- FARM-RELATED WORK
- Mary worked at a local grain elevator for 10 years as a bookkeeper. Talks about land.
