Southern Hoosier/Southern Buckeye: End of an era

On Saturday, November 2, this farm will be sold at an auction. My parents decided it was time to “take care of things” while they can. So, as this lovely farm becomes the property of another owner, it signals the end of an era for us.

I talked to my brother and sister about our remembrances of this place. We three agreed that we have only happy memories of this fairy tale farm.

My siblings and I spent a lot of time on this beautiful little farm when we were small children. While our parents were in the fields farming their ground, Cleo and Sally Loughman watched over us and entertained us. They were like a third set of grandparents to us. They never had children of their own, and they treated my dad like their son, therefore, we reaped the benefit of their attention as a result.

The bungalow. (December, 1949)

Their farm was a magical place for me. Everything was so pristine, just like something from a storybook. The barn was always painted (red) and in good repair. The house was well kept. They had a little garden beside the house that had not a single weed -- just beautiful, straight rows of vegetables. And, surrounding the garden were all kinds of flowers. Seems like there were always butterflies around there. Sally must’ve planted just the right flowers to attract so many of them. I can still remember the sweet scent of the marigolds and the petunias.

There was a nice apple orchard on the north side of the house. As with everything else at that farmstead, it was neat and tidy. There was a pear tree in the southwest corner of the yard and they had a swing hanging from a branch of that tree, just for us. I remember picking up fallen pears off the ground. There were birdhouses and I remember seeing many different kinds of birds. In particular, there was a martin house and a wren house among those bird abodes.

They had a blacktop driveway. Not many people had blacktop driveways in those days. I can still remember the smell of the tar sealer that was on that drive, especially on hot summer days when the sun beat down and the smell rose up out of that coating.

I can still smell the barn. After all these years! It had a distinct aroma, different from our barn at home. They had some ponies and at one time a couple of cows and some sheep. I especially remember the ponies. Cleo worked with them and trained them. I remember going to some pony shows with Sally and Cleo. During the 1950s, when ponies were sort of a fad, we had a few ponies at our farm as well.

Sally and Cleo with their pony. (May 31, 1959)

Cleo had been a farmer and was also a carpenter, and he had a little wood shop at the northwest corner of the barn. I remember a wood stove burning in that tiny shop on cold winter days. He whittled and built things in that shop. I still have a bookshelf he made for me.

I remember that Sally had a good many African violets that she kept on the enclosed porch off the kitchen. I remember that she had a tiny little watering can used just for the violets. On that porch was an old-fashioned water pump that you had to pump up and down to get water. You washed up at that sink before entering the kitchen for a meal.

Sally and Cleo liked to travel and I remember several built-in shelves in the living room of their bungalow style house on which she displayed small trinkets, souvenirs of their travels. It was so much fun to look at those things and try to imagine the places they came from.

My parents acquired the farm on October 6, 1980, after Sally had passed away. Dad continued to work that farm in addition to other ground in the area until he retired from farming in 2009. This charming farm connects to our home farm at one corner. I can recall walking through the field to get there or riding my bike around the corner of the country block to get there. When I was back in Ohio recently, I had the opportunity to tour the barn and the house and roam around a bit to soak up the memories one last time. It's crazy, the little things I remember, but the things I do recall evoke such sweet memories.

I’m probably being overly sentimental about it, but like so many other things from my past, dramatic changes have taken place in recent years and months. The sale of this farm marks the end of an era, but it cannot erase it from my memory.

"Take care of all your memories.... For you cannot relive them."
-- Bob Dylan