A Special Person: Lessons to learn

The life of a farmer can be difficult and challenging. In rural South Dakota the climate alone is a constant adversary. Harsh winters with temperatures sometimes dropping to 20 degrees below zero and blizzards; fickle springs with winter often holding out until May; wind, always the wind; dry, hot summers and drought, or hail and cloudbursts that render the dirt roads impassable.

Yet for all the years of her life, Aunt Helen remained on the farm. All her sisters married and left; her one brother joined the Navy and never came back to the farm to live. She stayed, helping Grandpa with the outdoor chores and helping Grandma with the indoor ones. Then Grandma died. Surely Helen preferred the outdoor chores, but there was food to prepare, not just for the two of them, but for church suppers and sales, for crews that came to help during harvest and branding. The house still needed to be kept clean. Helen worked on. Then Grandpa had a stroke. Helen kept him there on the farm, married Arnold and together they ran the farm and cared for Grandpa until he died. For another 22 years they kept the farm going-- continuing on as their bodies weakened.

In looking at Helen's life I see commitment, dedication to duty and persistence. Why did she stay on the farm? Maybe it was the only life she knew, the only option she thought available, maybe she didn't want to move and to venture into the unknown, maybe she wanted to keep the farm until it could be passed on to a family member,maybe she stayed because she loved her home, the land and the animals. I suspect it was a combination of all of these. Whatever her reasons, she was not a quitter; she didn't let circumstances overcome her; she kept going.