Chapter One -- "The Move"
Cow Tales
Chapter 1
The Move
The old green Chevy truck chugged steadily down State Route 7 as we headed for our new life. We were already south of Marietta and just a little over halfway there. Ahead I could see the white Grand Fury driven by my wife Juanita. I knew she and our two younger children were in the car, but I couldn’t see them. The back seat was piled high with our belongings and it appeared as if the car was being driven by boxes. On the seat beside me sat our nine-year-old son Michael. He would turn ten within several weeks, and he shared my love for the outdoors. He seemed nearly as excited as me.
It still seemed almost like a dream. The events leading up to this moment kept running through my head.
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Our home near Orrville |
“Huhlo Dave, how ya doin?”
“Fine,” I answered.
“Do ya know who this is?” he asked.
I pondered for a couple of seconds, searching my memory for a match to the voice.
“No I don’t know who you are yet, but keep talking.”
The deep voice continued, “Well, ya should know who this is, we grew up together.”
Again, I was coming up blank. This didn’t sound like anyone I had known from my younger years. The accent was completely different than any of my friends and relatives. “I guess you’ll have to tell me,” I said, feeling a little embarrassed.
“This is Jay.”
“Jay?”
“Yeah, your cousin Jay!”
You could have knocked me over with a feather! My long lost cousin from Elida, the boy with whom I had shared many childhood adventures. The last I knew, he had moved to southern Indiana, married a young lady from Evansville, and had experienced some struggles. He had always been one to try all the things we weren’t supposed to do. From time to time I’d ask a relative about him, but Jay and I hadn’t spoken for about twelve years. Now the voice on the line didn’t sound like the Jay I remembered. Maybe all those years in the hills had rubbed off and had given him an accent unlike our flatland hometown of Elida, in northwest Ohio. It didn’t take long to recover my composure, and we began catching up with each other’s lives. Jay now lived in southern Ohio – near the town of Gallipolis. A year or two earlier, I had learned from his dad, Gene, that he was living there. I had asked him what Jay was up to. He looked at me rather sadly it seemed, and said, “He’s feeding cattle in Gallipolis.” I knew what Gene was saying. I knew by the look in his eyes that he thought of his oldest child as a prodigal son. And in a sense he was correct. In the eyes of his conservative Mennonite community, Jay had wandered far. He had gotten into things that he shouldn’t have. He was charting his own course, and making some mistakes. But life was changing him for the better. He wasn’t just feeding the cows. He worked hard and supported his family at a very honorable profession - that of farming. On the farm in southern Ohio he was home all the time with his lovely family. He kept busy with the long hours and hard work. And best of all, he was in a place where he could hunt and fish, and live some of the dreams we had dreamed together as kids.
Our conversation meandered around for awhile until we got on the subject of deer hunting. This was a subject we both felt pretty passionate about. Jay said I ought to come down to his farm to do some hunting – a tempting thought indeed. This would be a great opportunity to connect with a fellow hunter, and especially to reconnect with one of my favorite cousins.
We chatted for a while longer, sharing some stories about our past hunts, and then said our good-byes. I thought about his invitation for a few days and decided to call him back – with the intention of accepting. To my delight he was pretty excited about the possibility, and we laid out some plans for a hunting trip.
A few weeks later, I found myself driving up the long lane of the Butler Hereford Farm. I turned the corner at the barn, drove a little further to the house, and got out of the car – feeling a little nervous about seeing Jay for the first time in so many years. A cute little brown-eyed girl that looked a lot like him popped out the door first. This must be Leslie I thought, Jay’s oldest child. She smiled brightly when I asked if Jay was around. I didn’t need to ask. Walking toward me was a powerfully built man of about thirty. His deeply tanned and ruggedly handsome face grinned at me from behind a neatly trimmed beard. It was Jay alright – still the same prominent nose and strong chin. He had been a strapping youth, but now his body had developed into an enviable physical specimen.
He greeted me in his deep slow drawl, “Huhlo Dave, how ya doing?”
We shook hands, and it immediately seemed that we were transported to our days of childhood. It didn’t take long before our conversation ran at a fast pace. Of course the subject at hand was hunting. We took a tour of the farm and began laying out our plans for the morning. What rugged beauty! A hunter’s dream! And out across the fields flowed the great Ohio River. I watched as a row of barges moved steadily down-stream, heaped with coal. I asked Jay if he fishes in the river. “Yes,” he said, he does.
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Cousin Jay and his three children. Leslie on the left - the cute little girl who came out to meet me first. |
Several months later the phone rang again. It was Jay. He got right to the subject.
“Hey Dave, I wanted to tell ya about a job opening. My neighboring farm needs a herdsman."
He went on to tell me about the Clear View Farms dairy operation, and about the great people who owned it. He wondered if I might be interested. Interested? Impossible! I couldn’t just pull my family away from our roots. This is where we lived. This is where our parents and brothers and sisters lived. This is where our children go to school. This is where we are involved in our Mennonite Church.
Still, the idea was incredibly appealing. After leaving my programming job a year earlier, and currently laboring in a welding/repair shop, I knew I wouldn’t be doing this job long-term. Thirty years of age now, and my childhood dreams seemed to be growing fainter with each passing year. Maybe this would be my chance.
It was tough to sleep that night, and tougher still to think of anything else for the next several days. Could we possibly do it? Could we uproot our family and move to a place where we knew almost no one? Unbelievably, Juanita and the kids thought it would be fine to consider it, so I made a call to the family who owned the dairy farm. Matt, the owner’s son, was interested in speaking with me, and before the concluding the conversation, a date was set to go down for an interview.
The day came for the trip and we loaded up in the car and headed to Gallipolis. About four hours later we pulled up to a mobile home belonging to Matt and Noreen, and their toddler Kate. We felt comfortable almost immediately. Here was a lovely young couple who displayed warm southern hospitality. We talked about the job, the farm, and the time frame that they needed someone in, and many other details. Then we took a drive over to the dairy barn.
The strangest thing happened the moment we drove into the driveway of the farm. A young man in an out-of-town car had just pulled up to the house where Matt’s Granny lived. Matt asked me to wait until he saw what they wanted. He spoke with the young man for about fifteen minutes, before coming back to the car.
“He was looking for a job on a dairy farm,” Matt said.
“He said he just graduated from Ohio State University with a degree in dairy management. He can do artificial insemination and embryo transplants. Well, I’m not interested. He came without an invitation, and he’s going to want too much money anyway.”
I was surprised at Matt’s ability to quickly make a judgement on the matter. He wanted to carry on with our interview when, to my way of thinking, he had just turned down a very qualified person. What qualifications did I have anyway? Almost none. I lamely explained that I had been raised on a hobby farm. We had a couple family milk cows, and some sheep. I had very little field experience, but knew how to weld, and had spent the last year repairing farm equipment. And that was about it. I think probably the biggest plus for me though, was that Matt respected Jay, and Jay – bless his heart – I’m sure made me sound a lot better than I was.
We drove back the driveway then, past Granny’s house, and looked at the buildings and cows, and talked about the job duties. Then we headed back to Matt’s home for some further details about pay and benefits. There would be an old farmhouse to live in, meat (beef and pork) and milk provided, and a monthly farm salary. My duties would be to help Matt’s sister Lisa milk the cows twice a day, and feed all the cows, calves, and heifers. Between milking and feeding I would be helping Matt and his dad Jim (the owner) with whatever needed to be done. This would include fieldwork, equipment maintenance, building and mending fences, and many other miscellaneous jobs. My time would be theirs except for one weekend a month. That would be mine.
By the end of the interview, I knew Matt was the kind of guy I could work with. Direct and honest, he seemed wiser than his young age – probably twenty-one or two. I liked his quick wit and sense of humor.
It still seemed pretty incredible that he would consider me. I learned later that I had gone to his house wearing what he calls a go-to-h___ cap. It was one of those caps with the short bill that snaps together in the front. I really liked it, and thought it made me look almost sophisticated. I often wore it for “good.” I was a bit taken back when I learned what he (and most others in southern Ohio culture) thought about it. People who were “uppity” – who thought they were a little better than others – wore caps like these. But he somehow managed to overlook the cap, and my lack of experience, and offered me the job.
It had taken a few days to think about it. This would be a big move. The school year wasn’t quite over yet. If we took the job we would be moving in late April, and the kids would have to transfer to a new school near the end of the year. That didn’t seem like much fun, but we thought they could probably handle it. Every waking hour it was all I could think about. Here was a chance to live my dream. Live in a place that was still pretty wild, a place where I could hunt, fish, farm, and live along a river again – a river that made the Hog Crick of my early childhood seem like a mere trickle. This was the mighty Ohio River where riverboats and barges traversed regularly. It felt like I would be walking into the pages of the books I had read as a child. I could easily imagine the early settlers and Indians who had occupied this area many years ago. Best of all though, it gave me the warm familiar feeling of home.
I remember dialing Matt’s number. A kind voice answered the phone on the other end of the line.
“Hello?” It was Noreen.
“Hello, is Matt there? This is Dave.”
“Yes, I’ll get him.”
In the next few minutes I heard myself telling Matt that we would accept the job offer. We would plan to move down in about six weeks. We talked about a few details, and hung up the phone. I couldn’t believe that I had just heard myself say we would be moving to Gallipolis. It almost made me dizzy.
We began telling our family and friends, and church family what we were going to be doing. The first question was always, “Why?”
It was difficult to answer. We weren’t even sure exactly why. It just felt right. How do you explain that? How do you explain that you just needed to do it? Of course it made no sense. It would be tougher financially. We would be away from our families and old friends. Our children would have to switch schools and make new friends. There was no Mennonite Church in the area except for a conservative one eighteen miles away. It didn’t really make good sense to uproot the family and settle into a new community and culture. Still, it was the right thing to do, and we knew it.
We had begun packing immediately, but within a couple of days, something occurred that made us wonder if God was trying to tell us something. Juanita noticed some purple, lacey patches appearing on her body. She went to the doctor and was told her symptoms indicated rheumatic fever. This was not in our plans. This was a dangerous illness that could leave her with a damaged heart. We began to question if we should make the move. It still felt right to carry on as planned, but the next few weeks were pretty difficult. As the illness spread through her body, her joints became so painful that she could barely move. Friends came to our house and helped with the packing. But by the time of the move, she was past the worst, and able to function more-or-less normally. (Within weeks the doctors checked her and reported no permanent heart damage. It almost felt like a miracle.)
A couple of weeks before the main move, Jay and Donna drove up to help with a load. They filled their pick-up truck with many of our things, and headed back south. Now, two weeks later we were following with a very laden-down car, and an old beat-up pickup truck, pulling a trailer. As for our house near Orrville, we had decided not to sell it. We didn’t know if we would ever be back, but it seemed best to hang on to it for now. Friends of ours were interested in renting it, and we were lucky to get them. The rent money covered our mortgage payments, insurance, and property taxes.
Thus began our journey of adventure and discovery along with our children Michael, Betsy, and Derek. We had no idea what the coming months and years would bring. We couldn’t plan that far ahead. We just knew that for right now, life would be different. We had no idea if we could handle it emotionally, physically, or financially, but we were anxious to find out.
* * * * *
All these thoughts kept bouncing around in my head as we traveled to our new home until, as if awakening from a dream, I noticed we were nearing Gallipolis. The trip had gone rapidly. My stomach began feeling a little nervous. I knew Matt and Jay and a couple of other people would be there to help us unload. It was always a little unnerving for me to be around new people, but I knew we were among friends.
It was mid-afternoon now, and the spring day was warm and moist. Spring came a little earlier in this part of Ohio, and I rolled down the window as we passed slowly through the long river-town of Gallipolis. I didn’t know for sure how to pronounce the town’s name, but had learned that it was an early French settlement. Literally translated, it means French City. Jay pronounced it Galli-poliss, (like Indianapolis) but I heard other locals saying Galli-poleese. Here we would do our banking and shopping, and go the doctor and dentist. I liked it. We could see the river close by, with ducks and geese feeding along the edge, and a little farther along, coal barges moving slowly.
We drove south out of town and continued along the river for a few more miles. Just before reaching the tiny little ten-house town of Eureka, we slowed down and made a right turn into the long narrow driveway of our “new” residence. A two-story farmhouse that had been built about one hundred years earlier, it had seen a lot of living. The signs of age were obvious, but we loved it anyway. It felt so much like home, nestled in the middle of a large pasture, with hills in the western background, and the Ohio River out across the fields to the east. This would be a great place for our family. We felt completely at home from day one and looked forward to the weeks ahead, whatever they might bring.
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The old truck and the Plymouth got us there! Now to begin farming. |
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