It is easy to get obsessed with the idea of leaving a lasting legacy. For the famous it may come in the form of a statue, a street name or a building name. For others it may include a healthy estate to pass on or a house full of mementos.
The ironic thing is those who leave the most lasting legacies are not trying to do so at all. You see, true legacy is not about your achievements or successes. It is about being humble, trustworthy, dependable, loving, and content with who you are.
Alma and Vincel Holbrook
I can think of no better example of this than my paternal grandparents. Vincel and Alma Holbrook have been gone for 30 and 36 years respectively. But their impact on my life is no less than it was when I was a teenager spending summers on their farm. Vincel had worked various jobs in his younger years as he was supporting his family of Alma and three sons, Harold, Hobert (my father), and Jim. By the time I was born, Vincel and Alma had semi-retired to a farm in a remote area of Jackson County Ohio. When I say remote, think of the top of a hill with a three mile driveway that was nothing more than a dirt road cut through the woods.
They were what we used to call subsistence farms, but today would be called homesteaders. Their life was simple and revolved around providing what they needed to get through each year. The farm included chickens, hogs, a milk cow and a mule. My grandfather would cultivate a vegetable garden, potato field, corn fields, melon fields, and more with his mule John. It probably totaled no more than ten acres. But those ten acres provided food for them. Trips to town for staples at the grocery store happened only once a month. My grandmother earned extra cash by making and selling butter, as well as eggs.
My grandfather and his mule, John and the farm sled he made by hand
My grandfather had two beehives he tended and the property included apple trees, blueberries, blackberries, and a large raspberry patch. Daily chores revolved around food. Planting it. Cultivating it. Harvesting it. And storing it. They froze much of the produce and kept it in a large chest freezer. They also canned pickles, corn, green beans, and fruit.
All of this took place in my grandmother’s kitchen. The centerpiece of the room was a large wood-burning cook-stove. It takes a lot of practice and great skill to use such a stove. No thermostats to tell you the temperature of the oven or cook top. Just years of experience. I can still remember my grandmother baking cakes in that oven. And of course, all of her cookware was cast iron.
Wash day was just that – a full day. On the back porch stood an old wringer washing machine. After the clothes agitated a while, they would be put through the wringer, rinsed, then through the wringer again before being hung on a clothesline in the back yard. With the washing done, our task was to use the rinse water to water the garden.
The small house they lived in was a simple as their lives. Only four rooms in all. The kitchen/dining room dominated the floorplan. Next to that was the living room, complete with a wood burning stove for the winter. Off the living room, the large bedroom that included three beds and a dresser. The second bedroom housed one bed, a pie safe, and shelving for canned goods. The home had electricity, but no running water. Water came from a well that was filtered by the hill’s sandstone and was the clearest, sweetest water I have ever tasted. And of course there was the outhouse several yards from the house.
Today, my wife Melissa and I live in the country with some of the modern conveniences of the 21st century. We have electricity, central heating and air conditioning, internet service, and indoor plumbing. With all that, we still strive to lead a simple life and be more self-sufficient. Those years on my grandparents farm have always kindled a desire to work the land and be less dependent on outside resources for our daily living.
We do not cultivate acres but have a good-sized garden that supplies our needs and those of others. A small orchard is being planted and a recently added pond will soon provide fishing and a back-up water supply. We preserve much of what we grow to use throughout the winter months. We make our own laundry detergent and household cleaners. We eat at home almost always and enjoy evenings at the dinner table as my grandparents did. We are homesteaders in the modern day sense of the term. But I like to think of it as simply doing what I was taught as a youth.
I doubt my grandparents realized back in those days that they were having such an impact on me or my siblings and cousins. They were just getting by as best they could. But their legacy lives on in our three acres in the country where simplicity, self-reliance, and a life tied to the land brings a peace and contentment that cannot be known in the city.
Thank you Vincel and Alma.
Jeremiah 29:11
For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
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