A Farmer's Daughter

In May of 1963 Eddy and Betty returned to the Ranch to start their lives there as a family. It was a busy time for them, trying to implement all the wonderful ideas they had gathered during their travels in New Zealand and the construction of a new home.  I was born in July of 1964 by which time the house was ready for habitation, although like most farm houses it was many years before it was actually finished.
Betty, like Renee and Grandmother Caroline before her, had become a farm woman.

"Who is a farm woman? Is it enough simply to marry a farmer, or to live with him, to become a farm woman? What about the full-time teacher, or part-time cashier, who is the legal or common-law wife of a farmer? Must a farm woman also perform farming duties, like feeding animals or driving a tractor? Should activities relating to the enterprise as a whole, such as contributing funds, keeping books, and the doing the ordering be taken into account? Is a farm woman exclusively someone who is the head of a farm enterprise, a co-operator, or an employee of the farmer? Obviously the term farm woman brings to mind all of these images simultaneously." Growing Strong, Women In Agriculture by Michelle Boivin.

The role of a "farm woman" is loaded with legal, social and economic implications.  Women farmers' groups in Canada have worked hard over the years to define the nature of a woman's role on a farm, which is all too often taken for granted.  73% Canada's agricultural production comes from independent family farms, which translates into a significant contribution by women to the economy.
Throughout history women have been the primary gathers, processors, and preparers of food in the domestic sphere, yet this role is often marginalized and rights to land and economic control taken away. For example, in 1981 87% of family farms in Canada still belonged to a single owner, usually the husband.  In cases of divorce  a women's contribution to the business is often negated, and the proceeds are not divided equally. Women are often pushed aside in favor of men in succession planning. (credits to Growing Strong, Dianne Morissette).

It is within this economic, political and social framework that the women on the Ranch have worked.   Renee developed a skill for gardening and that was her primary focus on the farm over the years, as well as the processing of the food.  In the early years when the farm had chickens, geese and pigs she was the one that looked after them.

Renee as a farm woman

 Betty came to the farm as a registered nurse and those skills served the farm and the neighbors over the years.  Betty was integral in the care of Grandmother Caroline when, towards the end of her life, she became bedridden.  There is never just one role of course that a farm woman undertakes;
"Some women operate machinery, some tend to the cows, some act as receptionists, secretaries, accountants, researchers, labour relations officers, personnel managers, sanitary technicians, mechanics, truck-drivers, salespeople, public relations officers, planners, buyers and so on. they call this helping out, running errands, answering the phone".  Les besions de formation professionnelle des agricultrices, Suzanne Dion. There is strong tendency among farm women to underestimate their contributions and fail to see themselves as actual producers.

Betty worked for only a short time off the farm as nurse.  It was Eddy that took on the role of outside work in order to support both the family and to keep the business of the farm viable.  Statistically the salary earned outside the farm is what permits the maintenance of the family farm operation in Canada.  That is certainly true of the Ranch where Eddy logged both on and off the farm, and maintained a custom work business. Both my husband and I moved to the farm with a university education.  My husband had started a career with the Ministry of Employment which he was able to continue in Salmon Arm. He also had served for years as a park ranger and those labour skills served him well in his new farming role.  My husband was able to juggle farm work by maintaining a casual status with the Ministry and taking leaves of absence.  I took on various social work contracts for many years.  In addition to their "town jobs" it is estimated that a farming couple spends anywhere from 40 to a 100 hours a week on farm work.  This double or triple workload is a significant source of stress to farmers.  In a study submitted to the Learned Societies by Linda Craig, lack of profit and financial difficulties on farms were identified as the two most important stress-creating factors among farm women.  It has been suggested that the number of farm suicides is possibly the best index of the seriousness of stress on the farm.  Between 1979 and 1982, suicides accounted for 34.8 per cent of deaths, classified as fatal accidents, on farms (credit to Ginnette Busque, The Needs and Resources of Farm Women)

The other significant impact for the farming woman is the rights to land. Renee was fortunate that when it came to succession planning her parents left her the farm instead of her brother.  These types of decisions do not come without consequences however, and it is not the norm as usually it is the male successor that is favored.  I who am now the fourth generation of farming women on the Ranch.

A Farmer's Daughter

What were they thinking when my great grandparents moved
to this far flung farm.
With so many years behind, and very few ahead.
The work for younger people picked up by them, city born and bred.
Their optimism stuns me.
Now it is I that stands on this piece of earth that my family was so proud to own.
Passed to me and then taken away.
The dirt does not know or care I suspect.
Grass grows just the same, sun and then moon pass over.
All this will continue on, although we will not.
A farmer's daughter, there will always be the desire,
for soil, warm eggs, the rush of a newborn.
Air infused with alfalfa, clover and timothy.
There are entire fields, soft, wind blown,
waving goodbye.

circa 1990s, Caroline Miege