Harvest memories

by Betty Jane Wilson, society president

Titled “Intended for an introduction to a movie of wheat harvest” and reminiscent of his youth laboring in the harvest field, the late historian Arthur Strawn, wrote the following:

“These are the golden days of Kansas. Hot work with the bodies of men at golden brown from labor in the sun. One wonders if the people of today with their labor in the shop and factory and homes with air conditioning are better for all their comforts, or are these men working hard and sweating in the sun, cooled by the prairie breezes of a summer day, later relaxing in the cool of the evening under the shade of the big trees and perhaps making a freezer of homemade ice cream, not the human that God intended them to be.

“The water boy bringing a jug of cool, sweet water from a well. How many of us remember a drink of that water that rivaled all the Cokes and Kool-Aid ever made.

“Threshing was a time for the gathering of the neighbors — when the harvest table was loaded down with the products of the farm and gardens. The women labored as hard in the kitchen preparing a feast for their men at dinner time as the men working in the fields or feeding the separator.

“This is the true gold that Coronado sought in Kansas in those far off days when this bountiful land was the home of the buffalo and the Indians. There was gold here, but its seekers were 400 hundred years too soon. It took the early-day pioneer who traveled to this country by covered wagon, enduring untold hardships from the heat, drought, and loneliness of this great country to break the virgin Prairie and plant the trees that now give the shade around these farm homes.

“These courageous people were the people whose hard work and sweat finally discovered ‘the real gold’ of these limitless prairies and left a heritage that today’s people can only strive to equal.

“Here on the farm of a man who is as ripe in years as his grain, and like his grain has brought to fruit a harvest of memories that no man today is likely to have in the years that are to come.

“This picture shows a way of life that is gone — a way of life even if full of hard work, had other compensations that were perhaps greater than any man today can boast. This way of life was a gracious life that was slow enough that a man had time to reflect upon what life meant and what God had done for him.”

Maxine Hefty and Geneva Lonard will be historical society museum hosts from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, May 30.