Norman L. Brown: (father of Lee and Ruth, Grandfather of Carolyn Ruth): farming experience
1. Early 1890’s to 1944 Owned and farmed at least 160 acres or more in his prime. I seem to remember something about him owning and farming 2/3 or 3/4 of a square mile. Crops were corn, wheat, soybeans, hay and straw, and tobacco. Stripped all their own tobacco.
2. He owned Horses (draft horses who pulled the farm equipment until he finally got a tractor in the mid 30’s, and horses who pulled carriages until they finally got a car). Maybe 100+ head of hogs, cattle and milk cows, chickens, and dogs. They maintained a huge vegetable garden (maybe 100 x 200 feet) which fed the family all year -fresh in summer, canned in winter.
3. He raised 6 children (+2 who died) who all had to work hard every day on that farm. Lee Brown was the next to youngest, My Mother, Ruth Lucille Brown (Hunt) was #3. She lived and worked on the farm and, essentially, raised the three younger children, Gladys, Lee, Glenn. She left the farm at age 19 when she married my father, Ennis B. Hunt; who also was born and raised on a farm and worked his own farm as a farmer from age 16 to 18, when he returned to high school, became a school teacher, then principal, then Supt. of Schools. He left education at age 38 to work for GMAC for 30 years and retired at age 68.
3. Carolyn Ruth Hunt was born to Ruth and “Abe” Hunt in 1930, and spent every summer, for a period of 2 weeks to 2 months, until she was 14, on “Granddaddy Brown’s farm”. Carolyn fed the chickens, picked eggs, hoed the garden and picked vegetables. Every June, Carolyn, Fred, and Ronnie (cousins) would pick cherries in the 3 cherry trees while their mothers, Ruth, Gladys, and Evelyn (wife of Glenn) would work with Grandmother Brown (Candis) in the kitchen baking cherry pies in a wood fired cookstove. Carolyn helped slop hogs, milk cows, etc, etc.
Source for the following is memory of Carolyn Ruth Hunt in 2003