Sharecropper's Daughter

"I'm just a share cropper's daughter...." (to the tune of Coal Miner's Daughter). When I heard of the term sharecropper it was in association with poor southern farmers almost as bad as poor white trash. I never considered our family as sharecroppers though that is what we were - we lived on a farm owned by someone else and shared the crops 50-50 with the owner in exchange for living there.
Some farm families moved every year or two. It never occurred to me that we were in danger of having to move if the landlord decided Dad wasn't a good steward of the land. I think I remember a time or two when Dad was nervous about settling up with Hade at the end of the year. Apparently they got along well though as the Jasper Township farm was the only one my parents ever lived on.
After Hade died his wife Maude became our landlady. I think she was even easier to get along with. I remember her bringing us a five pound box of chocolates every xmas. When Dad's health ended his active farming career, he asked Maude to sell him the home 80 acres (so Mom would be certain of a place to live) and she did.
As a kid I knew we weren't well off but I didn't think of us as poor because we were pretty much like everyone else. We always had plenty to eat. Mom raised a large garden. We had chickens for eggs and meat, cows for milk and cream and butcher pigs and steers. Grandpa & Grandma Ridnour had apple and pear trees with plenty of fruit for everyone; the Reichardt brothers gave us cherries for helping pick them and we had one peach tree.
One of my favourite times of year was the fall when we would go to the timber and pick up hickory nuts and walnuts. (I still love walking in the woods in autumn; hearing blue jays holler and squirrels chatter.) The walnuts were fed through the hand cranked corn sheller to remove the husks then allowed to dry. Over the winter we would crack them and dig out the walnut meats. It was a contest to see if you could dig a complete half out of the shell without breaking it.
Mom told me a few years ago that they had had the opportunity at one time to buy Uncle Jim's farm in Douglas Township. Uncle Jim was Grandpa Lynam's uncle. Grandpa worked for him when Dad was a boy so Dad was familiar with the farm. His sister, my Aunt Leona, was born at Uncle Jim's. Mom said she was willing to take the chance and go into debt to buy the farm, but that Dad was afraid to even though the land was much better there.
We used to go for Sunday drives. Often Dad would drive up past there and say "That was where Uncle Jim lived", but he never said "That is the big house you could have grown up in." I wonder how my life might have been different if I'd been a "land owner's daughter"?