| Century Farm & Ranch stories |
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| From strong women come strong farms |
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Bette Nelson and her daughter-in-law
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Editor's note: This is the first in a series of articles about Oregon's century farms and ranches. The Agriculture Quarterly will highlight one farm or ranch in each issue over the next few years.
Farming in the early years
"The strawberries are as big as plums and the winters in Oregon are mild." So wrote the Oregon cousins of Wisconsin dairy farmers, Hedwig and Otto Schmeiser, in the year 1894. For weather- weary homesteaders, this was welcome news indeed.
In 1908, when Hedwig was expecting their sixth child, she boarded a train bound for Oregon. Otto had moved to Oregon earlier to establish the family homestead. The couple's five children entertained themselves on the long journey by pulling hairpins from their mother's hair. After an arduous week of cross-country travel, the young family (including daughter Magdalena) was reunited at the Oregon City train depot.
Hedwig worked diligently by Otto's side in the fields, but education for her children remained a high priority. Each child walked five miles of rutted wagon tracks from the farm to the school every day. Their success was measured by the high school degrees earned.
In 1918, Hedwig wrote to her son Carl, concerned about his welfare as a young army inductee.
"Glad you got to go with the rest of the boys and maybe not have to go to California. Was scared of rattlesnakes and tarantulas you might get closely aquainted (sic) with."
Only a few miles down the road from Oregon City, Catherine and William Davis were working non-stop on their homestead in Beavercreek. The Davis' had emigrated from Wales in the early 1880s, planted 50 acres of prune trees, and built a modern fire-powered prune dryer. Their farm sat on part of the land that was later to become known as Prune Hill. Plums from their locale were in such demand that packing houses, like the Hudson-Duncan Company, contracted one year in advance for the dried fruit.
Catherine Davis was very proud of her Welsh ancestry and missed her homeland immensely. As 4:00 pm rolled around in Beavercreek, she would set the farm table with her finest china, home-baked currant cakes, cheese squares and a large pot of steeped brisk brew. Her life wove in and out of the local Welsh community, and in 1884 she helped establish a Welsh-speaking church. Bryn Seion Church services, in both English and Welsh, are still attended by visitors from abroad.
Catherine's son John, a determined farmer in his own right, met and fell in love with Carl Schmeiser's sister, Magdalena. (Lena as she was known to family and friends.) Lena's German heritage proved problematic in Oregon during WWI, but with the protection of her family, and her teaching job at the El Dorado school, Lena fearlessly entered into life as a farmer's wife.
During the war years, John and his brother William left Beavercreek's fertile orchards for the battle-scarred fields of France. John was a medic in the Battle of Verdun, removing wounded soldiers from the maze of deep trenches. John's own injuries from a constant bombardment of chemical warfare left him weakened and debilitated. Eventually, John's chronic ill-health forced him to abandon farming altogether.
When their father died in 1938, Bette Davis (Nelson) and her twin brother were only five years old. Lena, widowed and a single parent at the age of 28, assumed the non-traditional role as manager of the Davis homestead.
Early each morning, Lena milked the cows, fed the stock, collected eggs, and fixed the twins' breakfast. Lena would enlist the help of young Bette and her brother to help gather fire wood for the prune dryer-a hungry monster that needed to be stoked 24 hours a day. Sometimes in the evenings, Lena would hike back from the woodlot with a newborn calf in her arms and the twins in tow.
As an adult, Bette reflected on how hard her mother worked; not only feeding the sheep, pigs, chickens, and dairy cattle, but driving a matched pair of draft horses, Prince and Dolly. "She horse-plowed the hay fields and, at times, hitched a sled to the team and hauled prunings back from the orchard."
Lena was a woman of strength and resolve in perpetual motion. During the day, she cut hay. She shook and picked prunes and brought them in to the dryer. She churned the morning's cow milk into butter and separated the cream. Then she walked the few miles to the nearby Beavercreek Co-op store where she exchanged her farm fresh goods for luxuries, like boxed cheese for the children.
Lena made her own soap from lard and lye; scrubbed her laundry without the aid of a machine; butchered and plucked chickens for company dinners; canned applesauce, peaches, pears, jams, jellies, and meat. During harvest, she cooked three meals a day for the farm workers.
Nighttime however, brought its hidden sorrows. Bette recalls, "Many evenings I would hear her crying herself to sleep because she missed my father. The pain and hurts she kept tucked deep in her heart." But the hum of the day's activities were never far off. Every morning she faced her world with quiet resolution.
Lena was not only the matriarch of a thriving agricultural business, but also tended the fertile minds of the children in her community, participating for over 50 years as a 4-H leader. Her life was one of devotion to education, her family, and above all-the farm.
Following in her mother's footsteps
Today, the John and Magdalena Davis homestead farm, in production since 1886, is a shining example of what determined women can accomplish. Honoring the memory and work of her parents John and Magdalena, Bette Davis Nelson tends lovingly to the historic site. The farm is a National Historic Register destination and was awarded Century Farm distinction for 2005.
Bette has preserved the history behind her farm's century-plus status, not only by her physical presence, but also through sheer riveted curiosity. What had provoked the women in her family to move to the Willamette Valley in the first place?
Bette was inspired to research their stories after reading a passage by author Susan Cheever: "I realized the price of their success had been high. I wanted to know who I am and how the lives of these courageous women in my family have influenced my life. I did not require superstars. I did require women who lead their lives in a manner helpful to others, either by specific deeds or through challenging lifestyles."
Bette remained intrigued by the challenging lifestyles that her own female ancestors led; so much so, that she authored a biographical tribute to them, Women of Courage, Strength and Beauty. "I found all of these qualities, and I found much more, within the women of my own family," Bette wrote.
"They reflect the stages of growth from that first exhilaration of young childhood through uncertainty, realization, and finally, appreciation of life's courses. Some have led lives of serenity. Others have suffered traumas. I hurt to know them. They are strong women, and women of beauty. Within their environments, great or small, they have contributed, reached out to touch, to influence, to give something of themselves to others."
Bette's own challenges seem parallel to the challenges faced by her family in the past. In the 1960s she married Victor Nelson, raised three children, and managed the family farm.Her lifelong dream of completing college was on hold. Bette's longing to graduate persevered through four more decades.
Bette recalls that her mother's words, "You can be whatever you want to be, if you set your mind to it," sustained her while finishing her degree in 1997-at the age of 64. What made the postponed degree richer yet, was the fact that Bette graduated in the same class as her youngest daughter Karen.
From her college work, a new legacy emerged; Bette composed three original historic tales about the family farm. She narrated, in folk style, a true-story highlighting a Molalla Indian family that lived on part of the original home-site and visited the Davis house regularly to honor an ancestral mound. The Davis farming women respectfully welcomed their native Oregon neighbors and, to this day, value the mound as an integral part of the farm's historic essence.
In October of 1962 the Davis and Nelson prune farm was nearly brought to ruin by the disastrous Columbus Day storm. Almost every tree was uprooted and lay broken on the ground. Everyone in the family rallied to clean up the wreckage and plant a new crop-raspberries. After five years, the family switched to Christmas tree production, specializing in Nobles and Douglas fir.
When asked what advice she has for a woman choosing farming as a vocation, Bette replies without hesitation, "My grandmother, mother, and her sisters all believed they were equal to the men in their family and were treated as partners-so women should not be afraid! Farming may be a risk and a challenge but in today's world, there is machinery available to women that makes up for any lack of physical strength."
"Get advice from your OSU Extension Service agent. Find out what crops grow best in your type of soil. Look at the market to discover what products are in demand. Use all available resources for hands-on advice, such as Ag Fest. Women need the strength and the courage to endure."
The Schmeiser, Davis, and Nelson families have carefully tended the land for over 100 years. Seventy-two year-old Bette holds close to her heart plans for the next hundred and beyond; she wants the land to be a heritage for future generations. "Children need to know what farmers raise."
In symbiosis with her grandmother, Bette's oldest daughter Lynda was just a child when she announced to her mother, "When I grow up I'm going to restore Grammie's farm." And that's just what she's done. Lynda is now business manager of the restoration project, and has been instrumental in the renovation of the barn and prune dryer.
As Bette wrote in her biography, the women in her family... "...were very ordinary, yet very special. They are not well known; their names will not go down in state history. They have never gained any recognition beyond their own circle of friends and acquaintances within their communities. Most of them have not perceived themselves as special human beings. But theirs are lives which have touched others for the better."
With a continued mission to touch others for the better, the Nelson's plan to open a living, hands-on visitor's center to teach the children of the future. They believe that the farm kept by determined and strong women of the past, will remain strong in the years to come.
If you would like to be included in Agriculture Quarterly’s Century Farm and Ranch series, please contact Madeline MacGregor in the ODA Information Office, 503-986-4758, or email mmacgreg@oda.state.or.us .
For more information on the Oregon Century Farm and Ranch Program, contact Glenn and Judith Mason at 503-297-5892, or email orcentury@juno.com . You may also download an application for the program at http://oregon.gov/ODA/cfr.shtml .
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