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Lessons In Life Learned On The Farm: Sharing Memories with Catherine Clark

Catherine Briggs Clark at fourteen years old.
photo provided
Catherine Briggs Clark at fourteen years old.
Catherine and Archie Clark celebrating their 50th Anniversary.
photo provided
Catherine and Archie Clark celebrating their 50th Anniversary.

Tuesday January 6, 2009

By Cookie Steponaitis

    Born into life on April 9, 1912, Catherine Briggs Clark has lived in Addison, Ferrisburgh, North Ferrisburgh and Vergennes, raised seven children, and worked in a variety of professions. When she is asked to share her personal favorite memories and lessons learned, most of these come from her years working and experiencing what life had to offer her on a farm.

    Catherine remembers vividly the first automobile that her father bought when she was just five years old. It was an Overland and changed the way of life for the family.  She speaks with conviction of her memories of World War I, which ended when she was six and the blessing that her three brothers who served in World War II all came home safely.  She shared at length stories of her 40 years in the Bridport Grange and her 54 year marriage to her husband Archie Clark. She spoke at length of her career as a nurse and the thirty plus years that she owned and operated a nursing home in Vergennes. Catherine returned time and time again to stories about the farms her family lived on, speaking with pride about her family, grand children, great-grand children, and great-great grand children, and the lessons in life she learned there

    “I’ve always been healthy and I’ve worked hard,” Catherine remarked. “You have to understand that there were no boys born in my family until the third child. So, I was my father’s son. I helped him outdoors and did men’s work. I cleaned cow stables, pitched hay, milked cows, planted and tended crops, and all chores that a hired man would have done.” Catherine smiled a minute and sat forward in her chair.  “Even today, I could go and manage a farm; might even be able to show the younger farmers a thing or two.” In addition to outside and barn work, Catherine could also harness and drive a team of horses or milk any cow on the different farms that her family lived on. She shared many different stories about learning to be self-sufficient and the skills required to make what they needed on the farm. “You have to understand,” Catherine commented. “It was the Great Depression and you didn’t just hook up the horse and wagon and drive six miles into town to get something. Money was tight. We raised pigs to butcher and aside from going to church we stayed home a lot. We didn’t have a television until I was about thirty. We listened to the radio as a family and heard the news and dramas. The Howdy Doody show was very fun.”

    Catherine went to school in Ferrisburgh, Monkton, and South Burlington and finally completed her high school years in Vergennes. She graduated from the old Vergennes high school in 1932 and recollected that most of the time she would ride on the milk truck with her father into school and then would have to walk the six miles home. She met her husband Archie when she went to work for his mother on Saturdays. The couple married a year and half later and had seven children Donald, Barbara, Mary, Nancy, Howard, Alan and Kay with a seventeen year age span between the oldest and youngest.  The couple was married for 54 years until Archie’s death in 1987.Their first child was born in Addison, the second in Ferrisburgh and the rest in Vergennes. When I asked her to share some favorite memories of living in Vergennes, Catherine talked of attending silent movies at the Vergennes Opera House near one neighbor who had a very busy house next door to hers. There were people coming and going at all times of day and night. Every week her neighbor hooked up a wagon and went to Canada during the Prohibition time and the cargo he carried through Smuggler’s Notch was bootleg whiskey.

    Catherine smiled and returned the conversation to the times on the farm and lessons learned from her parents. “To this day,” Catherine remarked, “my all time favorite food and smell is the home baked bread and rolls my mother made on the farm. The bread and the powder biscuits could bring you in from the cold and you just knew how they were going to taste. When I was inside, my mother also taught me to crochet and knit. I learned some pretty fancy designs and still love to work on crocheting.”

    “We made our own clothes and wore a lot of hand me downs,” she commented. “My parents taught me that to be a success you worked hard, made do with what you had and took pleasure in the learning. I do worry sometimes about the teens today. While some know what it is to work, some feel that it is not important. They are missing out on learning so many things about life that it may be hard for them. My parents gave me a definition of life that included work, family and effort. Those lessons helped me to have a happy and productive life with my own family.”

    With her 97th birthday approaching in April, this reporter asked Catherine what she would like to do just for fun. “I want to tour some farms,” Catherine remarked. “I have heard of these new farms that milk over 1000 cows. I would like to see those and I really want to visit the barn with the robot that milks cows in Charlotte. In particular I want to see the Four Hills farm on Burpee Road. I asked my son, Alan just the other day to see when we can go.” With a sparkle in her eye she leaned forward and ended the conversation with, “…but just in case they need to be shown how to really milk a cow with your hands, I’ve still got a three legged stool"

 


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