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Tuesday January 20, 2015 Edition
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Life And Family With The Jacksons At Roads-End Farm

Dean & Alberta at great-granddaughter Kristine's wedding in October 2013.
photo by Photo Provided
Dean & Alberta at great-granddaughter Kristine's wedding in October 2013.
On the land and in the family for generations is the Jackson Farm of Panton.
photo by Photo Provided
On the land and in the family for generations is the Jackson Farm of Panton.
Always at work at home, Alberta is keeping the farm books!
photo by Photo Provided
Always at work at home, Alberta is keeping the farm books!
Family members on front porch in 1991-Dianne, Stephen, Andrew, Dean, Roger, Alberta and Richard.
photo by Photo Provided
Family members on front porch in 1991-Dianne, Stephen, Andrew, Dean, Roger, Alberta and Richard.
Summer 1991-Dean in the barnyard headed for the Dry Cow Barn.
photo by Photo Provided
Summer 1991-Dean in the barnyard headed for the Dry Cow Barn.

Tuesday January 20, 2015

By Cookie Steponaitis

There have been Jacksons on the land at Roads-End Farm since the 1780s, and Dean and Alberta Jackson would not have it any other way. Dean Jackson was born in the farmhouse on August 2, 1916 the younger of two boys and destined to be a farmer. He caught his first glimpse of Alberta Sprague one evening while visiting her farm directly across Otter Creek in Waltham with his friend Harold Moulton, and was more than just smitten. Dean took one look at Alberta and that was all it took. “I wish you could have seen her face later when I gave her the engagement ring,” smiled Dean. “She was so pleased.” After several years he presented her with a ring, a vow and promise that has stood the pair through seventy-five years of marriage, four children, four grand-children and four great-grandchildren. Before you call the paper and report a typo, there is not one. Dean and Alberta Jackson have been married for seventy-five years!
    Quietly sitting in the chair next to her husband Alberta pulled out a small book and shared it with this reporter. It read in plain letters ‘Our Wedding’ and inside were the signatures of people who attended, the prayers read and the clear and wonderfully neat signatures of Dean and Alberta as they joined hands and lives on January 9, 1940. The words marriage and vow are synonymous to the couple to this day and they also extend that commitment to their children, farm, friends, church and appreciation of life on a rural farm.
    “We milked twenty-one to twenty-two cows by hand when I was growing up,” shared Dean. While Dean is still simply is referred to as ‘the cow man’ his father was as much a ‘horse man’ as his son grew to know and raise dairy cows. “We did everything with a team of horses,” shared Dean. “We had five stalls in our barn. One horse was for the buggy and the other four were draft horses for all the field work. I was actually thirty years old before we used a tractor on the property.” Proud of his Registered Holsteins and how his knowledge helped to grow and solidify the family farm, Dean admits he was farm bound most of the time. “We never really went anywhere,” he chuckled. “I was lucky to have a friend Harold Moulton, a lad who lived just over the hill. We would meet and go hunting, shooting and just talking.”
Dean was twenty-three and Alberta sixteen on the cold January evening they wed and then returned to the farm. Dean had to finish evening chores before he could go to his wedding. “I never did get a honeymoon,” laughed Alberta. “We never went anywhere and stayed overnight. Why would anyone want to when you can go and be home?” Alberta is never one to want to be too far from home. Alberta is a homemaker and as the couple’s family grew and children Bessie, Janice, Roger and Richard appeared from 1940-1947, the couple lived by the creed to save every penny they could. “During the Great Depression my family kept sheep,” added Dean. “My family was able to market them and I heard my mother say that without that money there would have been many a night we would have been hungry.”
    The couple not only milked by hand on the farm, but Alberta and the kids maintained gardens, raised turkeys and ducks and Alberta made all of the children’s clothing. Alberta is a whiz with sewing, knitting, crochet and cooking and her joy has always been her home. Alberta and Dean showed the many cards and flowers that have come in for their 75th wedding anniversary. Roger showed the family images covering the farm house walls spanning eight generations of Jacksons. Each photo has its’ story about the property with Dean as a baby; the homestead with Dean’s grandparents, Dean and Alberta and the children or the great-grandchildren’s wedding photos. Alberta or Dean shared each story with a smile and more tidbits of family information.
    Dean, in addition to his love of the land, his wife and family also has an equal passion for the town he has lived in all his life. Dean served in leadership roles in the town of Panton for fifty-nine years. His service during this span of years included that of auditor, lister and town moderator. In their lifetime spanning the movement of America from a rising nation to a world power and a technological revolution that for the couple has included the automobile, electric lights and man on the moon, both of the Jacksons feel that electricity and artificial breeding have been the two most powerful changes to life on the Jackson farm.
    “We pitched hay and then used a loader, then a bailer and then a chopper,” smiled Dean. “It was always about the love of the land and the love of family. To this day she is the light of my life and we are both delighted to go anywhere as long as we come home before night.” “I certainly have been happy,” chimed in Alberta. “This is the perfect place to raise children because they learn to work, to value life and to be together. It isn’t always perfect and you have to work at it, but it is about your family.” Roger has become the family historian and archivist and shared volumes of data, charts, family trees, stories, photographs and document charting the lineage of the Jackson family. He pointed out the startling tidbit that they are the only farm left in Panton where descendants of the farm's original founders still work the land.
    Both Dean and Alberta kept coming full circle to the small book that held their vows and names of those in attendance that day three quarters of a century ago when the pair took their vows. While the years have flown by and the couple has expanded the farm to include seven new farm buildings, an addition to the Cow Barn, five new upright silos and three bunk silos, it is still all about the vow to love, cherish, protect and obey. Alberta did chuckle a bit on that one, but watching the pair together is a lesson in life based on simple concepts that today often seem so out of place. Dean and Alberta have lived their life by the edict that if they could not pay cash for it they did not have it at all, and at the same time were able to raise a family, expand a farm and send three of their children to college. They have endured wars, good and bad times and have stood strong and grounded in their family, community and in each other.
    “My grandfather Jackson was an abrupt and not very pleasant man,” explained Dean. “When I was a kid I listened to how he treated my grandmother and I always promised myself I would never do that.” Looking at Alberta he concluded, “She is the love of my life.” Jokingly this reporter leaned over to Alberta and inquired, “Doesn’t he owe you a honeymoon?” Alberta simply patted my hand and stated the obvious, “Why, when we are, together.” The Jacksons have a marriage for the record books and a simple lesson in life for all generations. They are still on the land, generations strong in the Champlain Valley at the farm just at the end of the road; the Jackson Road of course.


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