As time passes on the farm we find more and more bits of the past. When we plow there are always bits of glass and pottery tossed up from the earth. They are tiny reminders of all that went before us.
Among these items were broken candlesticks covered in dirt. Did they once sit shiny and bright on someone’s dinner table? Did they once hold Christmas candles for a joyful holiday? We will never know.
Once deep in the woods, we found old bottles mostly broken and tossed away. Once they held canned food for a family, likely vegetables that were grown on the farm. What happened to the mother that stood over the stove on a hot summer day canning food to feed her family? This woman who walked on the same land we now walk on, she lived her life in a different time from us but yet we share so much.
The other day we were cleaning out a room in the barn and found some odd things, a woman’s pocketbook and an old shoe. The barn seems a strange place for such things but who knows how they came to be there. When we opened the pocketbook we found birthday cards, a Christmas card, and some mail also a piece of paper with some writing on it, but sadly it was not filled with money.
The envelopes were marked “To Aunt Clara” and the handwriting is the same, but one of the cards was signed “Love Carol West.” The other card was signed “So sorry to be late Lots of love always Carol Lee,” in different handwriting. There is also a Christmas card that is signed “Shelby and Frank Rogers.”
One piece of mail has the name Willis C Burrell Rt 3 Hiawassee, GA on it. This is strange because our farm is not in Hiawassee, GA, but about thirty miles away in Batesville, GA.
The piece of paper had a phone number and an address 338 McDonald Dr. Versailles, KY. We would love to find out more about who the people are who gave the cards to Clara and who is Aunt Clara also who Willis Burrell from Hiawassee is and how he is connected to Aunt Clara.
It goes without saying that we would love to find out any information we could, but the truth is we may never know. I guess we will just have to continue to wonder about the past while we press on with our future on this beautiful farm that we are blessed to call ours.
Please let us know what you have found from the past on your farms we would love to hear your stories.
Photos property of Judith Baldwin
