Within a week of our new vocation we had put our New Rochelle property on the market, had advised our offices to look for replacements and our families were told of our earth-shaking decision. Their reactions were far from encouraging. They were quite disenchanted with the whole idea. However, they did nothing to dissuade us, and over the years members of both of our families gave us a lift both physically and mentally when they visited us.
My husband, anxious to prove his mettle at his new life’s work, preceded me by a week to our new abode. Logically he felt that it was very important that he go to the farm and learn first-hand of the feeding and care of the animals, the production and marketing of the milk, the chore routine, etc., before the farmer moved off—incidentally to a nice city home. To me was assigned the job of selling the house, conferring with lawyers, realtors, banks, taking care of the arrangements for the actual move, doing the packing and seeing to the various items and problems which arise when one era is being closed and a new one begun. When one has comparative youth in body and spirit and is looking forward to a new adventure, it is amazing what can be accomplished. I brought forth reserve energy and enthusiasm, that had this move not occurred I probably would never have realized I possessed.
I continued at my office until three days before the actual move. During the last days when I realized that we were committed and this farm deal was no longer just a conversational gambit, I began to try to take full advantage of and thoroughly enjoy things that I had become accustomed to, and that my better judgement told me would no longer be available to a farm wife—at least for several years. I figured that while I still had a paycheck in my pocket and was not completely dependent on the egg money stashed away in the sugar bowl, that I should indulge myself and have a last fling at the beauty salons and the Fifth Avenue shops. I told myself that I should stock up on what I had come to think of as essentials, but would soon seem highly extravagant expenditures.
And so it was that things resolved themselves and finally F-Day arrived. That April day dawned clear, balmy and sunny. The movers arrived, loaded and left. I locked the Cape Cod house for the last time, allowing myself just one backward glance. I proceeded to the station to board the bus which would transport me in a few short hours to a home built in 1848, to a completely new type of work, to a new outlook and sense of values, new friends, new problems and many rewarding experiences that greatly enriched and affected our future lives.
I had approximately eight hours of bus travel to commune with myself and attempt to put my thoughts in order. I pondered on the importance of being a good farm wife, one who would stick by her husband, work by his side when things got poorer and poorer, for better and worse, in sickness and in health! I also knew that it was no easy task to break into and be accepted in a rural community. At one of the bus stops I seriously debated whether I should cut and run, but then my inquisitiveness, my sense of loyalty, adventure and pioneering spirit, carried me stalwartly on. I recall thinking that if we could stand it and make a go of it for one year, then there would be hope that it could be made to work. Strangely it was some two years later that I remembered having had that thought. The interim had been so filled with back-breaking, thought provoking, monumental tasks, planning and hoping and praying a little, that there had been no time to become sorry for ourselves or to despair of our new way of life. Recalling the incident I suddenly realized that we had proven something important. We had actually accomplished a great deal. We had been called upon to display a fortitude and tenacity of purpose in the face of much adversity and we had not been found wanting. Probably we would never have known we possessed these qualities had we remained in our small city niche.
The bus roared on over the good roads and bad, carrying me speedily ever nearer to that particular intersection,1 marked by a small country store and gas station, where I had been instructed that I should get off. I discussed this with the driver some fifty miles back and as he had seemed none too sure of what I was talking, I had taken to standing in the center aisle, well up front, peering from side to side through the mud-splashed windows. I noticed the bus slowing slightly as we entered the main street of a small hamlet and as we continued barreling through, with dogs, chickens and small children scurrying from our path, I suddenly realized this had to be it!
I lurched forward and alerted the driver. As we come to a grinding halt, he pressed the release switch which threw open the bus door. There, bathed in the soft, late-afternoon spring sunlight, my husband stood in all his glory. Clutched in one hand was a stout piece of rope to which was attached a large brown dog, straining hard with all of his ninety-five pounds toward the bus. In his other hand he held his new farm cap—a blue-and-white striped denim which had been purchased through the mail-order catalogue together with the blue bib-overalls and high laced shoes—all of which he now proudly wore. This was the first time that I had seen the complete ensemble modeled, and as he had not had the time or energy to shave for the past forty-eight hours, I stood a moment transfixed, drinking in this bit of Grant Wood Americana. A strange silence seemed to have descended over the bus and indeed the entire area, and then with a cry of joy, a wave of his cap and a loud bark from the dog, he yelled “Gee, Kid, I love it!”
A few moments had passed while this little melodrama was being enacted. Then suddenly the bus driver’s voice cut in with “Well, Lady, are you gettin’ off here or not?” Slightly embarrassed, I suggested to my husband that he remove my luggage so that I could descend gracefully on my spike-heeled pumps to the muddy ground below.
The dog, anxious to make friends, lunged forward playfully and landed with forepaws placed squarely on each of my shoulders, giving a few tentative licks in the general direction of my face. When I regained my balance, retrieved my Easter bonnet, and was assured by my husband that “Pup” was the friendliest of dogs, I realized that the new gray wool suit that I had so carefully and lovingly selected to wear on this initial trip, had been properly baptized and initiated with Upstate New York spring mud and a liberal sprinkling of dog hair. As the bus, with a roar, was thrown into gear and took off, I saw the faces of some of the passengers pressed against the windows, their expressions both puzzled and amused and I knew that as they sped onward they wondered what little bit of rural history had unfolded before their wondering eyes, that April afternoon of 1943.