When Josh and I decided to move to Abu Dhabi nine months ago, we knew that we would miss family celebrations, emergencies, and unfortunately, funerals . It is one thing to say you are ok with the sacrifice of missing these special occasions in order to live abroad before you ever leave home. It is a completely different thing when you face one of these situations half way around the world. On Saturday night, I knew that my grandmother did not have much time left on this earth and would soon be going home to her Heavenly Father and her husband . Josh and I finished our Saturday night routine of watching the previous week's sermon from Brentwood Baptist Church. As I was trying to go to sleep, an image kept creeping into my mind. It was the image of my grandmother leaning over the casket and giving my grandfather one final kiss on his cheek. That image has remained with me for the last 23 years since his passing. It represents closure for me, and I believe for my grandmother as well. Josh has always said the grieving process is so important. There is a process to it, and it is important to participate in each step. We realized that I needed to go home. I needed to work through the process and be there with my family. As soon as we decided I was going home, I got the text from my mother letting me know my grandmother had passed away. Less than 24 hours later, I was on a flight to Oklahoma.
Today was a wonderful day. It was a difficult day, but I could not have pictured a better service for my grandmother. We were surrounded by family and friends who have loved and been loved by my grandmother for many years. I had the honor of sharing some memories of grandma today. If you knew my grandmother, you probably know most of these stories. If you didn't, I wish you would have had the opportunity. Either way, I have included what I shared today...
I was a communications major at Oklahoma State University. I had a reporting class 10 years ago, and our assignment was to write a news article about anyone in agriculture - anyone except a family member. As soon as class was out, I went to Dr. Sitton's office and said Shelly, I have a story to tell, and it needs to be heard. I sat down and told her a little bit of the story. She said you're right, I will make an exception for you. Here we are 10 years later, and I would like to share with you the story I wrote...
It is 6 a.m. on a day in December when most people
choose to stay in bed. But the cattle have to be fed, and they do not care how
cold it is. If you look out in the pasture, an 80-year-old woman can be seen dumping
5 gallon buckets of protein supplement into troughs.
“They have
to be fed on hot days, freezing days and holidays,” Donna Marie Smith said. “You
really have to love farming. There aren’t any days off.”
Growing up
Donna’s love for agriculture and
farming developed at an early age. She started showing cattle as soon as her
dad thought she was big enough. She does not remember exactly how old she was,
but the 4-foot-11-inch 80-year-old could not have been very big at the time.
Donna and her older sister, Myrtle
Ellen, were two of the first females to show in Oklahoma Enid Oklahoma City Kansas
City , Mo.
“We would
put our show steers on the train and we would meet them up there in Kansas City
Showing also exposed her to
prominent people such as Governor Phillips who bought one of her show steers in
the premium sale.
Her family harvested wheat every
year. But their true love was cattle. Her father had a registered shorthorn
cattle sale once a year. In fact, her grandpa brought some of the first
shorthorns to America Scotland
Donna is
the second of seven kids. There was a 20 year age difference between the oldest
and the youngest, and Donna practically helped raise the younger ones. She
learned at an early age the importance of responsibility. She watched her
parents manage the farm and the family, and she decided she wanted to follow in
their footsteps.
“I always knew I wanted to have a
farm and that agriculture would be a part of my life,” Donna said.
Managing a farm
In 1946,
Donna Marie Campbell married David Smith. Together, they had four sons. They
raised pigs, cattle and wheat. Their farming operation, along with the boys’
hay hauling business was enough to put all four children through college.
Donna’s second
oldest son, D.C., recalled a lecture that was often heard at the Smith
residence, “They always told us, ‘You are going to college. You can love the
land, but you are going to have a career as well.”
With fewer
people to help with the farm, they eventually got out of the pig business and
decided to focus on the cattle.
“After the
boys got older and went away to college, I needed a little change. I went to
work at the nursing home in Cherokee for a couple of days.”
Those “couple
of days” turned into 13 years of service as a medical aid. However, when David
got sick, she returned to the farm full time to help.
“After
David passed away in 1992, I started taking care of the cattle,” Donna said. “I
get up every morning before daylight.”
According
to the American Farm Bureau Federation Farm Facts 2002, there are 2.16 million
farms in the United States
“She is one
of a kind,” said Donna Graham, a retired Farm Service Agency employee. “She
always came into the office prepared and on top of things. We joked with some
of the younger farmers that they needed to job shadow her for a few days.”
Donna Marie
is quick to give credit where credit is due. Although stubborn at times, she
realizes that she cannot do it alone.
“Craig moves the cattle in close to
the house so I can check the ones that might have trouble calving,” Donna said.
“I could not do it without his help. He and his three sons vaccinate the
cattle, fix the fence and harvest the crops.”
However, Craig lives two hours away
in Guthrie. Lorie Palmer, a retired police officer from Wichita , Kan.
“Donna Marie amazes me,” said
Lorie. “She is always right there beside me helping with whatever I am doing.
She manages the farm so well I often joke with her that she knows each of her
cattle by name.”
Even though Craig is not always at
the farm, Donna knows he is just a phone call away.
“When I get in trouble, I call
Craig,” she said with confidence. “He checks on me two or three times a day. We
even switched cell phone companies to Cingular so we would have unlimited
mobile to mobile minutes.”
However, when an emergency arises,
Donna has many people in the area who are willing to drop what they are doing
at any time, day or night, to help her. One is Tim Starks, Smith’s veterinarian
from 1992 to 1998 and current owner and operator of the sale barn she uses.
“I remember one night going out there at 11,”
Tim said. “We used a spotlight, roped a cow and tied it to the bale spike. It
was just me and her pulling the calf.”
While Donna usually knows when to
ask for help, there has been a time or two when she was convinced neither her
age nor her gender was going to hold her back.
Tim laughs and shakes his head as
he recalls, “It wasn’t three or four years ago when she tried to pull a calf by
herself!”
While she remained unharmed from
that situation, you can imagine a headstrong elderly woman is sure to get
herself into trouble sooner or later.
Hazards of the job
Smith has
never let her age, size or gender slow her down. Actually, she has never let it
keep her from doing things a 25-year-old should not do.
When she was 67, she was helping
Craig work the cattle. She had hopped up on the back of a flatbed pickup to get
the vaccine. She looked down and saw a cow headed in the wrong direction – so
she jumped off. Her foot got caught in wire on the pickup so when she landed,
it was on her wrist. Needless to say, it was broken and she was out of work for
a few weeks.
“I was so mad at myself when that
happened,” she said as she grabs her right wrist with her left hand. “But more
so, I was mad that the cow got into the pen she wasn’t supposed to be in.”
At age 69, she was bound and determined
to fix a fence without calling anyone for help. She picked up a 30-pound post
hole digger and began driving a post into the ground. She tore her rotator cuff
and had to have surgery.
In September 2002, she faced one of
the hardest things in her life. She had triple bypass open heart surgery. She
was in the hospital for five weeks, and then stayed with Craig and his family
until Nov. 10.
“I couldn’t wait to get back, Donna
said. I called a boy to help me feed and we started feeding as soon as I got
home.
“Craig didn’t think I would ever
make it back to the farm again. But they took really good care of me. I
couldn’t have gotten well without them.”
In August 2005, Donna realized
something else was wrong with her health. However, she continued to work until
the day doctors realized she needed a pacemaker.
Three months later, Donna was
fixing fence by herself when her foot got caught on tall grass and she tripped.
She fought off a pain in her chest for over a week and finally went to the
doctor. The fall had caused her pacemaker to crack three ribs.
While she may have seen her share
of job hazards, she keeps the success of the farm at the front of her mind.
“She is an 80-year-old woman who
has beaten many surgeries and even a brief period when she didn’t want to go on,”
D.C. said. “She gets up every morning wanting to be productive.”
A lasting legacy
D.C. credits much of the family
farm’s success to his parents’ common sense and to his youngest brother’s
management abilities.
“Dad was such a perfectionist,”
D.C. said. “He laid the foundation for the farm. But Craig has built on that
foundation and turned things around.”
D.C. is a veterinarian in Tulsa;
however, he is purchasing land of his own in the area.
“My love and passion is for the
farm, but our parents taught us we needed to get a daytime job,” he said. “Mom
kept the family together and raised four boys who have set the world on fire
coming out of that area.”
Donna’s house is a home. It is full
of memories and history. It is the first house she and her husband lived in
after they were married, and it is the only one she has lived in since.
“Our roots are strong,” D.C. said.
“I love to go in the house and get regrounded. The values they’ve instilled in
us keep going.”
It doesn't matter how close or how far we are from the house just north of Vining, as grandma so clearly answered when the nurse asked her where she lived just a few short days before she passed away. If there is one thing I have learned living half way around the world, it is that home truly is where the heart is. And grandma - you will forever be in our hearts.
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