Going Home

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. Showing took Donna from Jet, to Enid, to the stockyards in Oklahoma City and all the way to the American Royal in Kansas City, Mo.   

            “We would put our show steers on the train and we would meet them up there in Kansas City,” Donna said as she smiled thinking back to her childhood. “Times sure have changed.”

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 from 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. Of those, only 165,102 are operated by women, and the median age of those women is 53. An 80-year-old widowed farmer is unique.

            “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., helps with the day-to-day activities while Craig is at home. Together, they feed protein supplement and over 1,000 round bales of hay each winter. 

“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.