(C) Daily Yonder - Keep it Rural This story was originally published by Daily Yonder - Keep it Rural and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Ozarks Notebook: Selling the Family Farm, Saving the Memories [1] ['Kaitlyn Mcconnell', 'The Daily Yonder', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow', 'Class', 'Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus', 'Display Inline', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar', 'Where Img', 'Height Auto Max-Width', 'Vertical-Align Bottom .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar'] Date: 2024-06-21 I remember the hot, muggy night in 2004 when my family gathered at the Greenfield City Park and were presented with a sign for our Missouri Century Farm. The program, led by University of Missouri (MU) Extension, recognizes farms across the state that meet certain qualifications, and, as the name indicates, have been in the same families for at least 100 years. The designation reflected 113 acres of Missouri Ozarks farmland that came into my family in, we believe, 1893. It’s where my grandfather was born in 1927, and where he died 80 years later. It’s where my dad grew up. It’s where I made my own set of memories: Mainly from stitched-together simple moments, like Grandma’s pie and family dinners, and craft projects, and games we’d play together; of waking up to freshly-brewed Folgers coffee so strong I can still smell it in my memory today. I wonder about those times as I look through photos, faces peering out at me from days long gone. So many people I’ve never met and will never know, but still share a common bond via our blood and this very house, built with two front doors to allow a greater breeze in the place we’ve called home since Grover Cleveland was president. They’re things that are hard to consider next to another sign near one marking our Century Farm status. One that proclaims that the farm is going up for auction. Changing Times in Rural Landscapes My nearly 92-year-old grandmother was the last link in this lineage. Grandma McConnell moved into the house as a young bride in 1954 when she and my grandfather married – she even hand-dug the sewer lines out back when indoor plumbing was the goal – and lived there for more than 60 years before declining health led her to a nursing home. The McConnell farm is located in Dade County, Missouri, a rural and agricultural area in southwest Missouri. (Photo by Kaitlyn McConnell) She died earlier this year, requiring some long, hard, deferred decisions to be made – and ultimately that auction sign at the end of the long, gravel driveway. These months have led to a question: How do you say goodbye to a link with generations you never knew, and a legacy you can never get back? I have not found the answer to that ponderance in the cardboard boxes of dishes and lanterns and mouse-nested dresser drawers that I have been sorting in recent weeks. Like the land, possessions – passed down from one generation to the next – never needed to be sorted until now. That question isn’t one for which I seek sympathy as an answer. As the world evolves, it’s more an example of changing times. Life is different today than when my family came to this land – and for many reasons, I am glad. Other things stand in contrast, too. Things like the realities of elder care and other expenses that didn’t exist when my ancestors walked these fields. Fewer people live in the same place forever. In my family’s case, there’s no one left in the immediate area to care for the property. The ultimate decision was complex, and as rural landscapes change, I know we’re not the only family debating these difficult forks between past and present. Moments Move Closer to New Chapter As seconds on the clock slip away, I’m spending a lot of time at the farm visiting with friendly, ghost-like memories. They join me as I sit in the kitchen, a front door open to let that breeze come inside. Even though they’ve been gone for nearly 20 years, in my mind’s eye I see the red-hued Hereford cows my great-grandfather loved so much dot the vibrant green fields. Long before those generations of cattle, his father grew popcorn on the farm’s grassy expanse. Many years after that, his son – otherwise known as my grandfather – often made an evening bowl of popcorn in an old-fashioned, hand-cranked corn popper filled with oil on the stove. Mary McConnell holds James McConnell, father of author Kaitlyn McConnell, at the farm. (Photo from Kaitlyn McConnell) I didn’t ask it then, but now wonder if he made popcorn simply because he liked it (which he did) or because of his father and the lingering impact of his own childhood. It’s possible, after all, to inherit things that aren’t tangible. Other keepsakes are found in those boxes in the garage, like I did the other day while doing some of that sorting. And maybe, at least at times, they do contain answers to the question of legacy. Loosening the dusty leather straps on one truck revealed artifacts from other lives and times. Among newspapers from the 1940s, children’s clothing – perhaps saved for sentimental reasons that I’ll now never know – a 48-star flag, and women’s dresses from a bygone age, I found a stack of colorful quilt tops. These pieced-together treasures are literally the “top” of quilts, ready to be sewn together with fluffy batting and a layer of fabric on the bottom. I believe it was my great-grandmother, born in the same county more than 130 years ago, who made these pieces of functional art. Lena Bernice Marshall McConnell was a farm wife and mother as well as an artist, and a quilter, and the trunk was hers. They were pieced in intricate patterns: Hundreds of small, hexagonal pieces comprised one; plate-like patterns on another. There was a friendship quilt, made with squares embroidered with names of neighbors. Perhaps they were members of the local Cave Club, named for the local rural community, which existed in the 1930s. It’s likely she relied on feed and flour sacks for material; in the past, such sacks were made of colorful fabric, which supplied rural residents with material for clothing and other purposes. Here, too, that is seen through tiny pieces of material in the quilts that match a dress I also pulled out of the trunk. I later found others, too, in nearby boxes: All folded neatly, as if they waited for a future. Quilters in Chadwick, Missouri, prepare to quilt one of the tops found in a McConnell trunk. (Photo by Kaitlyn McConnell) So I took them with me. And finally, after 75 years or so and three generations, at least some of these quilts will be finished. I took one to a quilting club, near where my family is from, that began in the 1930s. Another, the flower-garden pattern of hexagonal pieces, is now in a quilting frame at the Ozarks quilting club where I myself am a member. I never knew this great-grandmother, as she died many years before I was born. Yet it gave me a special joy when I put the first stitch in the quilt this week. The strong, white thread reminds us that we never know where memories may be stored or created. And that even as the gavel falls on the farm, those impressions remain. Some are made by feet, where our prints have worn the fields. Some have made invisible impressions on our hearts. Others are tucked in trunks, ready to link lives in ways we never expect. Related Republish This Story Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license. 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