European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - September 03, 1989, Darmstadt, Hesse 1 Taim woe How Long can i keep this up?1 byte Bartimus associated press Montana farm Wile a Nesmith Hvos 100 Miles fro Home in Bainville so he teacher s salary can help her husband slay on his ancestral land. Iowa farm Wile Denise o Brien commutes 160 Miles a Day so her family can keep its Dairy Herd and Apple Orchard. The farm crisis Ollie 1980s has dramatically changed the traditional Rolo of mothers wives and daughters in Rural America. For some it s an Awakening a Chance to Cane out a Niche for others especially older women without advanced education who must seek minimum wage jobs far from Home it is a wrenching separation from a peaceful lifestyle into rigid routine thai has doubled their workload. For generations Larm women were slay at Home helpmate who tended gardens canned food bottle fed sick lambs and calves supervised 4-h clubs drove tractors Al planting Lime and trucks Al threshing Lime Kepi the books and generally provided a second pair of eyes ears and hands when husbands needed assistance. A study of 330 Nebraska farm women found they spent nearly 68 hours a week at unpaid Domestic labor worked an average of 22 hours a week on Larm chores and spent five hours every week in Volunteer activities. The study completed recently by Wayne stale College in Nebraska found 37 percent also worked Oil the farm earning $160 a week Lor 30 hours work. The Survey concluded that farm women s total work excluding Volunteer service is Worth an average of $27,446 annually while farm men contribute a median of $23,672 in income for labor on and off the farm. Census data indicate that in 1d86,53 percent of All Larm women were in the work Force compared with just under 23 percent in 1960. Of those Larm wives working away from Home. 78 percent filed economic reasons for their outside employment according to a University of Nebraska study. I wonder sometimes How Long can i keep this up said o Brien who Heads the Rural women s leadership development project Lor Prairie fire a Larm advocacy group based in Des Moines i gel up with husband at 5 a.m., do chores leave Home by 6, drive 80 Miles to put in a full Day Here drive Home do chores spend Lime with the kids and All into bed by 10 30," said the 39-year-old Mother of three All of us working Oil the land Are just trying to keep everything together bring in Money keep the House clean keep the kids involved in activities pay extra attention to our husbands because they re having a rough Lime right now. We re trying to be everything to everybody. But it s incredibly o Brien and her husband Larry Harris have a Dairy Herd and grow strawberries and raspberries to soil. Their Apple Orchard is about to mature. They have struggled 13 years sometimes depending of food Stamps for groceries to make a go of their farm. We had this dream of farming organically and Assumption was that i d always be farming right next to husband said o Brien. Sometimes when i have to stay Home from work for a Day and i out in the Orchard i gel this real longing and i think this is what i intended it to be like and i realize that when i Home it depresses because that is where i really want to spend life in the Orchard not in Des o Brien who grew up in Atlantic Iowa but had no intention of slaying there until she met her husband said she believes Larm women Are willing to sacrifice their own goals for heir mates happiness which i guess is very Bui the question Hal does t seem to be surfacing is is this Worth it or should we get out people Are avoiding Hal Issue especially women who Are by nature protective and nurturing. We know it s something our husbands want to do so we Don t think a lot of our own internal goals we just put up with the said o Brien. I think the couples that confront thai Issue and talk about it Are on the Road to breaking up their Texas agriculture Depar Lenl economist Heather Ball a farm girl who toll Rural Idaho to earn a living in Austin says America has lost nearly 600.000 Farmers and ranchers since 1981, and today Farmers Are going broke Al a Rale of about 2,500 a week. That creates heavy stress in Rural it also creates identity crises in a segment of society where family roles have always been clearly even rigidly defined. Because the Farmer has been the historic breadwinner having a Wile who brings in most of the Money is like having a Gorilla at thanksgiving dinner everybody knows it s there but nobody will acknowledge it. A recent seven stale Survey of 1,067 Farmers and their wives coordinated by the University of Nebraska found that few wives believe they can share their stress with their husbands. Less than one third said their families Are helpful or supportive. Anne Smith says she and her husband Doug have wrestled with that crisis Ever since she announced five years ago she was going Back to College to gel her farm work is Only part of the Job for farm wives Many of whom must find outside employment to support their families. Degree so she could earn extra Money. I d been commuting 50 Miles each Way to work As a Secretary for $4.36 an hour. Then Gas went up so i had to said Anne 31, of Bainville. Mont. I wanted to improve our situation but Doug fought Looth and Nail. I think he thought he would lose . So i did it on own. My mom and Molher in Law told the Only jobs for an educated woman around Here were leaching or nursing so i decided to become a teacher. I was tired of being a Peon. I wanted More. I borrowed Money from mom and went to night school. I did Well and suddenly Doug became biggest supporter. That was the first time i Ever stood up to him and probably the last what i did was not socially acceptable. Everybody assumed i was leaving Doug it was real hard on embracing calculus and trigonometry Al 26. She was soon getting 4.0 grades at Minot stale College in North Dakota Bui the separation was wrenching. There were some bad bad years there said Doug Smith. In 1980 he bought irom his grandmother the land his Grandfather had homesteaded in 1908. It was a terrible drought year. In fact i be Only had one Good year 87, in the last with his wife Al school during the week. Smith became a part time trucker hauling Hay throughout the West. When his wife graduated in 1987, the couple was Popli Mislick about finally being reunited when Anne got a teaching Job close to Home. But the Only Job i could get was tending bar in Bainville. I d spent All this Money Doug was counting on extra income which was t there and then there was no Reward for All the for a year mrs. Smith searched live counties Lor a Job. Finally she heard about an opening in Flaxville mont., a town of Iso people 93 Miles North of her Home up near the Canadian Border. Competing against dozens of other applicants she landed the Job of High school math teacher in 1988. I teach 10 classes and i the Pep club adviser cheer leading adviser National Honor society adviser computer coordinator and Junior class adviser. I spend at least three hours a Day preparing for classes have to be Al school at 7 40 a m., and usually get finished about 11 p.m., because of extra monday til Friday she lives in a House owned by the school District which she shares with the football coach s family. I enjoy Job but i want to be closer to Home. It s just that there Are no jobs and when one does open up there Are literally hundreds of teachers trying to get it sunday septembers 1989 the stars and stripes Page 17
