Six American Families; 105; The Stephens Family of Iowa

The The presentation of the following program was made possible by a grant from the Travelers Insurance Companies. Here he is.

This is Ron Wood. Nice to meet you. I'm Ron Wood. Yes, I'm Ron Wood. Okay, I'm Ron Wood. On behalf of the Iowa Department of Agriculture, I would like to present to you with this certificate. It reads that the Iowa Department of Agriculture probably recognizes a farm of lowest beaver Stevens as a century farm. This family having owned and been stewards of Iowa land for over 100 years has significantly contributed to the growth and stability of Iowa agriculture. Thank you. This is very much a great honor. I'm sure that my ancestors would be very proud if they knew. Some of my early ancestors came in a covered wagon caravan of several brothers together with their families coming from Ohio and settling north of here shortways. Some of their first homes were log cabins.

It was all timber land and prairie land purchased for two or four dollars a acre. But later of course it was plowed and the timber was cleared. And then eventually they built frame houses bought more land. When you go through four or five generations living here on the same land, you can't help but feel security and a deep feeling for this land. This is home to me. This is genuine home to me and this is where I want to live. This is where I want to live.

This is where I want to live. This is where I want to live. I'm Paul Wilkes. We spent the greater part of this past year filming the day-to-day lives of six very different families in different parts of our country. We then show the film to each family and invite their comments on it and those comments become a part of the film you're about to see.

In 1975% of all Americans lived on farms. Today only 4% worked the land and they raised the food the rest of us eat. Carl and Lois Stevens live on a farm in Page County in the southwest corner of Iowa. They have six children. Their oldest daughter Marie and her husband Bill now have three children. The youngest of whom was born after our film was completed. They live nearby and so does Howard, the oldest son who is married to Janelle. Mark is 16 and attends high school in nearby Valiska with his brother Cecil who is 14. Martha 12 is in junior high. Her sister Mary 10 is in grade school. We've brought the Stevens family together to show them a videotape of the film we've made. I love farming. A lot of times you've got to put in long hours but still you get away from a lot of the smog and the traffic. You're not run over by so many people. You're out more on your own. You don't have a time clock to punch.

You're out here in the fresh air with the greenery, the livestock. I think the farm is just great. Farming is not as hard on a person I don't think as it used to be in one way because of our machinery. When I started out as a kid shocking corn by hand. You talk about work. Now that was work. Then it's gradually switched over to the combine where you shall take it and shell it in the field. But on the other hand you've got to have some much more head work into this thing and what it was when you done the work by hand. This year Carl is harvesting 225 acres of corn. He stores the corn and feeds it to his livestock throughout the winter.

The Stevens has maintained a herd of 50 brewed cows whose calves are fattened to 800 pounds before they are marketed. Also they have hundreds of chickens and they sell the eggs. But their biggest money maker is in the 200 hogs that are taking the slaughter each year. Carl is also harvesting 225 acres of soybeans which he will sell at the local grain elevator. A family farm of this size requires a tremendous amount of work. In addition to Carl and Lois, their oldest son Howard has worked in the farm since he returned from Vietnam. I'm still tied closely with the family since I've become the farm hand the last two years working for mom and dad.

Working for my father, you know, it's an easy going situation because dad is so easy to get along with. Mom is a very outgoing type person. She loves the farm. She's always right out there helping. She doesn't back out of any situation. Don't believe I changed living on the farm with any other wife. That's where I think my place is in this world. I don't believe in these big corporations are getting in farming. I think the farm should be family-sized farms. You take when you plant a crop, you've tinned it, you harvest it, you've got a finished product, you've had your heart in this thing. It's all together a different picture.

We're both the partners in one operation. I couldn't raise a family or that is I'd hate to without her. It takes the two of us to make everything go. We're both the one. Yes, we're a team. Everybody pitches in where they can. We all can't work sometimes at the same time. Of course, we're not all capable of doing the heavy work, but if we have a job that will help out why everybody pitches in, even the girls. I gathered the eggs and feed them once a day at night and get home. It's kind of fun except that you can still have enough sand to get out of your way and you step on them and they get in the feed bin and you can't get them out.

Whoa! One of the main factors of storing grain is the condition that it is while it's in the bins. We're testing the moisture in the grain. We have to go up and get a grain sample and then we take it to town and have it tested for moisture.

A farm family is a family that works together, shares the jobs that are to be done and then when the work's all done, we all play together. Now where's the weight? There's a weight of the cage. See? There's toy. There's a weight of the cage. There's a weight of the cage.

There's a weight of the cage. There's a weight of the cage. Oh, nice game. What have you done?

There's a weight of the cage. There's a weight of the cage. There's a weight of the cage. There's a weight of the cage.

There's a weight of the cage. There's a weight of the cage. It's hard to find something that's wrong with it. It's almost a perfect life. You have to work hard, but you also play hard too. There's a lot of fun and a lot of work here.

There's a lot of fun and a lot of fun. There's a lot of fun and a lot of fun. There's a lot of fun and a lot of fun. There's a lot of fun and a lot of fun.

I'm going to put a jacket on. There's a lot of fun and a lot of fun. There's a lot of fun and a lot of fun. There's a lot of fun and a lot of fun.

There's a lot of fun. There's a lot of fun and a lot of fun. Bill and I both live very close to our parents being two miles from his folks one way and two miles to my folks the other way.

I'm going to really snoop into their business, it just goes on. Well mom and dad took a load of beans and now it's morning. I'm going to really snoop into their business. I'm going to really snoop into their business.

I'll take these hogs off here and stamp them. There's a lot of fun and a lot of fun and a lot of fun. There's a lot of fun and a lot of fun. There's a lot of fun and a lot of fun.

There's a lot of fun and a lot of fun. There's a lot of fun and a lot of fun and a lot of fun. There's a lot of fun and a lot of fun and a lot of fun. Every year this inflation keeps it going and this machinery keeps it getting higher.

It seems like there's no place to quit. I've got a lot of money invested in it, a big end of that is borrowed money. I've got a new tractor bought last spring, it's $22,600. I've got four other tractors besides it. I've got one wagon box and running gears that today would cost well over $2,000. I haven't counted up my rubber tires for three or four years, but it's well over 100 rubber tires that I've got running around. You could get wiped out very easily with the expense today, machinery and your fuel, your fertilizer bills, your chemical bills.

If you didn't raise any crop for two years, you've had it. You see last year, I missed out on a hundred acres of soybeans. Well, I planted them and the weather was hot and dry and the beans were planted in dry dirt and it didn't rain for two months. They came up two months too late to make a crop, so I just simply lost out on a hundred acres of soybeans.

That's what happened last year's income. It hasn't been too good the last couple of years. Actually, it's been about $6,000 a year. One beans. Number one beans? Good. That's what we wanted. $434,000. $424,000. How many dollars right quick would that be? Today's price. Twenty-one hundred and twenty. Well, that wouldn't be a bad day's wages, but it didn't have any expense against it. The lost Vegas gambler, he doesn't have anything compared to the farmer. Because the farmer has no assurance of what he's going to get for his grain when he plants it.

He's got no assurance of what he's going to get for his livestock when he raises it. It's a wonder farmer's keep going as well as we do. This is BC. As a young man growing up in the church, I can remember the church teaching me two ideas about material things. The first was to hate poverty and to give what I could to help those who do not have what I have. But also the church taught me another thing about material things, and that is that it is bad to be rich.

Material things are evil, the church said. I wonder if the problem is really with material things or if the problem is with the use and the responsibility of material things. You know, we're celebrating right now a time of harvest. I was told the other day that the bends are full and they're accepting no more corn and the rest of the world. Right now, somewhere in our world, someone is going to sleep with a gnarling hunger in their stomachs. Who are the rich people? What do we do with what we have? What is your responsibility? What is my responsibility?

When we don't realize what's going on in our world, or when we realize and we simply say, isn't it too bad? And we go on living comfortably. Could this also be a commentary on the United States and the way we use our natural resources? What is our responsibility? Oh, they went to get billiards. Oh, I bet they went to get billiards. We're surprised when they beat us the car. What's your reaction to the minister's sermon about our responsibility for feeding the world?

Well, this was the minister's own viewpoint on feeding the hungry world. But as a producer, I can't believe in just giving it to all the countries. The United States gave and gave food to some of the countries. And we felt that they shouldn't give too much. They should sell some of it. Otherwise, if we produce more food, we'll end up with greater expense and end up getting less for what we produce. So we'll be actually coming out on the short end of the stick. I just feel that instead of saying over a lot of food, the best thing that like America could do is keep on with a Peace Corps or something like that where you send the person over and get the work done. I think that's something that shouldn't be overlooked as the people that go over instead of just the food for their stomachs. What do you think about the market fluctuating as much as it does?

It's not a bit fair that hog prices might be $2.5 lower tomorrow than what they are today because the hogs tomorrow is just as good as the hogs today. The prices are fluctuating so much that you can't even figure from one day to the next whether you're going to be making profit or losses. The farmer has no protection on the dropping price. Any kind of program that would change this would be more or less government-oriented and I wouldn't be in favor of a government getting in it further because then you get more into your communist rule. Well, we are against the government controlling the prices completely because it gives us no choice in it or no voice in it. If they completely set the regulation as this price and that's the only thing it can be, but yet right now there's almost too much flexibility. It doesn't keep up necessarily with the expenses either.

Wouldn't it cut some expenses if Harvard shared equipment? It depends on who they are and how they get along together and what their needs are. But most of the time these different machines, when I need it, that's when the neighbor needs it. If you don't have a combine, when your grain is ready, you could lose your crop awful quick. So that's why you get your own combine. But we have got enough machinery that we could run quite a few more acres. How about farmers getting together and organizing? I don't think they'll ever get the farmer organized because there is too many different phases of the farmer. What's good for one farmer isn't good for the other because they produce different products. It would be an ideal situation for some farmers to get together like a corn group or a bean group, even a cattle or swine. But the farmer is a very individual person. He doesn't want to be controlled.

That's why he's a farmer to begin with. I mean, it's just a different kind of person. And he doesn't want to be in a cooperative. If he wants competition, he wants to strive to do his best for free enterprise. That's what the farmer's here for. He wouldn't be a farmer. He'd be working in town somewhere. I got tired of waiting for you. What happened? The average son grows up and gets married and moves away from home. He goes back home just to visit.

And here I am in a situation where I go home every day to see my folks. It's strange to place my folks as my folks and a family and still keep that separated from my employers. Which they are. We're going to just have to take those cylinder or those springs loose because attention on them springs is shoving that out. The pressure's out on the head. Is it ready? Yep. Got it over? No! No! Wait a minute, man. What's the matter with that thing? Now? Now! Now, let it out. You want me to suck you in?

Let that out. You want me to go eat dinner and come back and run then during the new hour? Are you going to eat? I got a quarter after 12. Are you going to run then until I get back? Yeah! Well, farming has been my life as far back as I can remember. It's the one thing that I've based my life on. Not because my father is one day politically, but that is what I grew up knowing. I've liked it all along. For a long time, since I was a little boy, I've liked hogs a lot. I can remember various times when I was young, I'd go out and chase dead hogs around the lots

and lock some of them in the sheds. Some of the larger ones I'd even try to ride. I got paddled for it many times, but it never seemed to turn me away from it. I've always been affectionate hogs. As I grow up, I realize that there's a lot of money in hogs. Right now, getting into farming is awful difficult. There's a lot of people going other places to find work and jobs. There's no land around here that is changing hands. And if a piece does come up for sale, it is so high in price that a normal farmer can't hardly afford it. I make $100 a week as my salary. Janelle, my wife, is working now full-time at the hospital. She brings in just about roughly $200 twice a month, so we're making just about $100 a week each.

It does look very good from this end, but I try to be optimistic and plan for later and it'll work out somehow. Howard works for his father, and we get the place to live, and they pay our electricity, and we get meat from them, chickens, eggs if we want them. And then I just use their lawn mower and just, you know, just different others. I'd like to thank family things. Howard and I really don't expect a big helping hand because we know that his parents, they're just not in the position to give us one. But I think more than any help that you can see how we mostly need this encouragement, and just some hope. And I know Carl Laws, they waited for what they have to, and I try to tell Howard, and I try to tell myself that we're too impatient. We've just got to sit back and wait. Howard is what you'd classed as a hired hand at the present time.

He's got his own, or some cattle of his own, but we're not big enough, but I feel that I can tell him, well, now here's 400 acres. You can go ahead and rent it. Then I wouldn't have anything left to raise my family on. Bill and Marie bought that farm before the price of land took us off the jump. They got it quite reasonable. They borrowed the money for the down payment on that place during the farming, along with his father. And slowly over the years, they've paid it back, and I understand just a few days ago, they made the last payment, and they got that place in their name. We were just so lucky to get a chance to buy a farm at such a young age to start buying it, to come upon the land, and then to be able to start farming so we could raise crops on it and get it paid off in eight years. It's very frustrating for a young farmer to start up working for somebody, even if it is your father, to look for advancement.

Come up here, and of course dad's already in the field, so I just rounded up some wagons and brought them down here, and he gets back around here to dump some of the beans in his run. I'll ask him for further orders, and he'll just find out what's going on for us today. It's his operation. I just want us to follow orders, doing a few suggestions just for the fun of it. How fast are you going? Show us your going, for a second. All the way through? Yes. Just watch those big weeds. Some of those big lamps, quarter failures. My gear section end, too. But then, hey, shouldn't. Okay, easy. We're going down. Let's see it later.

since Howard and I have known each other and had any hopes and dreams that when we talked about being married before we married after we married any time we just we both grown up on a farm and we've wanted to farm and now here we are been married four years and nothing and sometimes some days you think you should just give up go to town get a job and you get in the mood to do that and you think oh dear I mean I don't think you could do that and I would hate to think of doing that I think the farm is a wonderful place to be. Oh I've considered other things in fact I went to a trade school in Chicago outside Chicago for a while to be a diesel truck driver I enjoyed it I always thought it would be nice to roll the big rigs down the road but I just never got the opportunity after I

went to the service and come back to go into it I just had to stick around here and get a farming. I don't think he's unhappy I think he would be happy or I think Howard would be happier if he did have something that he could work for on his own and know that if he made that mistake he would be the one to suffer for it and yet if he made it work well then he would feel it you know he had this happen and he helped make it happen and I really don't feel a much a part of I really don't feel like I'm a farm wife like I like to feel because because I'm not really the central figure I mean his mom takes him lunch most of the time because I'm at work I work I do oil it just a little yeah how's that look twist your she tight twist it did you mm-hmm fine you got it oh that looks good

yeah that don't stop that leap yeah ready for it so you didn't say much for well you know it's true that we have had theirs crank her up and raise it okay you're ready to go on I am he's hooked ready the last three said 10 pigs last leave that 10 pigs good hope to keep them now get how many more one left one left a pig good I'll now get here before cold weather

mm-hmm sure good good good we'll see that that fence long north side long south side road just bad shape now they just call through it anywhere little pigs they get through they sure can oh come have to get another check in the book it's the last one thank you thank you and some long hours lately that's who that's harvest nice it uh Chanel works come home and fix my own supper and I don't starve on us I think it's all right

man I can either do some of the odd chores around here a few odd jobs or tonight I'll be going back to the field after supper and get the sounds back in oh everybody's got a dream or a goal to reach someday I'd like to have moan farm that's what I'm shooting for eventually I'll make it but it's going to be a long rocky road go we get there suffer time huh yeah I see no wait no get tough huh I just got four rows here and then go down on four over and come back on these four and then that'll fill the green white

help yeah yeah one these school needs all Well, and Matthew had to do page thirty or fifty three fifty three and fifty four. Ooh, this is... I hear in the curtain.

Oh god. Ooh, gross. We killed one of these at band yesterday. He was a great big and poor. I remember down the bathroom and found the water. Is that good? I hope so. I hope so. You like that, Amp. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Got a little fed for the night now. Spend what you need. Better cute when they're little.

Oh, yes. I think this is exciting every time. You just get so excited wishing that it would have reached you. I'm a damn good kid. It's amazing the strength they've got. How they can care for themselves, how they can get around. Get some of that first meal. It's just got variety of colors. It's a painful process, but then all birth is. Oh god.

Soon forgotten. Okay, I guess we're about ready to go. Henry Rogers is my first cousin and we're going to his funeral today. There's an appointed time for everything and there's a time for every event under heaven. A time to give birth and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted. A time to kill and a time to heal. A time to tear down and a time to build up. A time to weep and a time to laugh. A time to mourn and a time to dance. A time to throw stones and a time to gather stones.

A time to embrace and a time to shun embracing. A time to tear apart and a time to sow together. A time to search and a time to give up has lost. A time to be silent and a time to speak. A time to love and a time to hate. A time for war and a time for peace. As we come together at a time of grief and a time of parting, it's good for us to remember that in Jesus Christ we have the resources and the hope that are needed to walk through times of grief and loss such as today. It was quite touching the other day when Mary asked me, she says,

well, how old will I be when you die? And I said, well, I have no idea. She said, will I be married? And I said, well, I hope you are, but I have no idea. And you don't either. That's just one thing we just can't see in the future. But you must have been thinking of course it took me for a surprise. In my own family there's a situation where there was a death and it was time for the fond to be divided and it's just each year it's gotten progressively worse and hurts and anguition. Things that you never would have expected I consider my family, a wonderful family, Christian family and you know it's hard to talk about it but land is valuable and I think not in just my family but in any family it brings out greed and selfishness and desire. I do think that is how it doesn't push anymore than he does because he's seen how I hurt I'm just a grandchild but he's seen how it affected me and I don't think he wants this to happen

in his family and I don't either. I am very proud of the fact that my family is close. I see no need to go someplace else when I'm needed at home. Now there's going to be a time in the near future when I won't be so needed unless we can expand somewhere because Mark and Cecil will be getting up there to where they can do anything that I can do now. In fact they almost can.

No one will know what will become of my folks farm at the time when they're gone. I don't want to cause any problems with the family or my brothers and sisters. I'll put it that way. Over it if we can work something out together and still keep peace in the family that will suit everybody I believe. So actually my goal is to be off on my own. Hopefully someplace close in the area. I don't like the idea of moving off all alone but still somewhere this is a nice community. I've always lived here and it would be a place where I'd want my family to be raised. When we came back to show the film to the family we were surprised to find that Howard no longer works on the farm. He's taken a job in town. I was hired starting

March 1 at this new factory that has come into Corinda, the Hoover Ball & Berry plant. This job provides a security where I can either save money or maybe get into farming a little bit at a time and work my way up. I'm still able to help my folks out if they need me. That's the present time I think here are some of dad's sows. They're where I live. The way things are right now at the present time it's impossible for me to get a start. Through this way I don't know maybe it's going to take several years but eventually I hope to be able to get a small start and develop into farming. I've always had the belief that if you just wait the right things will come to you at the right time and I was just working at my regular job I was working at a lumber yard and a man walked in the door and he said you don't know

somebody who'd like to buy a farm and I said I sure do and so I took the chance. How about the rest of you? Do you want to live on a farm when you get older? Yeah I'm going to live on a farm forever. Yeah that's what I want. I'd like to live on the farm but we'll just have to see after college what how everything turns out. We hope the family farm is still around but we have some ideas you know sometimes that we have some wonders of what it's going to be like in 50 years or another hundred years. We just don't know whether the families are going to survive and keep the farms. What I mean keep them in their own ownership. Well you know corporations coming in or land being so high that you can't afford to own it or whether the government's going to make it so that we can have ownership maybe they're going to step in and control things so we don't know it's a guess. Well I've got a good family that's the best thing I like about myself I guess. I am fortunate enough

to be able to more or less come and go and manage the operation the way I want to manage it. Anybody I think that produces something as valuable as food I think it should be very proud to carry the name of the farmer. Oh I see you've got to wish about it. Don't let my weight on me. We're not. What are you talking about? What are you talking about? Which do you know about it? We always be about it. The big end was the one that you got which you want it. No. No you got the bone she gets away. That's not the way to get your family done. That's not the way to get your family done. That's not the way to get your family done. I should have asked you that. That's not the way you want to get your family done. Presentation of the preceding program was made possible by a grant from the Traveller's

Insurance Companies.