Roger Welsch &…; 323; Juanita Buschkoetter

This program is funded in part by viewers like you, who are members of Nebraska's for public television. Local funding for Roger Welsh and is provided in part by read all about at bookstores, Nebraska owned and operated bookstores with four metro area locations and locations in Fremont, Columbus, Grand Island and Carney, Nebraska dedicated to Nebraska's book lovers, communities and schools. Joining Roger this evening is Juanita Bushcutter, subject of the PBS documentary The Farmers Life. Good evening and welcome. While Anita Bushcutter was pretty much an ordinary farmer's wife in South Central Nebraska and a troubled marriage, a troubled family and a troubled economy, then David Sutherland filmmaker somehow discovered Juanita, I'll ask her how, and she was thrust into the nation's eye and attention. Did Sutherland tell the real story? Is Juanita Bushcutter typical of farmers'

wives and why the farmer's wife and not the farmer's kids are just the farmer? No one better to ask, I guess, than the farmer's wife herself. Juanita Bushcutter. Juanita, thank you very much for coming by. We're taping this at harvest time and I know that Darrell would probably rather have you out there driving a truck than coming to Lincoln to do this. The way I've run this show for 120 interviews now is to find people who are in the media or in the newspapers, but people don't really have a chance to know. And when I asked you, I did it before the show hit aired, The Farmers' wife, and I thought, well, she'll probably be in the show, but people may want to actually find out who this woman is, and then there was this firestorm. You had more airtime in the last two months than I had. Did you have any suspicions at all what were going to happen to you? None at all. We had no inkling, it would be like this. They started warning us, I think, a front line and ITVS

and the producer himself were warning us that we would probably get a lot of attention and we thought, all, we didn't think anything of it. And when the show first started airing, 10 minutes after it started, the phone started ringing and it rang till after midnight that first night, that happened all three nights. We have a log of all the interviews we've done and it's just been unbelievable. And the people that we've met, my family just, they laugh at me because it's now just like it's just old hat to us, you know, but so it's, it's just been crazy. And the mail is delivered, bags full, I've seen you sorting through these piles of mail. Do you get a chance to read any of it? Yeah, we actually read most of the mail that the really hard part is that a lot of people are asking us to respond. A lot of people say they realize we can't respond to everybody, but I would really love to because these letters have just been wonderful. I can't believe people relate so much and you know, they share so much of their life with us and it's, I mean, I definitely would love to respond to all of them. When I do CBS pieces, we shoot all day long and then they take all of the footage back to New York and they do the editing and the first time I see it is

when I see it on a television screen. Did you have any idea what this was going to wind up being while they were shooting at or was it a surprise to you? It was definitely a surprise. We had no idea. We had no say and we signed the release in the beginning and that was it. And my family, especially when my sister was very skeptical the whole time and she said, you know, you have no idea what this guy is going to do with this much footage and actually as much footage as he has, he probably could have done almost anything with it. So when we sat in June for the first time, it was hard to watch and I kind of cringed because I think anybody would have used half three years of your own, especially your hard time being on film. But it was also comforting in a way that it was exactly what he set out to do and it was I think a very accurate picture of our life in those times. Was there ever a time when things were tough between you and Darryl, you were having your problems like any married couple does but yours was made even worse because you were in the middle of farm crises, which seems to be one after another these days. Was there ever a time when you thought about just telling the Sutherlands, I don't want to go

any further with this, I don't want to bear myself anymore. Definitely, I actually, the point when I had decided to make the decision to leave with the kids for that week, I called the producer and asked him, I said, please don't come anymore because we have no idea what's going to happen. And he did respect that for a time, he wanted to come and I believe it was probably about a month after we were having some really intense problems but he was very respectful. He never had the camera interfaces in the really bad times but he wanted us to address things because he said, especially the audience and the film crew themselves, they could see things changing and just asked us to address it which I thought was a very fair way to do it. So that was like in the Christmas of 96 and then the next time when they came, I think we had a lot of wrestling and a lot of, I think just looking inside, we had made such progress in our marriage and things that turned around so much, I think the producer

himself was even shocked at what a change there was and so I think through the really hard times he respected us enough to give us our space. I guess I would have wondered if he had some indication somehow of where your life was going because he couldn't have written a better script if he tried to invent it. But I heard recently of a newspaper columnist in I think somewhere around Seattle up in the Northwest somewhere who was running up against a deadline and he had to come up with a story he couldn't get anything going and he opened the phone book and just put his finger down and there was somebody's name and he called them and he said, what's your story and he's found everybody has a story and I wonder his southernland couldn't have just dropped in on any farm and found, if not the same problems, a life very much the same and certainly is interesting, do you think you really were a typical example of what goes on in rural America? I think so

definitely, I've heard some people say, why are we getting all this attention, we're no different than anybody else and I think that's the point, we aren't different from everybody else. We have so many, I mean from the response we've had so many people can relate and identify with so much of what we've been through and I think like he said everybody has their story, I think maybe the rare thing with us is that it was captured on film which isn't normally done and so I think a lot of farming, some farmers I realize are not, we're never in as dire as shoes as we were in at one time but I think so much of what they could relate to the rest. A lot of them are bad enough off that they didn't survive and you guys have, how did southernland find you? From what we were told he, we had worked so much within Nebraska Farm Crisis Hotline in Walthale in Nebraska and also through the inner church ministries here in Lincoln and the producer had gone to the convention for the family farm coalition and then also through farm aid which is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts and you ever realize that and so they put him in touch with the inner

church ministries and the hotline and I think when both of them mentioned us he came out and he flew out, he was on his way to a film festival I think in Arizona and New Mexico or somewhere and just stopped by and was there for three days and he decided he was going to start filming. Did he have any other names on the list or were you it? No, he actually had started filming I think a farm in Wisconsin when he found us and I don't know why I still can't believe we are any more interesting. Did he really just stop by? Pretty much, yeah he just stopped out and it was funny looking back now how being a filmmaker you can tell you are being thoroughly examined by a producer but I think what he's I've heard him say and a lot of interviews and I guess I never realized what they were in filming was he said I spoke for my heart and was the you know very honest and open with everything which was what he was looking for and he caught me probably at a very good time because when we are reaching out for so much help with our farming and everything I was I guess open with a lot of people at the time. Had you had any

experience in front of a camera, even school plays, anything at all? Oh never I hate cameras. I said after that I'll never really get another camera as long as I live. In the show it was mentioned several times but we never could spot exactly where this city was. Because you were referred to as the city girl, not the farmer's wife and Linda and I argued about I said I think she's probably from a city and Linda said no I think she's from what's the town that you're from? Lawrence. Lawrence, where are you from originally? I was born in South Dakota my dad was super into the schools and we had traveled quite a bit but I was born in South Dakota and moved to Lawrence when I was nine. So Lawrence is the city of the city girl, well I think one of the things that made your situation even more poignant is that you had a brother and had a brother in Harvard and a sister in Wellesley and here you are out there driving a green truck and trying to get that pickup truck started and everything. That's got to have made it tough for you to live up to. It kind of was all I came come from a family of eight of us kids and all of them are

very successful my brothers and sisters you know they're all have higher education you know several master's degrees and all this but I when I married right out of high school I don't think my family was as much against their all just the idea that I should have gone on to school first and I can't blame them for that but it's funny because since we've been married I've gone on and gotten an associate's degree and and now I tell my kids see if you went to college first you have to put your kids to this like I did. Well and it isn't always education that makes one effective in society is it. No I think you've done your job pretty well. Well I just talked to somebody other day and I said I've gone to the school of life. Yeah really you've succeeded in a media school in spades. I had my daughter Antonya who was 15 watch the show with us because I don't want her marrying a farm or even it's just it's it's such a tough life it's such a tough job and I always I'm not a farmer myself I call myself a farmer I live on what I call a farm

but I cannot imagine hanging out there like that putting yourself on the line so drastically I plant trees and if 10 trees die in a year it just kills me but my life doesn't depend on it my wife's operation doesn't tend to end on my kids' education whether I keep the farm doesn't depend on it and living in that kind of jeopardy I just I'm not sure I could ever have that kind of spine to do it what is it what what makes somebody do that I actually don't know it's funny because I said I think farmers are a different breed of people I really believe that and I wasn't a born farmer so it took me quite a while and I do think that I have eventually evolved into one I think because I think it'd be probably as hard for me now to give it for me as it would be for Daryl and it wasn't that way see the hard times I was ready to throw in the towel in the beginning and but you know then at the time we went and we couldn't throw in the towel we were you know bankruptcy wasn't an option to us we were never going to leave people set we had acquired this debt and we would pay it off one way or another but even we went to accountants and there's no way we could even sell out we would

oh we still have debt and we was 035 ,000 can go broke no so you know that itself is really frustrating but also there is something I said there is a connection to the land that I especially Daryl has I don't think I feel as much of that as Daryl does he just you know in the springtime you get on that track and you smell that dirt you know being worked and it just it's just there's something you can't explain it's just there and unfortunately with you know so much of corporate farms and factory farms you know there's so much absentee own you know ownership that I think is people don't have it anymore I think it's a rare thing and I think it's really sad because I do think that's part of what America is and you know we've had I've heard you know somebody say you make a comment that farmers should just throw in the towel and realize we are part of the past and I don't think that should happen well I hope not I think one of the other things that the farmer's wife shows is that one of the prime products of farms I'm very sentimental about this is children and you know that and I know that's one of the reasons I

moved out to my semi farm is because I wanted my daughter to grow up there it seems to me that's a very important context for children to grow up in and I wondered I kept thinking about my city friends watching the show and I'm wondering here are two people and a children with outside jobs that are murderous outside jobs so that they can keep doing this job which is even more murderous and more financially shaky and more exhausting and I think it must be impossible for outsiders to understand what the drive is to farm it's I do think it's hard for people understand I think that's one message that we got across like he said in the film and that's really made me feel good to hear that the response we've had tons of letters and phone calls it's a phone still ring so much people across the country that said that they had no idea what farmers went through and it was very educational to them they think now when they go to the store and pull something off the shelf they think about where it's come from and and they admire us and I think there's a survey then I don't remember who did the survey or what the exact percentages

were but I heard that people said they'd be more willing to pay for for food if they knew that the farmer was actually the one getting it I do think people realize the importance of farmers but unfortunately I think you know our government all is geared more towards efficiency only that's the only thing that they're looking at well and even the connection between food and farming isn't all that clear anymore I mean there's a box of cereal that costs three and a half dollars and there's farmers over here getting the dollar and a half for a bushel of corn what's the connection I mean they don't it never comes together somehow well that's what's so fresh right now I said what we got for our wheat this year said in low for bread we went to farm aid and the guy there had a low for bread that cost him a dollar seventy nine he just bought the store and our dollar seventy nine low for bread the farmer got three cents you know so if we were paid double what we were getting we'd have six cents in that low for bread it just doesn't make any sense one of the surprises to me about the show while I was thinking that people in the city would be watching this and getting quite an education I wondered about friends of mine

who are farmers what they would think about it and I'm not going to mention your names because I think they'd be embarrassed but a lot of my big lug buddies you know who are big tough farming boys grew up on the farm couldn't watch it because it was too intense the one as one guy said I just kept hearing up he said I can't watch it's just too personal too hard they'd been through it and I I kept wondering how how you could let this crew how how many people were there in the crowd how did they work around you with being so personal and in your bed in bedroom that was they really had a talk there was usually at least three at all times usually four or five at least three if there was if anything was being taped there are three people there and we had radio mics on all the time when they were filming and it was you know they would show up seven or eight in the morning and stayed till midnight or after and pretty much just follow us it was a little bit more time consuming than what

originally thought because they said they just follow us around well you know if we walk here there and all of a sudden they didn't get on film they'd ask us to do it over again but on the most part and you know like when they filmed a bed and people first heard that they thought oh how could you ever do that but really when you you know what what he was thinking was that is a time when we do you know a lot of talking about the only time yeah and you know the meal time to drill hated him when they filmed the meal but it is you know a lot of the conversation is what they were after and I see it wasn't anything revealing or any sort but they and they were very nice people I mean we had such a we've you know a really good friendship with them now do you are you still in contact oh yeah they were just there are places last weekend oh it's there right yeah um there are a couple places it in the show when I wanted to say oh Darrell don't say that you got to go back to that same loan officer again what has been the reception now in the community um I think we've had more support than than I thought we were going to have even but

I do think some people thought we should have then this or that differently but the thing is people have to remember is we're not perfect we're not we didn't ask to be the poster farm family or you know we were talking to the loan officer and you know I said there was nothing personal as much as we know what Darrell said against him the Darrell is working 13 hours a day off the farm coming home farming at night a lot of times not having anything to eat decent and then realizing that in three months from now we could have a total farm sale and you know that stress is almost unbearable we've had to go through counseling I said the week I laughed as far the best thing I ever did but yet I could definitely understand where Darrell is coming from I mean that pressure was just something unless people who have called and can relate to it so much say you know unless you've been through it you will never understand and um and actually I think that I don't think any relationships are really that damage that you know Darrell and his dad actually think of a better relationship now because of it even and that was going to be my next question is how how things were fitting in the family now because there were some fairly blunt aside

language there too and I can understand I hope my dad never hears what I have to say but I'm sure my kids feel the same way about me the family's stronger now than it was yeah I think so and for my family I think it was um educational for them too they said they never realized before how hard Darrell worked and um you my one sister said oh she realizes she's been too hard on Darrell all these years and so I think a lot of people you know I you know not everybody gets the benefit of having their life on tape to show their families and so it's been you know helpful in a lot of ways my daughter Antonyo I mentioned already 15 years old has some trouble with the fact that I show up on television on this show and on CBS and some of the other kids in school see it as I don't know being a show off or something I suppose and it does but it does give her trouble she's had problems in school because her old man is on television I kept wondering about how your girls were handling all of this have they dealt with all of this fame pretty

well I pretty much so yeah I don't think they'll ever be able to grasp how much nationally you know publicity we've gotten um the Lawrence you know being 323 people so small and really decent people their kids their classmates are just really good kids and they've kidded them in the beginning about being movie stars and all that and I think all them enjoyed seeing themselves in the film their classmates and that but I don't think it's been harmful to the girls at all they've enjoyed you know I said the people have sent you know some gifts to the kids and all which was something I just couldn't believe people would do but so they've enjoyed that part and it's just I think it's really good to know how good people in the country are they've sat down had to write quite a few thank yous to people and so I don't think it's you know hurt them in any way they were ready for the film to be done as as we were I'm glad the cameras were gone but I don't think we'll ever regret doing it how long was the crew there almost three years three years they were there for a total 26 times the family members now they're pretty much so wow um when I would tell people you were going to be on

this this show everybody who had a they have there are a lot of questions I'm already asked but everybody had the one question and I thought about it again last night as I was watching television they were showing the amount of money farmers made on an average 10 years ago per acre and it had dropped I think down to like a dollar an acre then there was one period when things went really well it was like a hundred dollars an acre a farmer could expect me and this harvest of 98 that is our last one something like a dime an acre so everybody has wondered having seen you go from some very tough times economic times to finally getting the house painted and I think I saw a different pickup truck in your yard at the very end of the show to how things have gone in the summer of 98. Things have continued to improve actually since they've been done filming my job is going very well which has helped the family living funds you know we if one of the kids gets sick now I can actually take them to the doctor not worry about it and I can buy groceries every two weeks and so things

are going better in that way and of course with our marriage we've learned so much and I especially Darrell has prioritized things so much more we appreciate a lot each other and the whole family more and as far as the farm we were lucky I mean I have to say it's like I like to say it was foresight and all this you know marketing skills that we had that we had so last year's crop for a decent price last year and this year we had contracted some of our grain early in the year so and the yields have been wonderful this year and that's the only thing that's going to pull us through because I have never seen prices what they are as low as they are you know there's we've always believed in being diversified one enterprise would carry us through but this is the first time every single thing that we're raising this year it's it's costing us more to raise it than what we're receiving back for it isn't that insane I mean when it if Boeing starts to have trouble everybody gets excited and figures the government get better give them a mess of money because we can't let Boeing go under and here we are ready to let food go under we can live a lot easier without more bombers than we can

without bread I mean that's crazy and and and what makes it to me even wackier this last campaign in in 98 one of our own congressional representatives said that the recent farm crisis is a blip on the on the screen my god man I mean when you see this kind of crisis it's it's an explosion I heard somebody else responded that and said that sometimes a blip on the radar can be a missile head it's right and that's sort of what it is and and I wonder farmers it seems to be have not been very effective in politically seeing to their own needs well that's that farmers aren't used to being politicians and that's why I think any of the negative comments I've got now maybe is from taking a political stand on things but I do think that you know farmers are so used to we're being we're these individual little specks scattered all over the country and you know individually they're gonna knock us down we're gonna be wiped out and I'm not trying to sound dramatic but I do believe I you know I hear 10 ,000 farmers will be gone within the next

24 months from Nebraska and I think that's this eventually where it's it's headed and I think that farmers do need to take a stand and we need to unite and you know stop criticizing each other and just really take a stand and say we're not gonna put up with us most other businesses they get to figure what it costs them to produce a product and then add on their profit margin and sell it for that farmers were take whatever were given even if that means accepting a price it's below what it costs us to produce it and how anybody can expect us to keep operating that way there's it just doesn't make sense and boy when the small farmer is gone watch what happens to food prices that well exactly now because our cost what it's costing us to you know our inputs to produce the craps are being is being monopolized with corporations well when that's all there is a corporations the prices for food are gonna be monopolized and everybody's gonna feel that if you had to do it over again and there's several it's I guess here if you had to become a farmer's wife again say Darryl had said if you marry me I'll we'll move to Lincoln and I'll get a job selling insurance and if you could you had that choice now you could go back in time and you could marry Darryl the

insurance salesman or Darryl the farmer would you would you do farming again I think so I even if we had to sell out now I don't think I could ever live in town again or the city I would definitely want to live where we are and the only thing I would say I would actually do differently and I and who knows if it had been a mistake but I really want my kids to make sure they go to school first I don't think education is everything but it's such an insurance thing you can fall back on to have and if I would have had that you know in the beginning maybe I could have been working for more to subsidize the living so to get through the tough times if you had it over again when this guy knocks on your door and says hi I'm David Sutherland would you say keep moving buddy or would you go ahead and do that again has it been worth it I think it's definitely been worth it the response you've had from I probably it's the equal probably between farmers and non -farmers and it's definitely made it worth it it's other farm farmers have called up and said thank you because it's exactly their story and people in town have said thank you for educating us and so I'll never regret doing it

with all of the changes that have happened in your life you've been on national television now besides PBS on some of the networks you've testified in Washington before a congressional committee you become a spokesman in many ways for the typical farmers wife are you still a farmers wife oh definitely I one of the few criticisms I heard somebody said I'm not a real farmers wife because I work in town and I it was really frustrating for me because I thought what do I do every night have to work if I'm not a farmer's wife I work 40 hours in town and I actually wrote a letter to an editor and I crumpled it up I thought it was more or less just me getting off my chest but I thought I still go out and I ride the tractor but only after I put in eight hours in town and I go out and help them with field work I still drive a truck every time I chance I get after I'm rather being after work on weekends or my vacation days of course are used to do you know harvest time and that I still plan a garden and it's just it's hard for me because it's not quite the pride thing I have more weeds in there than I've ever had but it's it still produces you know I still

do all those things I still teach the kids are 4 -H I still teach them all the the things that I've always wanted to I still you know all the cooking and all but it's just now I guess I kind of had to delegate to our kids our oldest ones we're 11 and 12 and even our seven year old you know they're we can get them more involved now helping with some of the cooking and well I've always insisted that while farmers are always having to have other jobs to support their habit those of us who live in the cities are also farmers to as long as we live in Nebraska why don't you thank you very much for coming by it's been a fascinating conversation it was a fascinating show and I appreciate everything you're doing for Nebraska farmers and America's farmers I've been talking with Juanita Bushcutter from the farmers wife thank you very much for being here with me this evening and I hope you'll join me here again next week at the same time and I'll introduce you to another fascinating person from this wonderful place called Nebraska local funding for Roger Welsh and has been provided in part by read all about it bookstores Nebraska owned

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