The Stillmeadow Years: The Rhythm of Life on One Family Farm

By Heather Erickson, Tim Erickson and Laura Erickson Carter

Do you remember in sights or sounds? For one family, the 1970s and 80s were filled with small moments in and around the farm that will never be forgotten. Waking to piano notes lilting from the music room and the sizzle of fresh eggs in the kitchen . . . scanning the horizon for a hint of rain or waiting for the fi

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sweetspire Press
• Release date: Dec 15, 2018
• ISBN: 9781732982611

Heather Erickson

Heather Erickson enjoys writing and spending time with her son when not in a classroom. Earning a bachelor's degree in Early Childhood and Elementary Education from University of Missouri-St. Louis prepared her to begin teaching with primary students, mostly in multi-age classrooms. While earning a Masters in Education from University of Missouri-Columbia, she became intrigued with the concept of aliteracy, which led to new purpose as a teacher of at-risk students in alternative school programs.

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The Stillmeadow Years: The Rhythm of Life on One Family Farm

By Heather Erickson, Tim Erickson, and Laura Erickson Carter

Copyright © 2019 by Sweetspire Press

All rights reserved.

Copyedited, typeset, and printed in the United States of America.

Published by Sweetspire Press.

Sweetspire Press is an imprint of Carter Publishing Studio.

www.sweetspirepress.com

www.carterpublishingstudio.com

Fulton, MO 65251

Edited by Laura Erickson Carter and Heather Erickson.

Cover design, interior design, and production by Laura Erickson Carter.

Thanks to Regina Troyer for design assistance and input.

Cover and interior photographs are from the family archives unless otherwise noted.

Photos for The Music Room, Livestock Projects Teach Tough Lessons, Sick Days, and Those Who Wait" by Laura Erickson Carter.

Photo of Leo Smith from the North Callaway High School Talon yearbook.

Nancy Erickson’s A Woman’s Place was originally published as a letter to the editor of The Missouri Ruralist in 1978.

Bob Erickson contributed his account of their early lives in The Youngest of Eight.

Photo of Stillmeadow Farm sign on final page by Bill Erickson.

The Where I’m From poem template is inspired by George Ella Lyon’s Where I’m From poem.

All rights reserved. No part of this book shall be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, i.e. electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors’ rights. Purchase only authorized editions. Routine photocopying or electronic distribution to others is a copyright violation.

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, contact Laura at Carter Publishing Studio.

No patent liability is assumed with respect to the use of the information contained herein. Although every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and the authors assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. Nor is any liability assumed from damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

This book includes representations of the authors’ personal experiences as well as recollections culled from interviews with some of the subjects. We’d like to thank Bob and Nancy Erickson for all their help in sharing the historical data and fact-checking the proofs. In some essays we may have changed the names of individuals or some identifying characteristics and details. We have made every attempt to recount family history accurately in The Youngest of Eight and Backwards Through Time: A Photographic Essay, but if any of the historical information is inaccurately recalled or reported we regret the error.

The following stories first appeared in the Master Stockman edition of The Country Today: The Music Room, Livestock Projects Teach Tough Lessons, Life Lessons From a Teacher’s Example, Life Is Not Always Fair—Especially in the Show Ring, King of the Road, and Those Who Wait.

ISBN: 978-1-7329826-0-4

eISBN: 978-1-7329826-1-1

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To order, visit www.sweetspirepress.com or www.carterpublishingstudio.com.

For Mom, Dad, and all those

who love to help plants and animals grow.

Table of Contents

Preface

Where I’m From, Part I

The Stillmeadow Years

The Music Room

Portrait of My Mother

A Woman’s Place

Youngest of Eight

Backwards Through Time: A Photographic Essay

Livestock Projects Teach Tough Lessons

State Fair Lullaby

Where I’m From, Part II

Life Lessons From a Teacher’s Example

Sick Days

Somebody Might Think There’s a Problem

Life Is Not Always Fair—Especially in the Show Ring

Running Over Myself

King of the Road

Kenny Joe, the Cousin I Couldn’t Quite Kill

Betrayal

Those Who Wait

Where I’m From, Part III

About the Authors

Preface

Whether written, spoken, or sung, words have played a major role in the lives of my family. After growing up in a house that seemed built around a massive wall of bookshelves, it should have come as no surprise that my siblings and I turned to writing at various moments in our personal and professional lives. For my part, the pieces included within this book were written when writing helped me through dark moments in my present by exploring what will always be the most perfect time of my life, the years spent growing up on my family farm.

For my brother, the pieces in this book allowed his professional life as an agricultural youth specialist to blend with that same era in his personal life. While working as a 4-H Extension Youth Livestock Specialist in the 1990s, Tim contributed a number of pieces inspired by his youth on the farm to the Master Stockman edition of The Country Today, a Wisconsin publication with the motto The Newspaper That Cares About Rural Life. Some of those essays are reprinted, with edits, within these pages.

For my sister, who earns her living by making the words others put on paper look good, this book is one of many expressions of love she has organized in tribute to our parents, Bob and Nancy Erickson. Though Laura lived on Stillmeadow Farm for little more than two years before going off to college and ultimately moving far from Missouri to start her own life as an adult, a decade of summer vacations and extended visits to the farm made Stillmeadow Farm her home too. She is grateful for the opportunity to share a treasure trove of family history, photographs, and memories.

Whether you are lucky enough to have known our parents, we hope that these stories will speak to you in some way.

— Heather Erickson

If you aren’t there in time

to set up the chairs, you’re late.

If you leave before the job is done,

you left early.

Where I’m From, Part I

I am from baling twine,

from Massey Ferguson and a windmill.

I am from the boxy white farmhouse,

dank clammy cellar that made my flesh crawl.

I am from the buckeye, daffodil, Osage orange tree,

the pampas plume, iris, and mulberry tree.

I am from evening meals together

and discussions that never ended

I am from Bob and Nancy Erickson.

­— Heather

The Stillmeadow Years

— Heather —

The Thompson, Missouri farm that my parents dubbed Stillmeadow Farm upon the family’s arrival there in 1974.

In the spring of 1973, our family owned