Many Things Are Gone Forever

Across the Fence #275

Several recent stories seem to have touched the nerves of “Across the Fence” readers. I’ve received many letters and e-mails concerning the loss of quiet places and the way of life that so many of you grew up with. It reminded me of the words of Waheenee (Buffalo Bird Woman), a member of the Hidatsa in North Dakota. She was born around 1839 and died in 1932.

“I am an old woman now. The buffaloes and black-tail deer are gone, and our Indian ways are almost gone. Sometimes I find it hard to believe that I ever lived them. But for me, I cannot forget our old ways.

“Often in summer, I rise at day break and steal out to the corn fields, and as I hoe the corn I sing to it, as we did when I was young. No one cares for our corn songs now.

“Sometimes in the evenings I sit, looking out on the big Missouri. The sun sets, and dusk steals over the water. In the shadows I seem again to see our Indian village, with smoke curling upward from the earth lodges, and in the rivers roar, I hear the yells of our warriors, and the laughter of little children as of old.

“It is but an old woman’s dream. Then I see but the shadows and hear only the roar of the river, and tears come into my eyes. Our Indian life, I know, is gone forever.”

I find it sad that Buffalo Bird Woman reached the winter of her life and realized that the world as she had known it was gone, and would never return. I think many older people today are experiencing the same feelings. As I talked about in earlier columns, many changes have taken place during our lifetime. Most people wouldn’t want to go back to doing without things we’ve become accustomed to, but many of you expressed the feeling that you don’t think all the changes have been for the better. The world seems to be speeding through the cosmos at break-neck speed. Things are changing too fast for many of you, and just like Buffalo Bird Woman, you know that the world will never be the same as the one you grew up in.

Many of you were raised in a rural society. Barns, windmills, fences, milking cows, canning food from your own garden, rural schools, and outhouses, were part of your life. In the early days you didn’t have a television, computer, air conditioning, or cell phone, among countless other inventions. Many of you remember farming with horses before you had a tractor.

As I drive the country roads I notice all the old barns and farm buildings that now stand empty and are deteriorating. I wonder what stories we’d hear if those walls could talk? I think of our old barn that was demolished a year ago. Before it was torn down and buried, I wandered around in it, took many photos, and observed all the features that I had neglected to notice before. I realized that the old barn, and many others like it, are fast disappearing from the countryside.

The way of life that went on in those barns, not that many years ago, is gone forever on most farms. I close my eyes and listen: Gone is the sound of stanchions jangling as cows stretched to pilfer hay from a neighboring cow; gone is the sound of milk pails being emptied into a strainer; gone are the milk cans; gone is the sound of cow’s hoofs on cement as they hurried out the door after being milked; gone are most haymows piled full of bales; gone is the feeling of warmth in an old barn on a cold winter day.

I open my eyes and everything is quiet… and gone. The old barn is gone, the tobacco shed is gone, the chicken house is gone, the hog houses are gone, the granary is gone, the old log house is gone, the outhouse is gone, the windmill is gone, the cistern and pump are gone, most of the fences are gone, a way of life is gone… and it’s not coming back.

The evolution of life continues and changes with each generation. We can’t even imagine the many changes the next generation will see and experience. Our way of life will be as alien to them as the earth lodges of Buffalo Bird Woman are to our generation.

In the twilight shadows I see again the old buildings of our farm. I see the smoke curling up from the chimney of the old house I was raised in and hear the “putt, putt, putt” of the old John Deere tractors. Then, like Buffalo Bird Woman, I see only shadows where the past used to live.

Within those shadows of a disappearing way of life, we find some wonderful memories begin to emerge, like a beautiful butterfly from a cocoon. The overwhelming response I received from readers is that they cherish those memories and are glad they had the opportunity to live during that period. It was a hard, physical life, but it was a good life, where families worked together, and neighbors helped neighbors. That way of life may soon be gone, but it still lives on in all of us who were there.