While a family can have many generations carry on the traditions and livelihood that is Canadian agriculture, there’s something even more special when the same piece of land is still in the family several generations later. This is not terribly uncommon; but it is unique, to have both sides of a family continue to live and farm the same land that was homesteaded by their ancestors, five generations earlier.
It’s curious to imagine what would have been the criteria for our forefathers (and mothers) in choosing a piece of property to homestead as settlers, moving into the area so many years ago. Can you imagine coming to a new, broad expanse of land and what would possibly go through the minds of the pioneers in choosing something that was ‘just right’ to settle on? Certainly, a water source would be one, as well as proximity to transportation thoroughfares. And being farmers, surely the topography, environment, and soil type would play a factor.
Up until five years ago when she moved to Brandon, Roma Stevenson lived on the family farm south of Kenton. Both her family of origin, the Toltons, as well as that of her late husband, Hudge Stevenson, continue to farm the same quarters of land that were homesteaded by their respective grandparents, Annie and Henry Tolton, and Frederick and Betsy Stevenson; the Tolton homestead now by the fifth generation, Sean and Candace Tolton of the Verity district south of Kenton, and the fourth generation Stevenson homestead, by Robert and Ellen Stevenson of the Shiloh/Education Point district south of Harding.
Roma is fortunate in that she is quite literally the centre link in the chain; binding family history to present day life. She is the connection to the past, as she knew well both her own grandparents, as well as her late husband’s mother, and is a segue to the future. At 98 years young with incredible remembrance, she is able to recall with clarity, memories from the farm as she knew it when a youngster, and appreciates the changes in agriculture that make it what it is today. She is able to bridge the gap between the two generations of life on the farm before her, as well as the two to three generations after her.
“No one loves the farm more than Roma,” commented her daughter-in-law, Mary Ann Stevenson, who lives with her husband, Richard, on the farm adjacent to the original homesteaded Stevenson quarter.
While her stories are not unlike others of the day, they are important to tell, share and record, for otherwise they are lost for those who knew and experienced them. They are important pieces of our history which is the foundation for the evolution of Canadian agriculture.
Roma remembers a time when everyone helped each other out: graciousness. Whether it be the boys at school who would unharness and feed her horse upon arrival at the one-room schoolhouse, to the threshing gangs who did not rest until every stook was threshed and the neighbors’ harvests were safely stowed away, to her Dad picking up groceries and necessities in Oak Lake some 10 miles away for the neighbors, as he was the one from the area going by team and sleigh to pick Roma up from high school on the weekend.
She remembers things like the milk inspector coming to their place and staying overnight, which was a common occurrence of the day. She also remembers, with an appreciation for the advancements made in technology, that back when she was a girl, there was no refrigeration. They kept their cream down in the well to keep it cool, and on numerous occasions, having to climb down the ladder the six feet or so with the water spraying out all around and the pump going up and down, to either deposit the cream, or fetch it when needed!
“I remember climbing down the ladder into the first level of the windmill and keeping the cream on a little platform there,” she said with clear, but uneasy remembrance. “Imagine!”
Of course, horses were the means of the era for operating farm equipment as well as their sole source of transportation. The same horse, Dimples, transported Roma and all of the Tolton siblings, spanning some 15 years, to and from Verity school a mile and a half away.
Roma remembers, on at least one particular occasion when she was about 15 or 16 years old, of having to drive a four-horse team to help her dad with the farming once her older brother, Roland, had gone off to university. She also reported, happily, that it wasn’t long before she was relieved of her duties!
Roma met and married Hudge (Horace) Stevenson of the Shiloh district, a WWII veteran, in 1946 and they put down roots on the quarter adjacent to the original Stevenson homesteaded quarter.
In “Cradle to Combine Volume 3”, Roma tells of the Christmas of 1947 when hydro came to the area and suddenly, they had electric lights in place of lamps and lanterns!
Together, Hudge and Roma raised a family of five; three girls and two boys. For thirty-three years they produced cattle, purebred Yorkshire swine and grew pedigreed seed.
Sadly, Hudge Stevenson passed away at an early age, but not before he and Roma instilled a passion for all things ag, in their sons and daughters.
“When Hudge drove out of the farm for the last time,” said Roma stoically, “it was harvest time, and he told me, ‘Don’t worry about the boys, they know everything they need to know to carry on.’” Their youngest son, Richard, was 20 at the time.
“There was nothing else I wanted to do,” said Richard of carrying on the dual family tradition. “Everyone around me loved farming. My Dad loved to farm, but so did my mother.”
Then he laughed, “Our destiny was pre-determined by our parents.”
Roma really is the heart of the farm, whether it be the fifth generation Tolton homestead, or the fourth/fifth generation Stevenson one. She still has a keen interest in the farm’s goings-on; what’s planted and where, is conscious of growing conditions and the weather, is curious about crop progress, advancements in seed genetics and technology, harvest and the like. Once a farmer, or a farmer’s wife, always a farmer. She has provided over 25 descendants the opportunity to know farm life.
“She may not have been the one doing the threshing, but there are 25 – 30 cousins that consider the farm their home,” said Mary Ann of their extended family’s consideration of the family farm, Grandma Roma’s, if you will. “Roma’s interest and groundedness there has always made them feel like it is still their farm.”
“I was just so lucky to be able to stay on the farm my whole life,” said Roma thankfully, “to be there with my sons and their wonderful wives. We just had our own little community there. And I was able to have my Winnipeg grandchildren out often and I really wanted them to be out and not just think there was only the city. I just thought it was my duty to show my grandchildren that there was someplace beyond the perimeter.”
It is folks like Roma that are so diligent in keeping those who have moved to off-farm careers, the urban dwellers that are one or two or more generations removed from the farm, connected to it and knowing where their food comes from and how it is grown.
“Roma has kept the farm in the family and her family involved in the farm,” said Mary Ann.
Mission accomplished Roma.
Like many others including Roma’s families, it will be interesting to see how many more generations continue to call their multi-generational farms, ‘home’.
