When you are the youngest in a family, it is more often than not that what all of those ahead of you were doing was just what you wanted to do. I know at our home I was the youngest and what I watched my Mom and Dad, sister Peg, and brother Ben do was what I felt was the only way for something to be done. I grew up on a family farm and in the years of the baby boomer. Therefore, a family’s life took on the look of a small universe entirely inside the fence lines of that farm. To a little boy, the life on the farm was his universe and all of those existing in that universe were the main players in the way the world went around.
In our world, my Dad was the leader and had the final say on almost all that was to be decided. My Mom, though, was the ruler of the house and for the most part our garden, which in those days was a large section of land, and much of how we all were to survive depended on that garden. Now as for Peg and Ben, they were the workers that were to assist Dad and Mom and were very helpful in keeping us all informed on how the outside world such as at church and school and classmates delivered the local news to them. As for me, well I was eight and 12 years younger than my siblings were and was usually the last one to be aware of anything that had happened or was going to happen.
To be the youngest was not always a bad place to be in the family lineup but as to my usefulness to the rest I always felt I was maybe dragging them down a little, and that just did not suit me too well at all. I looked to my Dad as one of the most successful men I have ever known even to this day. It just seemed that when Dad made a decision he seemed to always make the right decision. However, here .
Then there was my Mom. She did not always make correct decisions but she was loaded with so much energy that if need be she could correct a mistake and would do just that. Mom was well read and could quote from great literature or good hymns that would inspire you to keep on working even if you were dead tired.
My sister was a serious person with a big heart and understood her position in the family organization and being 12 years older than I became my second mother. It can be hard not have it good with two moms you know? My brother Ben was my entertainer. He played games with me and built me toys to keep me pacified as the family worked. Ben had or was learning from Dad how things were to be done on our farm and Ben was good at it. One interesting trait was that Ben had very little trouble with allowing others to pick up his job and do it for him. (A regular Tom Sawyer he was.)
Here was my family, a hard working and loving a bunch as you’d ever meet. Each was super productive to be and carried their own weight in contribution to our family farm. I think you can see where I am heading in that being at the end of the family line I felt like more of a liability than an asset. Never did any one of them ever make that statement, but when you are at the end of the line, there just is not anything to look back on. With the view I was getting, and my feelings I was not a total weight puller, I became one to feel I was not the quality they all were.
Therefore, I got it in my head and took an attitude that I had to try harder and work more to be a positive helper to the clan. Every time there was a chore to be done, I would ask my Dad how to do it and then ask if I could do it for him. It was amazing just how many times he said yes to me wanting to help. I would do this with my Mom in the house but more in the garden or when we worked together in the tobacco crop and again Mom would say yes to my request to help.
When it came to Peg and Ben, I could not wait to help them as I idolized them. After all, they were teenagers. It is safe to say that when you are in the group of siblings and your station is where you are looking up to them, you want that approval more than ever and this was so in my case. I would work with them to help and they accepted me in a very thankful way. Interesting enough I learned later on that all my idolizing and teen worship did pay off. I learned that their friends liked having me around, as I was funny and always waited on them. (You cannot be too kind you know.)
So after many years on our universe of “Pine Acre Farm” I taught myself how to be of use to myself and all the rest of the place. I learned how from hard work. That was not the fun way but it was the way I have to be a more valuable member of the universe. I learned that if you learn how something is done and it never mattered the size of the job, you became one item more valuable. I never liked sprouting potatoes or sweeping out the stripping room or cleaning stables. Nothing listed there was of any enjoyment but they all needed to be done and if you just did it you became a more important member to the family. I can tell you all now that by the time I was an adult I was a solid member of the Houser family and am still proud of that today.
Rick Houser grew up on a farm near Moscow in Clermont County and loves to share stories about his youth and other topics. If you want to read more of his writing, he has two books for sale and you can get them by contacting Rick at hpuser734@yahoo.com. Or just write to him at P.O. Box 213 Bethel, Ohio 45106. Or the books can be purchased on Amazon.
