Cows in Heaven
Project Proposal
“I’m just a farmer, plain and simple. Not of royal birth, but rather, a worker of the earth.”
-Bobby Collier
He gets up every morning to the rise of the sun, aches as he gets out of bed, and thanks the Lord for another day to live. He gets in his 1994 Crown Victoria and drives to McDonalds for breakfast. He has done this every morning for so long now that people have started to ask him his story. He has friends that he never knew before now that want to eat breakfast with him. He tells them about his life, and they want him to tell them about the Lord. He tries his best, but he ends up getting the preacher to come eat with them now. He has started a Bible study, and he wasn’t even trying to.
After breakfast, he goes to the house and gets on his golf cart. It is time to work. His knees are strong thanks to his recent surgery to give him newly constructed knees, but his hands are rough, and his fingers are stiff. He drives out to the cow pasture to check on his cows. He jokes with them wondering if they will be able to go to Heaven with him when he dies. He has no fear of death, but he wants to be busy as long as he is still on Earth. He calls them with his famous “Heyoooo,” and they follow him by his voice to the next field for grazing. He has been doing this since he was born, and he plans to until he dies.
Some would say that life on the farm is lonely, and they would be right, but even when he gets lonely sometimes, he is reminded of the good that he has. His wife passed away six years ago from the awful disease, Alzheimer’s. He knows that she is better off in Heaven though he can’t help but wonder what life would be like if she was still here and healthy. Instead, he marches on through the day doing all that he knows to do. Farming. Curtis Lavone Southwell was born on September 21, 1930, on the farm that he still lives on today. He grew up farming with his father, Curtis William Southwell.
Appendicitis
The younger Curtis went to the doctor one day with abdominal pain, and his doctor told him that he needed to get his appendix removed. He thought he needed a different opinion, so he went to a chiropractor in town. Martha Roland Bell prepped him for the chiropractor, and he immediately was attracted to her. After she told him that she did not date patients, he convinced her to go on a date with him. Two years of courting later, Curtis and Martha married, and to this day he still has his appendix. They had four children, Kenneth, Marsha, and the twins, Robert and William. Marsha eventually left the farm when she married Greg Hagan, and in 1996, I was born as the youngest of three.
Now I find myself walking on the ground that my grandfather’s father walked on looking for answers to my unknown family tree. There are the memories of when we used to all come here for Christmas Eve with the Southwells, or the Sunday dinners that Grandmama cooked for everyone that could eat. Children were raised in this house, and they all moved out to their separate ways. There are a lot of things that have changed, but some things remain. Like the old pecan tree that has watched over everything, and my grandfather, who like that tree is deeply rooted in the land of his youth.
Bus Driver
Grandaddy was only a boy when as he put it, “The war was on. All of the men were gone overseas fighting for our country, so I had to do my job.” There were no bus drivers in town anymore, so at the age of 15, Grandaddy became a bus driver for the Warnock High School. He got up at 5 in the morning before school started, drove the school bus to pick up his fellow students, and drove to the school. After class, he drove everyone home in the bus and went home and did his chores. He did this for three years in high school making 15 dollars a month.
Things used to seem a lot simpler back in those days. Today, everything is complex and complicated, but maybe we would be better off if we simplified again. Through this project, I would like to study the history of the farm in Brooklet that my mom’s side of the family has farmed for nearly a century as well as use ancestry.com to find when and where my family came to America. Growing up on a farm requires a lot of sweat and hard work, and it is easy to become stern and mean from it, but there is also qualities like nurturing and understanding that come from being on the farm. The farmer is the best occupation in America because if everything shuts down, a farmer knows how to find food and shelter.
Interview Questions:
1. What is your full name and date of birth?
2. Where were you born?
3. Do you live in the house that you were born in?
4. Can you tell me any stories from your childhood?
5. Did you have any siblings?
6. If so, how many?
7. Did they live with you growing up?
8. Did you farm with your father growing up?
9. How did you manage schooling and farming?
10. You were in the navy right?
11. What did you do after you graduated high school?
12. How did you meet Grandmama
13. When were you married, and have you always lived in Brooklet since you got married?
14. Do you think you’re going to work for the rest of your life?
15. Do you still go to the cow auction?
16. Can you tell me about your ancestors?
17. What is the thing that you are looking forward to most in life?
18. Does your faith impact your future?
Sources
Kelly, Hulda K. I See by the Paper. Athens: UGA Library, 1984. Print.
Paulsen, Gary. Harris and Me. Orlando: Harcourt, Inc., 1993.
Peck, Robert Newton. A Day No Pigs Would Die. New York: Random House Inc., 1972.
The ESV Study Bible, English Standard Version. Crossway, 2008. Print.
Chambers, John Whiteclay. To raise an army: The draft comes to modern America. Free Press, 1987.
