Working with Animal;s a Census and a Poll

Who was the last person in your family to work with animals as part of your occupation?

What are you talking about? I work with animals as part of my occupation right now. . .sheesh.
5
42%
My father/mother (specify which).
3
25%
One of my grandparents (specify which).
2
17%
One of my great grandparents (specify which).
2
17%
I know who it was, and it was none of the above. . .(tell us who).
0
No votes
As far as I know, nobody in my family has fit this category since the first Gyros shop was opened by Plato in Greece.
0
No votes
 
Total votes: 12
Pat Holscher
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Out of curiousity, I pose yet another census type question.

Who was your last ancestor to work full time (i.e, exclusively, not with two jobs, etc.) with animals? Any employment that involves animals would count. So, for example, driving a beer wagon would count, if it was horse drawn.

Also, when did they last do that?
selewis
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Great grandfather. Stagecoach driver.1880 or so.

I also have relatives in New England who raised some of the best Morgan horses in the country, whose blood still influences the breed. It was a good sized operation employing a full time trainer, grooms, and farm hands. They also bred Corgis, English Setters and Newfoundlands. But all of the above was just for the blue blooded fun of it. Apple farming helped to defray the cost of those passions. At it's height that would have been from the 40's through the 1970's.

Sandy
Larry Emrick
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Hi Pat: Both my grandfathers worked full time with horses on their Ontario farms, and my paternal grandfather also at a sawmill, in the 20s 30s and 40s. My maternal grandfather had a tractor but kept the horses until he sold the family farm about 1950
Fast-forward to today and my daughter works even longer hours with horses than they probably did, say 10-12 hour days. She trains horses and riders, sometimes riding up to six or eight horses a day, including her own, and runs two barns with a total of about 30 horses - and two goats. In the summer she is on the competition circuit either riding herself or training her students.
It is the only job she has ever had, but sadly she seldom rides for fun anymore and I cannot remember the last time we got to ride together.

Cheers, Larry
Pat Holscher
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Larry Emrick wrote:It is the only job she has ever had, but sadly she seldom rides for fun anymore and I cannot remember the last time we got to ride together
I think that's pretty common with those who work a lot with horses. My wife, who is a wonderful rider, so associates riding with working cattle that the thought of pleasure riding is almost completely incomprehensible to her.
Pat Holscher
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In my case, the last person in my family to work somehow full time in an occupation with animals, with no other source of income, would be my grandfather in my father's side. He had a string of livestock related businesses, all of ceased to exist shortly after his death in the late 1940s.

My father also worked for my grandfather. He was a teenager when my grandfather died, so perhaps his last work there was basically contemporaneous with that. I think this would be about 1949.

I have no idea how far back this would be the case with my maternal lineage. A long ways back.
mnhorse
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Wow! This will make for some great recollections.
Here is my bit.
Dad was a full time farmer from 1943 thru about 1960 (when he added a construction business)
During that time, he had dairy cattle, hogs (breeding and finishing), a flock of sheep and laying hens. All field work was done with horses until about 1950, when he got a Ford 8N tractor. Horses continued as the power source for raking hay, hauling manure, woodlot work and grain harvest (cutting oats and hauling to the thresher). He stopped farming altogether in 1967 when a large number of his Holsteins were exported to Mexico.
My paternal Grandfather was also a general farmer until his death in 1950. His was a more marginal operation, with dairy, hogs and sheep. He also derived income from a logging operation. I don't recall him ever having a tractor. He and Grandma used a horse and buggy to go to church well into the automotive age.
My maternal Grandfather had a small Allis Chalmers model B tractor as far back as I can recall, but most farm and woodlot work was horsepowered. He was involved in Brown Swiss dairy cattle and Duroc hogs. As I recall, he actually managed and operated a farm for the local banker. He retired in 1951.
My younger brother gave dairy and horsepower farming a go back in the 1980s.
In 1989 he moved to Virgina and took a position as "farm manager" at a hunter/jumper breeding operation. He handled the breeding, foaling etc etc. Other than pasture care, no farming or haying were carried out. He did this full time for about 8 years.
My wife's family were more "town folk".But her Grandfather was a harness maker, from 1912 through the 1950s, in Northfield, Minnesota. The town the "defeated" Jesse James.
Richard
Last edited by mnhorse on Mon Dec 28, 2009 1:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
tmarsh
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KInda fun, thinking about this. On mondays I am very fortunate to have lunch at my parents home and since my brother has retired he also eats there. My brother is 5 years older than I and I was born in 1952. Both my grandparents farmed the Iowa soil. And their parents were also farmers. One of my greatgrandfathers was also a harness maker after he left farming. So both my grandparents farmed with horses and mules. I was talking with my brother and he remembers being with 1 grandfather and helping with the farming. He remembers plowing and picking corn by hand. He also remembers a feed grinder that was horse driven in which the horse walked around a circle. He also talked about a hay loader in which they put loose hay in the barn. My dad talked about plowing with mules. He also said that they raised them with a neighbor having a really good Jack. He said that his dad preferred mules for the farming. My father however is not fond of the equine specis. My Mother even talked about how she would plow with her older sister and pick corn. She said that she would drive the horses and her older sister would adjust the plow. She also related a story when her and her sister were picking corn and it started to storm and her father had to come out and get them because they thought they should not go back home without the wagon full. Mom also talked about her father training horses and at one time having to hang on to the rope of stallion. Fun story about my Dad and his cousin going for a drive in a buggy and the horse balked on a wooden bridge until a steam driven train came and then spooked running off. The 2 jumped off. The gate to the lot was left open and the horse went straight to it's stall leaving a broken buggy and harness at the doorway. He could not remember how much trouble his cousin got into for that. Tom
Joseph Sullivan
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I did, managing horse farms, 35 years or so ago, and my sister still does.
Pat Holscher
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Joseph Sullivan wrote:I did, managing horse farms, 35 years or so ago, and my sister still does.
I didn't know your sister managed horse farms. How interesting!

And, of course, I should note that there are several participants here, most notably Cpt. Roy Elderkin, who have been mounted infantrymen or cavalrymen, and they certainly had personal full time horse experience, to say the least.
Joseph Sullivan
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Yes, she runs a good sized establishment outside Bozeman, Montana.
Couvi
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All of the male relatives and some of the females in my family from my parent’s generation and before were involved in the production of cotton and sugar cane using mules, and herding cattle and hogs in the woods on horse or mule-back. None of them that I spoke to had many fond recollections of doing so. My Dad was a tractor guy, and despised horses and mules.
Pat Holscher
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Couvi wrote:All of the male relatives and some of the females in my family from my parent’s generation and before were involved in the production of cotton and sugar cane using mules, and herding cattle and hogs in the woods on horse or mule-back. None of them that I spoke to had many fond recollections of doing so. My Dad was a tractor guy, and despised horses and mules.
One of my inlaws, an excellent horseman who works daily with horses now and really likes them, related to me that his father had abandoned plow horses so fast when tractors came along it wasn't even funny. That individual continued to ride horses, by necessity, the rest of his life, but he never really cared all that much for them. Occupational necessity.
Pat Holscher
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Pat Holscher wrote:
Couvi wrote:All of the male relatives and some of the females in my family from my parent’s generation and before were involved in the production of cotton and sugar cane using mules, and herding cattle and hogs in the woods on horse or mule-back. None of them that I spoke to had many fond recollections of doing so. My Dad was a tractor guy, and despised horses and mules.
One of my inlaws, an excellent horseman who works daily with horses now and really likes them, related to me that his father had abandoned plow horses so fast when tractors came along it wasn't even funny. That individual continued to ride horses, by necessity, the rest of his life, but he never really cared all that much for them. Occupational necessity.
Following on this, I'm sure I've mentioned it in another thread, but a veteran of one of the formerly mounted British units, who joined it right after World War Two, related to me that upon coming into the regiment there were still a lot of officers and ems who had been in it when it had horses. One of them related to him that when the horses were to be taken away, an officer gathered his men with tears in his eyes to tell them the horses were going to go. He was stunned when the men cheered.
sandgroper
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My father was the last to work full time with horses in my family.

He was born in 1910 and had to take over the running of the family wheat and sheep property after my grandfather died in 1930. They were progressive farmers and were using CASE tractors at the time of my grandfathers death.

Of course by 1930 the effects of the great depression were being felt in Australia and by 1935 my father had reverted back to farming with a team of horses, having sold the tractors when parts and fuel became expensive and virtually unprocurable. This became even worse in 1939 when Australia put their hand up to help with the war in Europe and no new civilian machinery or tractors were available, for any amount of money.

This situation continued until he purchased a new McCormick Deering tractor in 1948.

My father always said his years farming with horses were the best, cropping smaller acreages and having to rest the team. Once the tractor returned it could be worked 24/7 with the only stop for fuel and servicing, farms became bigger, then more tractors and employing workers to keep them going during seeding and harvesting.

Have attached a photo of my father with one of his favourite team horses.
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Pat Holscher
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sandgroper wrote:My father was the last to work full time with horses in my family.

He was born in 1910 and had to take over the running of the family wheat and sheep property after my grandfather died in 1930. They were progressive farmers and were using CASE tractors at the time of my grandfathers death.

Of course by 1930 the effects of the great depression were being felt in Australia and by 1935 my father had reverted back to farming with a team of horses, having sold the tractors when parts and fuel became expensive and virtually unprocurable. This became even worse in 1939 when Australia put their hand up to help with the war in Europe and no new civilian machinery or tractors were available, for any amount of money.

This situation continued until he purchased a new McCormick Deering tractor in 1948.

My father always said his years farming with horses were the best, cropping smaller acreages and having to rest the team. Once the tractor returned it could be worked 24/7 with the only stop for fuel and servicing, farms became bigger, then more tractors and employing workers to keep them going during seeding and harvesting.

Have attached a photo of my father with one of his favourite team horses.
Wow! Look at that size of that draft horse!
Philip S
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Not full time, but my mother's adopted parents were school teachers and had a ranch in Oregon. Unfortunately her father died and they moved to Iowa when she was still quite young. My mother however used to tell me stories about her ex cavalry horse REX and to the end loved to watch Westerns. In Iowa the family farm was near Roland but lost during the depression. I have a picture of it on the wall beside the computer.

My grandfather on my father's side was a wheelwrite in Jamaica. He later became foreman loading banana boats for the United Fruit Co. in Port Antonio.
Long rope

I come from a ranching family. Myself, two brothers, and my parents, all work cattle horseback. One of my brothers does have another job. He's the cow boss at the USDA research ranch at Ft. Keogh, so even in his day job he's horseback.

Casey Mott
Custer, Montana
Pat Holscher
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Looking at the appendices of war horse I ran across, again, the list of Remount agents who were associated with the Army's Remount program.

That reminded me of this thread. My goodness, at one time, the number of people who worked with animals on a daily basis was large. And that was the case fairly recently, really.
Pat Holscher
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Rural mail carriers, 1940:

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Pat Holscher
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Related to this question, and to an earlier discussion on the list somewhere about how WWII opened up college, through the GI bill, to entire classes of people who had not previously attended, I'll ask this specifically regarding World War Two, but also trail it out as late as the Korean War.

For those of you who experienced the eras, or who are closely familiar with those who did, what were the work/career expectations of those folks prior to WWII, and did WWII change them in any fashion?
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