Letter5

The Good Old Days

Letters from my Grandmother

June 7, 2001

"...you may like to hear of tobacco raising. Down around Brookville and Metamora was lots of it grown. Some places was more suitable on the land for tobacco than other crops. Your grandpa raised it until 1937, then we went to Michigan in 1938.

"When we came back to Indiana in 1949 we grew tobacco at the Straughn, or Cambridge City area, farmhouse we left in `71. We grew it around four years, `50 to `54 or `55. Each farm had an allotment. Was only allowed certain acreage. If you put out over that the county agency came and measured it and would chop down any over the allotment or have us do it.

"It was mostly all hard work. Had to burn wood for a tobacco bed to kill weeds, then plant seeds to have plants to set out in May to 1st of June, then cultivate it and keep tomato worms off them. In July you had to remove what was called suckers growing on sides of plant to make it bushier to have more leaves. Then middle of August to the end you cut it down and stood it up on tobacco sticks into the ground and leave it several hours to wilt in the sun as to not be so heavy. Took several people. Someone then on the ground would hand it to someone on flatbed wagon. Then to barn. It would be handed to someone in the barn then to another person higher up. Was left to dry out till November, then was taken down and packed in bulk layers...for it to draw dampness for a few days to be ready to strip off the leaves. The outside leaves was lower grade. Was three grades at least to each stalk. They were tied into what was called hands and put back onto sticks and would soon be taken to be sold. From where we lived was taken to Madison, Indiana or Covington, Kentucky. Lot of hard work but people with small acreage could grow the tobacco which didn't require as much ground as other crops. When we grew it in Henry County four years or so was only one other grower in the county.

"Which brings me to the matter of horses. We had just one horse in our first years of farming. Was named Old Jack, he was getting old, was a horse his mother had gave to him from several they had. Having only one horse you had to grow something would require smaller ground acres. But Old Jack was getting older and got stomach ailment and the veterinarian couldn't save him and he died in 1936. He got a tractor with steel lug wheels in 1937 and raised corn then. Tractors didn't have rubber tires then. A few years after going to Michigan the rubber tires came out and he got one of the rubber tire ones..."

This is from one of a series of letters my grandmother wrote about her life in Indiana in Michigan.

Bravard family tractor, 1957

For more about the history of tobacco farming in the U.S., visit the Duke Homestead in Durham, North Carolina