The Tomato Farmer: A True Story

I have had this story on my hard drive for more than 7 years.

I have never shared it with anyone outside of my small group of family and friends, because it was a very personal story. It is a story written about my grandmother, my Mammaw. It was written by Carolyn Flesher of Grafton, WV, her neighbor for several years before Mammaw died. I have her permission to share it with you today.

I am sharing this story today, because it is a story of hope. As we head into 2007, we need all the hope we can get.

Yesterday I wrote about the staggering poverty numbers presented by the World Institute for Development of Economics Research. That was an eye opener for me. The comments and responses all point to education as the key to helping change this situation. This story is about a poor woman who had her own way of educating, and who solely by the power of her will, left a legacy that leads to your computer screen right now. Enjoy.

She is a mother, a grandmother and a great grandmother, but she is not mine.

She is a staunch Methodist and I struggle to follow my Baptist upbringing.

She is a retired schoolteacher and principal, but I never sat in one of her classrooms.

Our first introduction was on a sunny summer afternoon. "This is Carolyn, Brooks' wife," my mother-in-law said. Her response was not a polite, "hello, glad to meet you" or "how are you," but rather as straightforward and sharp as the tomato stakes she was carrying. "I hope you brought something to put tomatoes in. I'll meet you at the second garden," she said.

What an unfriendly old woman, I thought, and wondered why people became so mean and hardened as they grow older. I was quick to judge her. She is just a simple countrywoman who knows little about anything else, nor cares to know, I thought. She was plain looking with a stocky build and rough hands that told the story of a lifetime of hard work.

Little did I know that she would become my greatest teacher and make a great difference in my life.

I had pushed my career aside and was now identified only as Brooks' wife and the mother of two little boys. I believed that this would be all of the fulfillment I needed. Not realizing that in doing so I would lose my own identity and fall out of touch with myself. I was suffering from the Cinderella Complex.

Two years past, my husband and I were looking for a place to buy. This is no easy task for a young couple with two small children who are living on one income. As if by some unwritten fate we found that place, right next door to the tomato farmer. There was nothing between us but a small creek. It was a piece of land she had once owned and still had a great love for. It was the "perfect" place, but I worried. She was 85 years old and kids bother most older people. Would she keep their ball if it rolled in her yard? Would I have to tie my dog? Maybe she doesn't like dogs either?

"Don't bother Mrs. Turner," I told my children; but before long I found them sitting on her front porch eating an ice cream. Come on kids; don't bother Mrs. Turner, I told them once again. "Oh, they are not bothering me," she called back from the kitchen window. "I enjoy having kids around, that's what keeps my young. When they finish they have a job to do for me, to pay for their ice cream. Then I will send them home."

They have now worked out sort of a barter system. What a good value she has taught my children. She will give them one cent for each planton they dig from her yard, some days they earn 20 cents, with which they may purchase an ice cream if they so desire. I expect that by the end of the summer neither of us will have any planton in our yard or any pennies in our purse. Can you think of any job worth one cent? My children can.

I found myself making trips across the creek more and more often to round up my boys.

With the unintentional help of the kids, we have become good neighbors and friends.

I often wondered how she managed to raise four boys when I struggle to raise two.

In watching her in the garden from my kitchen window I realized that it was a great struggle for her old body to work from the end of one row and back again, but she perseveres as if she never intends to give up.

I was not working outside of the home and had some spare time, so I volunteered to help her.

This became an everyday routine. It was a chore at first, but soon became a pleasure. We had plenty of time to chat as we hoed in seeds, hoed out weeds and set over 300 tomato plants.

I never dreamed that I would partake of 85 years of knowledge in that tomato patch.

Her husband was blinded before they were married in a mining accident. With four small children, she was forced to become self-sufficient in a time when it was unusual for a mother to work outside the home.

The only financial resource available was what she could generate from the 200 acres they had inherited. With an old pickup truck and handsaws she started a timber company.

With the help of neighbors and family members, they were able to cut enough timber to pay her tuition for college. She tells me that she drove to Fairmont everyday in the same beat up old pickup with one fender missing. All of the other students were young and driving nicer cars their parents had bought. She says that she was not embarrassed by this because she was doing her best to better herself and when you do the best you can that is always good enough. So rather than dwelling on her poverty, she prayed every night that the old truck would take her to school one more day. She got her degree and became a working mother.

This is just one of the many lessons that she taught me. In the garden we have discussed everything from wildflowers to sex.

I now have a great respect for that simple countrywoman that I was so quick to judge. When I come upon a stumbling block in my marriage, my career, or in the rearing of my children I can always count on the tomato farmer for guidance by sharing one of her own true life stories with me.

She has taught me that we are only as happy as we choose to be and that we literally reap what we sow.

In this technological age that we live in, the best resource we have is still the human resource. If you are ever given the opportunity to know someone who has walked in your shoes, take heed.

And if you know someone who is doing the best they can to find their way through the tangled mess we call success, take them by the hand and help them find the way.

Happy New Year. In the coming year, may you either know a tomato farmer or be one.