![\"Morris](\"http:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Morris-head-new-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a>) This community recently paid tribute to the life and times of Helen Owens\u2014a farmer\u2019s wife. Helen was a widely loved farmer\u2019s wife for most of her adult life.\u00a0\u00a0With a courageous and indomitable will and spirit she lived on into her 95th\u00a0year.\u00a0\u00a0When the time came she quietly left her farm house and passed through the Pearly Gates into her long anticipated Heavenly home.<\/p>\nHelen\u2019s long life began at the end of World War I.\u00a0\u00a0She grew to young adulthood in the \u201cRoaring 20\u2019s\u201d and the somber and painful years of the greatest depression in American History.\u00a0\u00a0In 1938 she married a handsome Welshman named Azor, a union that would last over seven decades with three handsome, gifted children, many grandchildren and great grandchildren.<\/p>\n
Azor and Helen (and later their son Dennis) farmed often unforgiving hills several miles west of the village of Brookfield.\u00a0\u00a0In all these years of daily toil there were cycles of good times, and hard, rivers of tears of sadness and those of incredible highs of almost magical joys.\u00a0\u00a0The years seemed to all too rapidly roll on with the unexplainable and mysterious arrival of new bodily aches and pains.\u00a0\u00a0They were slipping into old age.\u00a0\u00a0But neither Azor nor Helen ever faltered but doggedly pushed on in the great tradition of the toilers of the soil.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cQuit\u201d has never been a word in their family\u2019s dictionary.<\/p>\n
Indeed Helen\u2019s roots grew deep and strong in the soil of this community and nation; first planted on the fringes of the East Coast in the early 17th\u00a0Century.\u00a0\u00a0Her ancestors didn\u2019t understand the meaning of giving up either.\u00a0\u00a0Both Helen and Azor possessed an unquenchable thirst for history.\u00a0\u00a0The life and times of many generations were carefully recorded in stories and an abundance of printed and pictorial memorabilia.\u00a0\u00a0A treasure trove of information they loved to share with others.<\/p>\n
Helen (and Azor) took the time to love deeply and were widely loved in turn.\u00a0\u00a0Despite the incessant work of a farmer\u2019s wife, Helen enjoyed all the fascinating delights in abundance that the seasons presented to one attuned to their surroundings; delights that have no price tag.<\/p>\n
This simple country man has the greatest admiration for women like Helen Owens and all the women and wives whose menfolk depend of them in countless vital ways.\u00a0\u00a0As it\u2019s been in the past, so it will be in the future.<\/p>\n
Helen\u2019s generation of farm wives, sadly, will soon all be gone.\u00a0\u00a0Only memories will remain to remind us of their prodigious work ethic before and in some cases during the transition years between hand and horse power to REA electric and increasing mechanization.<\/p>\n
What must it have been like:\u00a0hand pumps, privy, slop buckets, freezing nights, coal oil lamps, wash tubs, kitchen ranges with reservoirs, ice for refrigeration, washing, ironing, dusting, pushing brooms or sweepers, cooking, pumping, dumping, serving, mending, canning, toting coal, firewood, hand milking, straining milk, churning, filling lamps, trimming wicks, cleaning smoked chimneys, tending babies in arms–finding time to meet visitors, go to church–and this is just the tip of their daily effort!\u00a0Amazing to try to comprehend, isn\u2019t it, in 2013?<\/p>\n
And they did all this\u2014and much more\u2014in quiet, unassuming ways.\u00a0\u00a0They needed no accolades, just a simple \u201cthanks,\u201d a peck on the cheek for a job they knew they did well\u2014for the benefit of all.<\/p>\n
Thank you Helen for being all you were.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A remarkable lady of an exalted generation of farmers\u2019 wives.\u00a0\u00a0Bon Voyage from a simple country man\u2014and may we never forget all you meant.<\/p>\n
Hobie Morris is a Brookfield resident and simple country man.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Musings of A Simple Country Man By Hobie Morris (Brookfield, NY – March 2013) This community recently paid tribute to the life and times of Helen Owens\u2014a farmer\u2019s wife. Helen was a widely loved farmer\u2019s wife for most of her adult life.\u00a0\u00a0With a courageous and indomitable will and spirit she lived on into her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2496,9057,20466],"class_list":["post-43836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-brookfield-ny-news","tag-hobie-morris","tag-the-musings-of-a-simple-country-man"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43836\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Morris](\"http:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Morris-head-new.jpg\")
<\/a>) This community recently paid tribute to the life and times of Helen Owens\u2014a farmer\u2019s wife. Helen was a widely loved farmer\u2019s wife for most of her adult life.\u00a0\u00a0With a courageous and indomitable will and spirit she lived on into her 95th\u00a0year.\u00a0\u00a0When the time came she quietly left her farm house and passed through the Pearly Gates into her long anticipated Heavenly home.<\/p>\n