I have always told folks that farming and cattle go back so far on both sides that I just don't have enough sense to do anything else.
I'm 4th generation on the paternal side. The three previous generations were livestock dealers. My Dad was born in Kentucky and he and my grandfather used to go on trips to buy livestock; they rode horses, packed guns and had a set of border collies. They would travel around buying livestock and then when they started home they would backtrack and pickup what they had purchased and trail them home. As a teenager, my Dad left Kentucky and came to Ohio. He bought a thrashing machine and the income from that is how he purchased our farm. In addition to his livestock business, he farmed corn, beans, wheat, oats and hay. We used to run Herefords. Dad may have only had a fifth grade education in a one room school house, but he is still the smartest man I have ever met and he did it all on common sense. He could do math in his head like a computer.
My maternal side of the family had many farmers, but the most noteable of the Stanton clan was Edwin Stanton, Secretary of War under Lincoln during the Civil War. Old Edwin was a character: a genious, a nut, a crook and do I need to say....a politician. He was the first attorney in the U.S. to use temperary insanity as a defense. James Stanton was a POW during the Civil War. After the war he and his wife Malinda Jane moved to Kansas but came back to Ohio after 3 crop failures. They had a daughter Sarah Jane, who had a daughter Malinda Jane.....I'm the fifth to be named after granny. My grandfather Emery Stanton was a farmer but could easily be remembered the most for his fishing abilities. He was also quite the gardener; he had a HUGE garden and told me one spring that he would give me a nickel for every weed I could find. I worked diligently all summer to increase my savings account, but only made a dime.
When I was 5 a neighbor had a Holstein cow die having a heifer calf. Dad gave the neighbor $5 for tha calf and brought it home for me to raise. When we sold her first calf Dad sat me down in the barn and gave me my first education in finance. He took out $5 so I could pay him back for my calf then he took out what I owed him for feed. Dad brought the first Charolais into Ohio in the 50's and by the time I was 12 I had saved enough money to buy 1 purebred Charolais heifer or 6 halfbloods. I started with the 6 and worked my way up. I was one of the first Junior members of the AICA in Ohio. I raised Charolais from 1962 until1992 and had a Reserve Grand Champ with a Charolais while I was in 4-H and that was the highest any Charolais influenced calf had done in any show until that time. The AICA called, flew in, took pictures, made a big deal out of it then wrote a postage stamp size article about it in the Charolais Banner, almost on the last page! I started with the Shorthorns in 1995 (I think). I used to run about 30 cows and had between 65 and 70 cattle in the feedlot.
I worked as a registered nurse and nurse anesthetist from 1971 until 1999 but have always stayed with the cattle; just can't get them out of my blood.
I have really enjoyed reading the other posts. We have travelled different roads but ended up in a common place.
Malinda
(And now that I think of it, it was probably best for him that I was too scared to run around underfoot. Then I started getting used to him, and got my first show steer at 7. Dad showed me how I could jump in the manger to not get squished if he moved, and he led the steer for me, but I could hold him and set his feet.
