@RedTop wrote:
We certainly never looked at it like a compound, but I still live on part of my paternal grandparents 200+ acre farm here in southern WV.
Grandpa gave land to any child who wanted to live here. My dad was the only child who cleared land and built a home; we lived in sight of each other, but it was a good 15-20 minute walk between houses.
My dad had an outside job, but also helped his dad work the farm, and care for the cows and hogs we raised for food. My brothers and I were extra sets of hands for many jobs on the farm. I washed hundreds of canning jars, picked up a ton of fruit off the ground in the orchard, stacked hay in the barn, and at one time I knew all the grease points on Grandpa’s Farmall Super C tractor. It didn’t bother me to put my hand in the grease bucket, or reach inside the sow and pull out a piglet that was stuck.
Dad and Grandpa never argued, and my Mom was loved like a daughter. We lived very peacefully, but my uncles and aunts were a different story. They ruined every family gathering with their arguing, and as soon as they started, my dad said it was time for us to go!
WOW! My dad may have gone for that if my grandmother hadn't insisted on reading our mail, us not having a phone so she could hear, and paying my dad's bills but no salary though she wanted him to work the farm full time. All but one of the seven kids moved away, the oldest on graduation night on the Grey Hound bus. Granny was like that. The baby of the seven moved across the road where she could moan and groan and complain about how he and his wife were living and raising the kids. He got the house and outbuildings years before she passed (to stir the pot with the other six) and was the power of attorney even though he has the least education and capability of them all because he stayed like a good son. Whatever! She died in April of this year at 92. She wasn't happy a day in her life if she didn't have some kind of muck stirred up between the kids and their significant other or grandkids (23 of us). There are also 40 odd great grandkids and nearly that may great-great ones. The baby of the baby moved in with her to take care of her in the end. They are now living in her house and boy do they deserve it for putting up with her. That was just how granny was. She was 8 when she had to quit school and raise her 12 brothers and sisters because her mom died. Then her father didn't marry until granny was 16 and got married herself. He used up her childhood and made her into the woman that she was. Please let your kids be kids, teach them responsibility, but please don't use up their childhood. It messes with their personality. It wasn't just us as she was kicked out of the nursing home when she started treating them like family which happens after the newness wears off and she learns how to pit people against each other. She was blind and hard of hearing by then, but she managed to stir muck up at the nursing home. We only have so many in a small town, rural area, even in other towns, so the baby grandchild and his wife took care of her. God bless them for doing it. They can have it all for their patience and not offing her sooner than God and the devil was willing to decide who got her. She couldn't get into heaven and he11 didn't want her. I know people might think that is cruel, but that is just how granny was. Once you got a grasp on that, then you could deal with her and not take her behavior and mess personally.
BTW, she was put into the nursing home to recover after getting a 6-inch plate and 17 screws in her leg that broke above the artificial knee joint. We couldn't lift her at home or have the equipment to do the physical therapy. Even though there were four EMTs present when she fell out of the walk-in tub with her caretaker there, she wouldn't let them touch her until my uncle came. Her skin was so thin it was torn in so many places from them just getting her onto the stretcher once my uncle got there from work. It didn't help that she was nude and a big hefty woman at 5'11". She needed the professional physical therapy of a nursing home rehab unit, but that didn't last. She was sent home where she insisted on moving her bed into the living room so she could see and hear everything even though she was blind. That is where she stayed until she passed. Shoot, they even pronounced her dead, then the doc came to pronounce it after the EMTs and she wasn't dead. We think she was pulling a fast one to hear what everyone would say once she was gone. She did finally pass 5 hours later. The EMTs and doc hadn't seen anything like it before.
You can choose where you live, but not your family!
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