Pioneer readers recall potato harvests past – Yester Harvest – Memories of a ‘farm girl’ from Ho

By Lynda (London) Quint
Special to the Pioneer Times
    I was born in 1950, the fourth of five children born to Horace (Barney) and Marion London of East Hodgdon. My father was a potato/dairy farmer.
     As a child, I loved “helping” my daddy with the barn chores far better than rising early on those cold fall mornings to pick potatoes! However, looking back now, I have only fond memories of those long-ago days!
    My daddy was “the boss” of the field, and I guess that made me feel special and proud to be the “boss’s daughter”! Though I was expected to work steadily and pick my “section” like everybody else, I knew that come 11 a.m., I’d be going home with “the boss” for a delicious hot “dinner” that my mother had prepared for the family! (Her wonderful meals sure beat a cold sandwich any day!)
    Dad drove the tractor with the two-row “digger” behind. My oldest brother, Larry, worked on the trucks and my other brother, Richard, picked alongside me. (Though his sections were much longer than mine!)
    My older sister, Marie and her two boys, often worked in the fields too. I remember sitting in her vehicle on cold frosty mornings, as we waited for the ground to warm up before the digging started; Marie would always have a thermos of delicious hot chocolate and some home-baked goodies to share with me.
    Picking potatoes in the fall was just a normal part of growing up on the farm! As kids, we loved getting new potato gloves and new baskets. When I was quite young, my dad always bought me a child-sized basket every year.
    We were excited to receive our “tickets” and to start thinking about how many barrels we’d try to pick each day (25 cents a barrel back then)! It sure was fun to imagine all the neat things I could buy at Woolworth’s or Newberry’s (new paper dolls or maybe a hat for Mom)! A sundae was 25 cents (plus 2 cents tax) at the Woolworth soda fountain!
    Dad hired workers from Canada who picked potatoes for him every year. He housed them in the old “London schoolhouse” which he had made into living quarters. There were also some fine families in the area who returned each year to work in his fields.
    To celebrate the end of every harvest season, mom would bake several sheet cakes; dad would buy sodas and hot dogs for everyone, and all the workers would have a big hot dog roast together in the field. What fun!
    Many years later when I became a mother, my three children also had the privilege of picking potatoes the “old-fashioned” way! They each have their own special memories of those days.
    Now on a beautiful fall day, when the potato harvesters are in the fields, the earthy smells of “harvest time” take me back to another time and another place — to the simple life of a farm girl. I was blessed.