Ruth

This is a story about a lady named Ruth, she had a typical childhood born into an Australian family during the latter part of the second world war and raised in rural South Australia. Although not much is said about her early years, we can assume that born at the end of the great depression and the second world war that life would have been happy but frugal. Life would have revolved around school and farm life during the week and church and family on Sundays. Ruth grew up and met Daniel through her local church group as communities were small and people didn’t travel far very often. Ruth and Daniel got married younger as was normal at that time and lived on the family farm in the Murray Mallee. The farm was large but not well established, much of the land they cleared themselves and the homestead was an old stone house with wide verandas and hanging gum trees but without air conditioning or modern conveniences.

Daniel was quite a bit older than Ruth; he loved flying and flew in the RAAF during world war 2. Ruth for the most part was a homemaker but do not discount her on that fact. She spent a lot of her time managing the house which was a large job doing the washing and cooking by hand whilst raising the children. Farming at that time was a tough physical business, as a second-generation farming family they had the know-how and smart farming practises but starting on their own piece of property it was hard work and gruelling lifestyle.

The land they had chosen did not have a high rainfall or produce abundant crops, so they worked hard to make a living off what they had. It was a mixed farm, the main money draw was from sheep and cereal cropping, but they also had milking cows, pigs, and chickens. These helped supplement the farm and gave the family meat they would otherwise not buy. Additionally, majority of the vegetables were grown on the farm by Ruth, it was cheaper that way and fresher as they lived a good distance from town.

Ruth and Daniel had several children together, a girl and more than a few boys and by all accounts were very happy together. Unfortunately, one day it all came to an end.

Daniel had gone out to do some tractor work taking his young son with him. Ruth had been busy at home taking care of the children and some of the farm tasks close to the house. It was only when Daniel did not come home at normal time that she began to worry. The mobile phone had not been invented so there was no way to contact each other, it was easy to simply assume he was taking longer on the tractor than he had thought. It was as it got dark that Ruth got more concerned the tractor did not have good lights, so Daniel would usually be back well before dark.

Leaving her oldest child in charge Ruth went looking and that was when she found them. The tractor had flipped no one witnessed it so Ruth never found out how, but it had flipped. The tractor was old and had no roll bar let alone a cab. Daniel and their son had been crushed, killed instantly.

Ruth became a hard woman that day, not mean or spiteful, just hard and she needed to be. As much as her and Daniel had run the farm together legally, she was a housewife with no earning wage or means to support herself and the children. So, she stepped forward and claimed the farm as her own, everything had been left to her in Daniel’s will.

For a woman to be a sole farmer was rare, even now it is unusual, but Ruth did it, whether it was what she wanted or not she did it. Ruth dug her heels in and hired men to help with the work but ran the business side herself and kept the farm going so that it could remain in the family and be passed onto her sons.

When her sons were older Ruth did move off the farm and into the neighbouring town, she was still very strong willed and independent woman well into her 90’s. she did find love again in a widower but rather than get married they bought houses next door to one another and retained their independence whilst both gaining companionship.

Today Ruth still lives in the same community she always has, and we can learn a lot about her life and her challenges and how she was able to persevere. People said she was not a woman to cross but that shows strength of character in trials and tribulations.