Fisher Farm - McKinney, Texas

Scott H eddins – Broker

214.563.4950 dsheddins@gmail.com Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jzz84sGJ0Dc

THE FISHER FARM STORY Introduction: Jack Fisher and Wanda Harben were both born into farming families in Collin County, Texas in 1921; however, they never met until Wanda transferred to McKinney High School, where Jack was already a student, in the eleventh grade, which, at that time, was the year of graduation. On November 3, 1940, Jack’s maternal grandfather, the Rev. George Ford, performed their marriage ceremony in the parlor of the Ford home. Their first son was born in 1943 and their first daughter followed twenty-three months later. By 1946, the family was living in the “teacherage” at Bloomdale, where Wanda was teaching at one of the county schools, and Jack was driving a butane truck for Anderson Butane.

In 1947, it was Jack’s mother (a woman with a keen eye for real estate) who was first aware of the farm for sale in the Franklin community and suggested that the couple give it a look. It was easy to understand why she almost apologized for the property she was suggesting, since it suffered from neglect and poor farming technique, and could easily have been rejected based on appearance alone. But Jack and Wanda shared her ability to see its potential, and they never shied from hard work; so, with money they had saved, and a little more borrowed from their parents, plus a small bank loan, they bought themselves a farm.

The old house already there was in complete disrepair but had some usable lumber. Without leaving his day job, Jack worked with a little help from his cousin, Willard Scalf, and started tearing down and reworking the old house to make something new. By the fall of 1948, they had completed a one-bedroom house, wired for electricity (though there was no electrical service in this rural area at the time), with the shell for additional rooms later, and the family moved into the little white house with a green roof up on the hill.

Work continued in earnest, clearing brush, improving fences, terracing fields, planting crops, turning what some might have, at first, considered Fisher folly into Fisher Farm. The REA brought electricity to the area. Eventually, wiring for the telephone came, as well. Jack’s father sometimes worked with him to get projects accomplished. Crops were planted, cows were being milked by hand. The milk was sold as Grade B to a local dairy processing plant. A garden was planted and for several years the pantry shelves were lined with fruits and vegetables

canned by Wanda, until the year when a deep freezer was purchased, and the food was frozen rather than canned. After the first year, Jack’s parents were able to see that the couple was committed to the farm, so they asked permission to buy the bank note to protect the deed in case some unforeseen event threatened their ability to make payments. That transaction was done, and Jack and Wanda continued making regular payments to the parents until the note was paid off.

Around 1949, the Fishers realized that they could not support their family as needed by continuing in their current manner, and began to consider alternatives, one being to increase the dairy production. On the day Jack went to get the mail and found their tax refund in the box, the decision was made. The money was used to start construction of a facility for the production of Grade A milk.

By 1956, three other children, daughter, son, daughter, had completed the family. The house was expanded to include two additional bedrooms and an indoor bathroom. Jack was the builder; he and Wanda did the painting, laying flooring, etc. Wanda sewed the curtains. Two tool/tractor sheds and a hay barn were also built, and a silage pit was dug. The dairy was up and running, but crops (wheat, cotton, corn, milo, hay…) were also raised on this property, and in future years, also on other properties Jack rented from landowners nearby.

On a farm, everybody works. All of the children were involved with the dairy at various stages.

The boys were also incredibly involved with crop production. After the morning milking was complete, tractors were fired up and headed out to the fields for planting, plowing, harvesting, depending on the season. Unlike some of their classmates, none of the Fisher kids ever missed school for field work, but when school was out, it was time for chores. Most learned their driving skills in the farm truck.

Household duties also had to be done. The house was swept (with a broom or dust mop, not a vacuum cleaner) and dusted daily, wet clothes were hung out on the line to dry and dry clothes brought in to be folded or ironed. Wanda cooked three meals a day, every day, and prep and cleanup were completed. In the summer, corn was shucked and silked, peas were shelled, beans were snapped, peaches peeled, all to be put up in the freezer. Beets were pickled and put up in jars. For a while, there were also chickens to be tended and eggs to be gathered, and, at least one of the children remembers the time Wanda’s parents spent the day helping to pluck and dress broilers to be put in the freezer.

As the years passed, the farm increased and prospered, the children progressed through their school years, and each, in turn, left home for college or work. They all married, but the family continued to gather at every holiday, or for Sunday dinner or someone’s birthday, or for no particular reason. Sons continued to help on the farm on occasions when needed, and sons-in-law were given their opportunity at times like harvesting to drive trailers to the gin. In 1980, the old house that Jack built was moved away, and a new larger brick home was built up on the hill. By this time, the family was continuing to expand with the arrival of grandchildren, and the new house would be the site of many future reunions.

Around this time, both Jack and Wanda began to exhibit health issues. Wanda’s issue was identifiable and was eventually cured. Jack perplexed his doctors and was mistaken for other conditions until early in 1982, he finally had to be hospitalized, where he was found to have non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in advanced stage. After months in the hospital, he was able to come home in time for his birthday in May and spend the summer months. But, in August, he returned to the hospital, and in September 1982, at the young age of 61, he died.

Family Memories: During Jack’s illness, the family realized that the dairy would not be able to continue, so the cattle and equipment were sold. Now, Wanda returned to the home where life would look very different. She continued in her independent “can-do” approach, and did her own lawn mowing on the lawn tractor, tended flower beds, kept the house going, did her own minor repairs, fixed fences, made jelly and peanut patties, baked wonderful pies and cakes, and made business decisions.

Having always been involved in the work as well as being the bookkeeper for the family business, she knew just about everything about farm operations. So, new routines came to be familiar ones.

The cultivated land was rented to other farmers. For a while, one daughter and son-in-law kept cattle grazing in the pastures.

Another’s family kept horses there. One son and family built a home just a stone’s throw over the creek. The grandchildren grew older and would come to stay during summer break or drop by to fish in the tank (cattle pond) or play on the cable swing or ride horses, or ride go-carts or play football in the front yard.

As each grandchild graduated from high school, a large celebration was held in the backyard, each one benefitting from better shade as the oak tree grew to maturity. Children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren (by now, about forty people) continued to gather at every major holiday and for Wanda’s birthday. Subsequent generations

found their own type of interests to explore, but all of them reveled in the opportunity to roam all around the open spaces. Wanda remained active in church activities, for years baking the communion bread; took up quilting and made quilts for each grandchild and great-grandchild; was able to go on group tours and retreats and kept herself involved and worked at keeping her mind sharp. But time takes its toll, and after a broken hip, a stroke, and onset of dementia, she died in 2019, just five days shy of her ninety-eighth birthday.

Dairying: At milking time, the youngest would be responsible for “putting out feed,” i.e., scooping the ground feed into a bucket, weighing it, and putting it into the stalls where the cows would stand and eat while being milked. As one cow vacated her spot, the feed was replenished. As children got a little older and stronger, they were able to “exercise the scoop.” Sometimes, cows can make a mess while standing in the barn, and that mess must be removed before the next cow can come in. Jack (Dad) has been known to assign this task to a prospective son-in-law to test his mettle. By this time, the young family member would also be able to tend the baby calves. That meant mixing the formula for the calves (which had been weaned from their mothers and moved to a pen in a separate barn) and carrying it out to their pen and feeding.

The next promotion would have been “washing the cows.” Before the milking machine could be put on, the udders had to be washed thoroughly. A special bucket of water and cloth were assembled, and the washer would make sure that was done. To be the one who actually managed the milking machine on the cow, one had to be strong enough to lift the machine with the milk in it and carry it to the strainer to pour it up for cooling.

Eventually, a pipeline system was installed, which eliminated lots of heavy lifting as well as passing the milk directly to the cooler without being exposed to outside surroundings. Another mid-level job was cleaning the milking side of the barn. Twice a day, the entire barn was cleaned after the milking was completed. The side where the cows were milked, and fed was thoroughly washed down with a hose and broom. The “milk room” work was more advanced, as that was where the milking

machines were taken apart, cleaned, stored, then reassembled before the next milking. The cooler was sterilized and rinsed whenever the dairy tanker truck emptied it, and the floors were washed twice a day. A dairy inspector was once overheard saying, “If you want to see a clean dairy barn, go look at Jack Fisher’s.”

Starlight and Watermelon: Summers were hot, and the inside of the little house could be even hotter. Back then, the milk was sold in cans that were kept in a large box (much like a deep freezer) filled with water that was kept very cold. Wanda would bring a watermelon from the market and Jack would put it in that very cold water, maybe for a couple of days. And, after supper on those very hot evenings, a quilt would be thrown on the ground in the back yard where the family would gather, and the watermelon would be brought up. It was so cold you could hear it crack when it was cut. It was so delicious. And the family would enjoy that watermelon while studying the stars and pointing out the big and little dippers and feeling a brief respite from the heat.

Horses: In the early days of reclaiming the farm from its initial state of neglect, Jack’s father, Virgil, would often be around to help as he was able. At Virgil’s home were two huge work horses, one gray and one sorrel, named Dick and Tony. Dick and Tony were brought up to the farm to help with some of the clearing jobs. Then it would be a special treat for the kids to get to ride bareback on the horses whose backs were so broad that a kid’s legs could barely wrap around them.

Years later, after the dairy had expanded, a horse was purchased to use herding the cattle. Her name was Strawberry, a former ranch horse, already beginning to gray, not a very large horse, excellent at “cutting out” cattle, hit the ground so hard when she walked that it jarred the rider until his teeth rattled, and headstrong as a mule. But she knew her job. By this time, Jack would plant certain crops in certain sections of the farm where he would want the cows to graze for a few hours, but not all day. The appropriately aged kid would be posted on the horse, watching to see that the cows stayed in the designated area, then herd them back out to pasture when it was time. The herding was usually pretty easy. When Strawberry recognized her assignment, she could take care of the cows, and the rider just needed to hang on.

After Strawberry, two more horses, Goldie and Princess, helped with the cattle, and, later still, when the dairy was gone, one daughter’s family kept horses at the farm for themselves and sometimes the cousins to enjoy riding.

Muddy Roads: When the family first moved to the farm, the nearest paved road was three miles away, the nearest white topped road was about a quarter of a mile from the house, and the road from there to the house was black dirt, which was not passable after a heavy rain. The original driveway was a few yards north of the current one. On a few occasions during the rainy season, Jack would leave the house in the pickup truck, slipping and sliding toward the main road, and just hoping he would end up somewhere near the gate. In those days, the milk was sold in ten-gallon cans, and when things were so bad that the milk truck couldn’t get to the farm because of the mud, Jack would have to figure out a way to get the milk cans to the truck down at the white topped road….even if that meant carrying it.

Those muddy roads also caused problems for the school bus. When the older two children were the only ones in school (probably about third and fifth grades and they attended Bloomdale) there were a few times when it rained so hard that the bus could not pass. For some kids, that meant no school. But Jack and Wanda always put the children’s education at the top of their priorities, so the horse was saddled and off they went to school.

The Swing: Down in the south pasture, on the side of a sloping hill, stood a sturdy native pecan tree.

One day, Jack decided that was an ideal location for a cable swing. So, he took his tools, a long length of strong cable, and a couple of the kids in the pickup truck down to the tree, picked just the right limb, and climbed that tree, and attached the cable with strong screws. Back on the ground, he took a

length of another smaller branch, whittled just right, and secured with a loop at the other end of the cable so that one could either sit on it and swing in the traditional manner, or hold onto the stick and swing out over the slope where your feet would not touch the ground for a good ride. The swing became a favorite of all the kids who lived there and those who came to visit, and then for their children, as well. It was over sixty years ago that Jack hung that swing……. It is still there.

The Steep Hill: Down in front of the house and off to the right was a formation where the sloping pasture came to an abrupt steep slope, then leveled off at the bottom where the creek ran through. That was a favorite play area for two generations of children. It was a wonderful place for playing cowboys and Indians, building forts, digging, creating roads, whatever an imagination could divine. And off to one side of it the “timber” started, which added even more fun exploring through, following the cow trails or veering off a little farther. The timber was not very wide or terribly dense, so it was perfect for adventures without being too daunting for young ones. The Fisher children and their friends enjoyed many hours there, as did the grandchildren, and maybe some of the great grandchildren, in later years.

The Old Barn: One thing that was kept when the Fishers moved to the farm was the large barn that had many compartments…a hay loft, a corn crib, an area where baby calves were kept when they were weaned, a wide hallway where trailers could pass through, and a hay room downstairs. It was a great place for kids to explore and climb, as well as do the chores there. It stood for many years until it finally fell into disrepair. Finally, another strong storm damaged it so badly that it had to be torn down.

Goodbye: The Fisher Family built a farm, a family and a lifetime of memories.