There’s a photo hanging on my mother-in-law’s wall. It’s of a threshing crew in Bucklin, Kansas, in 1914. The woman third from the right is her grandmother, Mary Whittiker. She had come to Bucklin to help her brother’s family with harvest. While in Bucklin she met and married Sydney Miller and the rest, they say, is history.
Linda loves the photo because it shows the heritage of the farm where she grew up. I love it because it shows how deeply ingrained in agriculture our family has been for over 100 years. We live on the land the Miller family homesteaded and I can only hope our family has that same appreciation for agriculture in another 100 years.
High Plains Journal will celebrate our 70th anniversary at the end of this year. That’s nearly three-quarters of a century serving farmers and ranchers and it makes us a bit sentimental. One of the things I love about the agriculture industry is that while we are constantly looking to improve efficiency and productivity with new technology, we have our feet firmly planted in history.
To help us celebrate our own history in agriculture, we would like to invite you to send us your favorite historical agriculture photos. Perhaps, like my mother-in-law, you have a black and white copy of your ancestors working in the field. Or maybe you have a photo of the very first piece of equipment you bought. Or maybe your dad saved a photo from the first steer he showed at the county fair. Whatever the time frame, we’d love to see them.
Be sure and just send us a copy of the photo. We don’t want to be in charge of family heirlooms! Either scan the photo or you can take a photo of the photo, if that works better. There’s probably some of you that want your grandchildren to help you scan the photo and that’s fine with us. Take that opportunity to talk to them about the heritage of your farm.
You can send us the photos a few different ways:
Upload to https://www.hpj.com/special/hpj_remembers/
Email to [email protected] along with the following:
1. Photo—preferably 300 dpi (or 1,024 kb or 1 MG.)
2. Photo information—tell us about the photo. Who is it? What are they doing? When was it taken? (or as closely as you can estimate) Tell us the story about the photo.
3. Contact information—let us know how to get a hold of you in case we have questions.
Social media: Share with the hashtag #hpjremembers.
Holly Martin can be reached at 1-800-452-7171, ext. 1806, or [email protected].
