Life throws us some interesting twists sometimes.
I grew up outside, working in the barns with my dad, brothers and hired men. Along with that, I was taught my place, my role as a female. I learned to cook and sew and was taught to be a lady — to sit and walk properly, the social graces of dancing, when to keep my mouth shut and the correct manner in which to address others. The list goes on.
I bought my first registered Holstein heifer when I was 9 years old. Years of working with my cattle, “Uncle Max” (a dairyman client of my dad’s who for some reason took a liking to me and sold me some quality cattle at prices I am sure nobody else could have gotten the same animals for) and some good luck resulted in my building a pretty decent herd of my own.
I was later able to sell off animals one at a time as I needed the money for college. My cows put me through college.
I grew up knowing I was expected to go college and which college it would be. It was basically “like it or not.” I remember my high school graduation and my grandparents (my mother’s parents) coming over from Spokane. We were all in the living room when my grandmother asked me what I was going to Pullman for (meaning what degree I planned to earn). Without thinking, I said I was going to get my MRS. She wasn’t sure what I meant, so I explained I was going to college to find a “suitable husband.”
As I recall, she did not see humor in my response. I didn’t either, really. But I knew that was what was expected.
My parents would not allow me to major in what I wanted even though I (my cows) paid for my entire education with no financial help from them. I wanted to major in animal science, specifically genetics, but my parents’ response (mostly my dad, with my mother’s support and agreement) was that if I married a dairyman, I had all the practical knowledge I needed, so I needed to major in something where I could support myself in case that ever became necessary. (Did I mention I was expected to go to college, find an acceptable husband, get married and raise a family?)
I thought I would try landscape architecture because I had my own greenhouse while in high school and had always loved gardening. My first semester in a drafting class at Pullman convinced me that was not for me. It meant sitting in an office, drawing plans for someone else’s home or property, not getting in the dirt and doing the actual work. It meant never seeing results in a physical tangible sense that I have come to know is so important to me.
The dean of the animal science department and two of the top veterinarians of WSU’s Veterinary College (one a classmate of my dad’s and one who had worked for my dad) all tried to convince me to become a veterinarian. Their reasoning: No. 1. My dad was an alum. No. 2. I had the grade point. No. 3. I was a female (so a shoe-in as female vet students were rare — at least at that time).
My answer was no.
Reason one: I knew my dad would not allow it.
Reason two: I did not want to go to college for 10 years (I ended up doing 10 years eventually, but just split up into chunks rather than all at once. That is another story all of its own).
Reason three (a big one for me): I would never hire a female to be my veterinarian for my cattle.
How the heck could I ask some man to hire me when I wouldn’t hire myself? They countered with examples of a couple women who were large animal vets. One was in the middle of heck-and-gone Montana where there was not another veterinarian for probably 500 miles. Cattlemen had to use her. The other was married to another veterinarian, and I figured he got all the hard, dirty work that she could not handle. If I was going to be someone’s vet, I wanted to be their vet — not just for the easy stuff I could handle and then they would have to find someone else when the job was too tough for me.
I had grown up assisting my dad, who was a large man, and I had watched him struggle physically at times. I did not believe I could handle all the physical demands. Probably before I was old enough for school, I was allowed to assist, holding tattoo and ear tag pliers while my dad vaccinated, or other simple tasks. As I grew up, I graduated to ever increasing requirements based on physical ability and knowledge, holding bottles up in the air to control the flow rate while he gave intravenous calcium to milk fever cows, administering ether (not a favorite job) while he operated, administering shots myself, helping pull calves, holding surgical implements, and assisting with embryo transplants as the flunkie.
I was never allowed to perform the actual procedure, but I could work with my mother in the lab with the microscope to find the flushed embryos and prepare them to be implanted.
My training wasn’t just assisting my dad in the veterinarian world. I also had day-to-day ranch responsibilities. In addition to caring for my own cattle, I worked as a part of the family caring for the entire ranch. I fed calves, cleaned barns, milked cows, fed cows, assisted in health care, raked hay, drove the silage truck — all the stuff a family does together to make it work.
There were definitely gender lines that were not crossed, but I usually accepted those as part of being a member of my family. I never dared to question it. I admit to being disappointed and frustrated that I was not allowed to learn artificial insemination and the semi-related embryo transplant process. I wanted to, but that was a right and privilege reserved for men in the world I grew up in.
A different world and different times.
I ended up with a degree in home economics education and extension. Not what I wanted, but my parents approved of that. It was “an appropriate female occupation” if I needed it, and my mother had been a home economics major.
Now, fast forward to four sons and a divorce and needing to support myself and my four sons.
I had been working on the ranch all those years, but found myself now needing the degree to support me (the ranch did not pay me well). I continued to work part-time for the ranch as that was my true love and the lifestyle I wanted my sons to grow up in. I raised my sons with the dream of a ranch of my own — for me and for them.
Ranch life is all I ever knew or wanted.
I know it is not for everybody, but I love it. It is who I am. I crave the connection to my animals. I like to work outside. I need to be outside. Physical work can be exhausting, but it is also rejuvenating for me. I feel a pride in being able to see what I have accomplished — physical, tangible results.
I tried to raise my sons with that same feeling, the pride in accomplishing something, of producing a useful product.
I love the lifestyle in which I was raised and in which I tried to raise my sons. I would not trade it for anything — well, maybe … nope. It made me who I am today.
These are just different times.
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Maureen Harkcom grew up on a Lewis County dairy and operated a beef and native hay operation and developed an equine competition facility. She is a past president of Lewis County Farm Bureau and a current member of Washington Farm Bureau Board of Directors. She can be reached by email at maureen.harkcom@gmail.com.
