#52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks. Week 39, Prompt: ‘On the Farm'

Week 39: ’On the Farm’ - Historical Fiction

My Great Grandfather, James Cottam laboured on his father’s farms in Lancashire. His younger brother John was a railways worker at Sheffield. Once James migrated to Australia they never met up again.  Both died in accidents.  James was forty-four when killed in a rockslide.  He had arrived in Victoria in 1852 and married eight years later. He left a wife in-child and six children.

John, twenty-nine, was killed in a railways shunting accident. He left Rebecca and five young children.

I wish I’d known them and that they had managed to come together again.  
I decided to bring them to life in my story. 

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“You finished eating, James?  Well then boy - get out there to work again, there’ll be no slacking here,” stepmother Elizabeth yelled out.

“Aye Elizabeth - I’ll be off now. Thanks for my lunch,” James replied.

As he shuts the back door to the farmhouse he mulls over his predicament, once again:

Why is she so tough on me?  she’s never liked me since she married Dad, but after Mary Ann was born she can't abide me at all.   I only come in for a meal on a Thursday and she treats it as a burden.  Well, I’d much rather be outside working on the farm than in here being ridiculed.  Brother John is so lucky he’s away and happy working on the railways.

James sets off to where his father is busy in the fields.  Looking around the undulating and arable farmland that he has grown up with, his heart sinks.  This could all have been his one day, but that day is just too far away for him.  As he walks he holds a handful of soil up to take in the rich smell that he loves.   A smile spreads across his face.  He knows that farming is his life. He thinks of the hay, the oats and the potatoes and the moment when the shoots push their way up through the ground. Three of the seasons he is alive with happiness but not when winter arrives bringing the freezing cold and snow. 

On Sunday he attends his local church. After the sermon and the neighbours are all chatting outside he meets up with a friend Thomas who he hasn’t seen for a while.  

“Look at you Thomas - your hair is down to your shoulders and your beard hangs right down your chest. Where have you been?’” James asks him 

“Australia - a world away,” Thomas says, “and I can tell you I can’t wait to return.  I’m only staying back home here for the summer. I could never stay here permanently now. Australia is far more healthy with clear air, not the thick fogs that we have. Where I was in Victoria there is plenty of sun and no snow at all.“

James is taken in by this meeting and can see how well Thomas looks.  He writes to his brother John, telling him of his news.  He has decided that he is going to travel to Australia where there is so much opportunity for a young man.  He mentions his friend Thomas and his first-rate account.  He told me ‘that a man may very soon get his independence if he will be steady and not ramble about but fix himself down to farming.’

James writes that he will call on John in the next week to say farewell.

***

On arrival in Melbourne and attending the Work Depot, James was quickly hired by a farmer, Mr Young. Agricultural labourers were highly sought after.  He spent the next few years working on the Young property in Gippsland getting used to the Australian life and saving every penny he could. 

Finally, James received a land grant for an area in Chintin, north-west of Melbourne. 

When he arrives, he admires the scene before him, the gentle rolling slopes and the sweeping view to the  Macedon Ranges.  He decides to name his property ‘Fairview'

James bows down and offers prayers “Thank you God for providing this beautiful land. My prayers are answered. As it says in Proverbs: ‘He who tills his land will have plenty of bread.’  I shall work my land the very best I can and offer great thanks in receiving your blessings.”

He runs a handful of the soil through his fingers, admiring the orange coloured loam.

He wonders: what would father think of this?

Each Sunday he attends the Church of England in Kilmore and there he meets Eliza Shanks a young lady emigrant from Co Down in Northern Ireland. A few years later James marries Eliza at their church in Kilmore.

James writes to his brother John, in England telling him of all his news. He is full of excitement as he dips his pen in the ink. 

“Brother, I cannot wait for Eliza and I to start a family -  I was envious of your young family, but now Eliza and I are so happy.  The farm is doing splendidly and we grow all our own vegetables.  God has been good to me.  I read the Bible each night, the one you gave to me when I left England. One day I hope we will be together again. Eliza is keen to travel too, and meet everyone.”

Sadly there is misfortune ahead and they have only thirteen years together.  James is only 44yo when he dies from a terrible road-making accident in 1873, leaving his wife Eliza with three girls, three boys, and due to have another child in a month's time.

***

Eliza and her children stay on the farm and  brothers George and James help out as much as they can along with neighbours, until Eliza hires a man. As soon as the other girls and boys are old enough they help with the farming jobs.  Joseph the youngest and George the oldest boy were natural young farmers.  James, the middle boy, was more interested in playing with timber and later became a builder and carpenter. As adults, George and Joseph ran the farm. 

Joseph was like his father in that he wants to have his own farm.  Eventually, he is able to purchase land in Jindivick, Gippsland.  The first day he takes ownership he reaches down to the soil to feel it in his hands. He breathes in the satisfying earthy smell and a smile stretches across his face.  

One day my own children will farm this land, Joseph thinks.

Farming land near where Joseph owned his farm in Jindivick

Not long after, at Sunday church he meets Violet Palmer - and history repeats. They marry in January 1904 at the Church of England.  Violet and Joseph have a family of six, including four boys, over the next fourteen years, who are all happily involved in the farm work, except on the mornings they have to milk the cows before riding their horses to school. (Joseph's family in photo below)

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REFERENCE

Proverbs 12: 11