Every Good Man Needs a Barn

As many of you will remember, when Fessie returned from the war in September 1945, Beck surprised him with a new house that she had built during his absence. If you missed the original post, you can read about it here. Several years later, Fessie built a barn for his farm. An honest-to-goodness, every-farmer's-dream, barn. Pictured below are a couple of images from some old black and white negatives that I found and had developed. In the second photo, Fessie is taking a break from his barn carpentry to pose for a picture. I'm thinking that it was in the early 1950s when the barn was built, and Fessie used it for his cattle farm operations until he got out of the cattle business shortly before his death.

While in Peaceful Valley yesterday for a Fourth of July family fish-fry, I climbed up into the barn and photographed its hay loft and rafters. It had been several years since I had been up in the loft and memories came flooding back of playing up there with my brother and cousins, clambering over the hay bales, usually playing army. Today, the hay loft is being used to store old lumber while its stalls below hold various 'treasures' of Fessie's children. The side wings originally attached to the barn are no longer there, having been removed earlier due to aging and deterioration, but the main barn should last several more years thanks to a recent repairs instigated by my husband. Fessie would be proud to know that his barn is still standing today, sixty years later. Hopefully, it will last another sixty years or longer.