Hook
(Continued from Page B 2)
help. The medication costs $3OO a
month.
“Most days her mind is good
and sometimes she has better sense
than I, but if she falls down, she
r-rn’t get up,” he said.
Hook himself never went to a
doctor until he was 67 years old.
“I had a little bit of heart trouble,
but I got over it,” he said.
He reads extensively and now
takes vitamins and herbs, which he
believes enables him to work tire
lessly.
Despite becoming caretaker and
housekeeper, Hook keeps up the
tradition of holding family holiday
meals for 28 family members.
He cans 250 jars with such
things as chow chow, spaghetti
sauce, beans, peaches, and all
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Weaker Sons, Inc., Lebanon, PA
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types of pickles and a cococodon
called pickle hash made with
cucumbers, onions, celery, vine
gar, spices, sugar and water.
He fills a 12-gallon crock with
homemade sauerkraut and makes
SO gallons of applebutter to share
with other family members.
“I got more than ISO recipes
from Lancaster Farming and they
are dam good recipes,” he said.
Hook has this advice for other
men: “Husbands better take good
care of their wives, because you
find out how hard they worked
when you need to do everything
yourself.”
His son to whom Hook had
turned over the livestock and the
equipment on the home farm died
of cancer in 1991. His daughter-in
law Loretta, her son Jim and
daughter Debbie take care of the
dairy end of the farm.
Field work, equipment repair.
Call for
Walter H.
and managing die farm is consid
ered Hook’s job.
Hook is working on another pro
ject and that is to build a
64x50-foot pole shed for hay bale
storage.
“The neighbors around here are
really good at helping out When
my son had cancer, they really
helped us. Just this year, they
helped dig out an unloader that was
buried in the haylage, and I suspect
they’ll help build this pole shed,”
he said.
When Hook works on the farm,
he takes his wife along and family
members who liveon the farm help
watch her.
Hook was 65 years old before he
discovered he was actually bom in
1913 and not 1914.
He had never had a birth certifi
cate since the midwife in Virginia
did not send the information to the
state. When he was working on
ng and scheduling
Lancutr Farming, Saturday. July 30,1W4-H
establishing a birth record, an old
er relative told him that the year
.that he was to begin school,
according to state law, it would
have required a 15-mile trip daily.
His parents told the authorities he
was a year younger to avoid the
long trip to school. They figured
no one would ever know the
difference.
No one did—not even Hook—
although he was always much big
ger than the other children in his
class. “I was the one who always
had to carry the water and do other
chores required in one-room
schools during those days,” he
said.
But the worst offense from the
change in his birthdate was
“depriving me of driving one year.
1 had to drive that buggy an extra
year,” he said.
Although Hook said that his life
has not been without troubles, he
sees fanning becoming more diffi
cult for families today.
“The overhead is just eating us
up. It’s getting rougher and rough
er for a guy to farm. I saw my tax
bill go from $53 to $5,800. Work
men’s Compensation cost $4,000
annually and one visit from the vet
is $100,” he said.
“If you don’t have a woman
behind you, you’d better forget
about farming,” he advises pros
pective farmers.
Recently, Clover Farm Dairies
gave a special award to Hook for
shipping milk to their dairy for 50
years.
“There used to be 22 dairies in
Reading. Now there is only one
Clover Farms,” said Hook. He
likes to think he had a part in their
success since he was affiliated
with them for 50 years.
Her Loads
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