McEwen Farming and Family Stuff

It has been good on this trip to spend an extra day or two to smell the roses and get to know folks a little better, especially relatives who through keeping in touch over the years and through our annual Christmas letter, we find roots that go back a ways.

So is the case with Carl and Betty Brown. Betty, as mentioned is a second cousin, and Carl was a journalist by trade, so it has been a privilege to read his emails over the years especially since their visit to Australia in 2001. the year of our McEwen Reunion at Granite Flat .

Before that our family was in touch through another relative Paul Sweeney who was of a former generation and mainly corresponded with my mother, Coral McEwen who exchanged gifts and news again mainly at Christmas. Sadly they have both passed on but left the contact that we have been blessed to continue.

Alison and I visited Carl and Betty in Rockford, Illinois in 1996 and not long before that Robbie, one of our sons, had some good R and R with them while he was an exchange student in nearby Broadhead, Wisconsin in the 80s.

Again Karin, our daughter while she was teaching in London, had on one occasion spent time with Carl and Betty and some of their family at a McEwen Clan annual get together in Scotland. It was 1999.

So this trip (2015) we have met many relatives from the McEwens in San Diego, Arnold  and Lou Ann Studebaker in Utah and some of their family. Larry and Jan Mabry in Wisconson. Richard and Jill Studebaker  and family in Ohio and of course our exchange student Glenda and Clyde, I think Glenda reckons she is part of the family.

We have also spent time with our former agriculture exchange trainee Jason Kosneily for the second time to their farm in Manitoba . And other families  connected with our Ukraine NGO, the Ukraine Aid and Education Fund.

The delight and interest in these visits is in sharing the families’ lifestyle, interests, historical sites and food. In the south we have tasted grist porridge -it requires an acquired taste as does our vegemite, biscuits are scones served sometimes with a special white sauce and `meatballs’ beautifully flavoured, bacon is cooked crisp not soft. the meal is set out in bowls and placed on the table, not served out on the plate. This results in thinking of the other as you pass the bowls to each other.

While on the eastern board of the country, the Civil War has come alive – battlefields, interpretative centres, older houses, railways tell the story. In Washington DC, it is the monument centre – purposively designed to remember lives lost and the purpose of each conflict. It is hard to reminisce on what was achieved when you realise the grief and heartache borne by so many families.

We were particularly interested in the Corinth Contraband Camp. Politically, Abraham Lincoln used the strategy of freeing the slaves in the south and encouraging them to escape through and over to the Union lines. His plan was to break the economy of the South. Thousands of slaves took the opportunity to do this. this meant that they had to be houses and fed. In Corinth, a camp was formed. a missionary from the American Missionary Society led the organisation of this. Huts were organised into streets and were numbered, hospitals and churches established – this served as a model for further camps. But it was the schools he organised that were so amazing so many of  the slaves craved to learn to read and write. Teachers were teaching day and night and their pupils learnt very fast such was their keenness. Here  in Corinth, there is a park on the site with bronze statues depict this event.

with over 50 tonnes of Clothing in 7 containers of aid. along with student fund that has helped many selected Christian students to complete their tertiary education