—-MINNIE RICHARDSON: ‘I Dare Not Stop (Oct. 25, 1976)
When I interviewed this quintessential Yankee farmer at age 87 in her East Colrain garden, soon after I arrived to work at The Recorder, I knew I was home. Barefoot in her organic garden, she was outspoken, earthy, bold and happy to share her passion for hard work in nature, including the joys of compost.
LEYDEN—Interviewing Minnie Richardson is very likely to be an “on the move” project, because, as one soon discovers, Minnie herself is always moving.
“I surprise them all,” explains the.87-year-old organic gardener, veteran traveler, organization woman and farmer.
“I dare not stop,”she says.”
On our arrival, Minnie is outside, in front of the farmhouse, sending out a friendly growl across West Leyden Road as greeting: “Are you the fellow I’ve been cursing for half an hour?”
(In all fairness, that’s an exaggeration of the tardiness at hand, and there have been a few wrong turns along the way, trying to to determine whether Minnie could be found in West Leyden or East Colrain.)
‘It’ s a wonder anybody can find me,” she reflects.”I live in West Leyden, my mailing address is in Bernardston, I do my shopping in Greenfield and my phone is listed in Colrain.”
The interview is limited on the other end by an appointment that Minnie has planned in Turners Falls with the Franklin County Home Care Corp., as a representative of the Shelburne Falls senior citizens group.
Her other affiliations through the years have included the Conway Order of the Eastern Star, of which she was matron in 1927; the Franklin County Extension, of which she was president at one time and is still an honorary member; the Ladies Society of the East Colrain Community Church, and a member of that church.
“I’m the busiest woman in Franklin County,” she declares.
One of Minnie’s 13 grandchildren, Nanette Ralstead, is on hand, and comments, “I’m 25 ,and I defy anyone 25 or younger to keep up with her.”
Nanette who lives down the road, is visiting with her 2-year-old daughter, who is the youngest of Minnie’s 27 great-grandchildren at Sno-Blow Farm,where Minnie lives with her daughter Edith and son-in-law, Allen Snow .
While she can remember all of her great-grandchildren’s names, Minnie says, remembering birthdays is too much to ask of her. The oldest great-grandaughter, she reveals, was married last year, and a second is to be wed in January.
“The year she was married, and my son-in-law turned 63, then I knew I was damned old.”
Born in Conway Oct. 23, 1889, Minnie Totman grew up on a dairy farm, which still operates on Bardwells Ferry Road, and attended school in Conway and Greenfield.
“I was a tomboy on the farm, with pigtails under my hat, and you couldn’t tell me from my brother.”
She moved to Dummerston, Vt., where she did her share of the farming.
“There wasn’t anything that a pair of horses could do that I couldn’t do,” she proclaims. “Once I tacked a horseshoe on a1,600-pound horse. See that scar there?” she asks, pointing to a mark on her right hand. “That’s where I ripped my hand open.”
“I’ve always worked, from the time I was old enough to hold a planting implement.”
Minnie married Lowell Patch in 1908 and after her first husband’s death married Sam Richardson and moved with him to a farm in Leyden.
When her second husband died in 1961, she began traveling and was dubbed, “the galloping grandmother.”
A two-week trip to Europe, Great Britain and Ireland “was the first jump I made,” Minnie remembers, followed by four months in Arizona, three trips to California, two to Florida, and others to various parts of the country.
Before you know it, Minnie is outside, hoe in hand, and pointing to the yellow chrysanthemums that now dominate the remains of her flower garden!
Beyond that, there’s a large vegetable garden for which Minnie is responsible, where she runs her hoe through the soil to demonstrate that there is no need to plow.
She began organic gardening “way back when” after she read a book titled, “Plowman’sFolly.”
“That’s what started me on my way. I heard of a 72-year-old woman in Connecticut who planted her garden that way, and I thought, ‘If she can do it, so can I.’ There are a lot of them that follow me.”
Inside,the 87-year old wonder-woman reports, “There’s a place in the basement where I play with plants,too.”
If Minnie Richardson has a secret, she shares it:work.
“If some of the old people who are put away now had had mores punk and done more work,”she says, “they’d have been much better off.”
White-haired Minnie, makes short-range plans for the future, but she says,”they’re not nailed down. There are days when I don’t have it at all, and there are days when I work like a horse. I want to be able to finish all of the things I want to do, but I know that once I do, I might as well sign off.”
With her own car, she says, “I come and go as I please.” But she adds, “The old things that cramp my style disturb me terribly.”
When that happens, though, she says, “I take two pills and grab the hoe.”
“Back when I was on earth,” she remembers, “a man who is now dead and gone told me, ‘I wouldn’t dare attempt to follow you. How much longer I’m able to keep this pace up is anybody’s guess.”
After some recollections of how things were, and a further accounting of the innumerable projects that occupy her time, Minnie explains, like a woman who feels deeply the truth of her words, “The trouble with me is I have too much ambition for what’s coming on to me. It’s a good thing. If I didn’t, I’d stop.”
— RICHIE DAVIS