EIGHT DECADES OF COUNTRY LIVING … Wilford Salsberry poses with a copy of his new self-published auto-biography, “1944 An American Farmer is Born,” on his farm north of Delta. Salsberry, who will turn 80 in July, was a farmer for 52 years before retiring in 2015.
By: Jesse Davis
THE VILLAGE REPORTER
jesse@thevillagereporter.com
After nearly 80 years of life including 52 years of farming and 35 years of driving a school bus, Delta area resident Wilford Salsberry is telling his story.
Salsberry’s self-published autobiography, “1944 An American Farmer is Born” covers everything from his birth on the farm of Gale Stiekley to his time in the U.S. Army Reserves during the 1960s and his eventual retirement from farming in 2015.
“I had read two other books on men in that culture,” Salsberry said. “One was early 1800s and the other was in about 1920. I found them interesting, being that I was a farmer anyway, so I asked my friends if anyone really read these books. They said yes, and I asked if I should write one and they said yes, and it went from there.”
While writing a book was certainly a new experience for Salsberry, he is very familiar with side work. In addition to farming, he opened a small trailer park, started, and ran a Christmas tree farm, and ran a storage business. “Anything I could do to make a little extra money,” Salsberry said.
And yet writing posed its own unique challenges. When you’ve accumulated as many memories as Salsberry, it can sometimes be hard to parse through them all without help.
“I’ll be 80 in July,” Salsberry said. “You try to think back to when you were in grade school and things like that, and some things escape you. And then you talk to some people, and they remind you of things and things tend to come back to you a bit.”
According to Salsberry, the best time to tap into those long-dormant memories is lying in bed. In the small hours, things resurface – like birthdays spent with family and cousins or going fishing on the Maumee River all day with his grandparents.
“Those things you seldom ever forget. You don’t have all the details anymore, but you remember how much it meant to you to be with family like that,” he said.
As a child, Salsberry wasn’t fond of school, but found himself drawn to the farming life he lived with his parents at home. He got involved with the FFA and ended up the only student from Lyons to receive an American Farmer degree.
“I wasn’t college material, but I was at that time farmer material,” Salsberry said. His parents believed in his future so strongly they made him a 50-50 partner in their farm when he graduated in 1963.
“It was a big sacrifice on their behalf. We became partners,” he said. “But they realized how much added value it was going to be with me farming for them. How much easier, how we could grow faster and everything. I think they could see that.”
The next challenge for the young Salsberry was the military draft. Vietnam was roiling, and as Salsberry said, “I didn’t have nothing going for me.”
His father spoke with a few other farmers who had sons in similar positions – working on the farms, but with no special considerations that could exempt them from military service. In the end, Salsberry chose to voluntarily enlist in the U.S. Army Reserves.
Over the next six years, he spent six months in active duty before changing over to one weekend a month and an annual two-week summer mobilization. He still could have been selected at any time for deployment, but he was lucky and never got the call.
He did, however, face a different challenge – his high school sweetheart, Judy Gage. “I fell in love with her about 200 percent before active duty,” he said. “That was awful. Talk about being homesick.”
As soon as the pair got the chance, they married and started a family. Over the years, Salsberry witnessed many developments in farming and agriculture. The switch from ear corn dried in a batch drier to a continuous slow dryer, then changing from ear corn to shelled corn.
“We went from a four-row planter to a six-row. That was a big deal,” Salsberry said. “Now they have 32 rows. But mine probably cost $6,000 and theirs probably close to half a million. No wonder they got to farm 5,000-6,000 acres.”
Now Salsberry just takes care of his property, a few chickens, his wife, and his mother – who just turned 103 and lives in a mobile home next door to him. Both his wife and his mother have dementia.
He still runs the trailer park but sold the Christmas tree business to a pair of younger men. He also has his book, copies of which are currently on the shelves at Sauder Village and a few libraries.
Salsberry ordered 400 copies for the book’s first run and said he has already sold nearly 200 copies since November.
“I hope people enjoy the book,” Salsberry said. “If they’re farm related, they can relate to a lot of things in the book. One thing that I explain in the book more than anything else, is I never regretted doing what I did. I never regretted being a farmer.”
Salsberry said sometimes bosses at regular jobs don’t know what they’re doing, sometimes people don’t know what they’re doing or why they’re doing it. He said it was a problem he was blessed not to face.
“It was what I wanted to do and a real good life,” he said. “Farming with my folks was a really good thing. I can’t remember ever having a fight. A disagreement, maybe. We had a good life. I had a good life. I was happy with what I had done.”
To order a copy of the book, send $15 and shipping information to 4792 County Road M, Delta, Ohio, 43515.