nfralick
Wed, 05/29/2024 - 15:15
Edited Text
1
I’l^iSplSW^FcMciis^
By: Deborah Caso
With his face crinkled in the
i familiar wide grin, eyes
twinking and another quip
about to spring forth from his
lips, the Cambridge Springs
farmer talks about his 222
acres on McClellan Street
Extension and reflects,
somewhat reticently at
times, about his stint in the
Army Air Corp, during World
War II.
Although he admits he is 58
years old, the jolly, amiable
.“Bunk” Mathews, so dubbed
by his Grandfather Crow,
with his outdoors complexion
Bunk Mathews
<- i
and quick wit, seems at least
,
,
.
’
ten years younger. He works, sidered a good wage, alongside when it was:;
as does many an area far- Mathews employs one helper necessary to hand milk the.
mer, from sunup to past to care for his 80 head of dairy cows, he remembered.'^j
sundown running his dairy cows, but otherwise runs the Without all the fancy t
farm, and he readily admits farm by himself.
gadgetry was farming lessi
that the cost of farming today
Before it became necessap^ complicated? Surely it was;
is rapidly rising, as are all fur him to run the family less expensive, he said.,
other costs. Most equipment, farm, Mathews aspired to be However, “you can’t say you;
he said, has doubled in cost in an engineer and enrolled in prefer it that way—it’s
the last five years, and, he Alhance College. He had been evolution.
laments,
the
modern helping out at the farm since
Mathews and his wife,
equipment is necessary to he was 18 and a senior in high Helen, whom he has known
carrying on farming today, school,, milking the cows since the first grade in a oneHis biggest concern, and ‘ early in the morning and then room schoolhouse in Drakes
the one that pushes his costs leaving for school. After a Mills, live in his grand
skyward, is the fact that he series of heart attacks, his father’s house, built in 1840.
sells his product wholesale father was unable to carry on It’s really three houses in
and must buy everything the strenuous business of one, he explained. Many
retail—a 40 percent dif- running the farm, so years ago, part of the house
ference.
Mathews took it over after he was a barn, but has since
Mathews believes there returned from the war.
been rebuilt many times. The
should be less government Although once he had other house contains three sets of
intervention in the farming aspirations, he doesn’t regret rafters that “even a tet can
business. “That fellow in D.C. his years of hard, sometimes
get through, he said,
doesn’t know what’s going on back-breaking work on the Although
they
are
out there,” in the fields, he farm and added that he currently in the process of
stated good-naturedly. He prefers outdoor work; his job, redecorating the stately
advocates letting the process he says, “has to be outdoors.” house, .Mathew^ remarked
of supply and demand run the Although most days a total that it is solidly built that he
crop business, along with of about 12 hours are spent on can hardly hear a milk truck
crop control. “We’d be many farm related work, Mathews come up the drive when he’s
times better off,” he stated, likes to be his own boss. He inside. The structure contains
He added that all farmers credits his wife with helping five bedrooms and is big by
in the country work together out tremendously on the today’s standards, he said,
to forecast what any given farm, adding with a smile:
To keep costs at a
year will look like.
“It’s been a full life with a minimum, they burn wood
When Mathews-began with good wife.”
arxl coal, which they haul
his father’s farm back in the An interested mate, he themselves. They project
early 40’s, he remembers that maintains, is a necessary they save $25 a ton by hauling
milk cost’$1.75 per hundred, ingredient for a successful it themselves for the 60 to
Now that price had escalated farming venture. Otherwise, 100-mile round trip, Mathews
to $13 per hundred. In those “she can hold you back,” he stated.
■
days, $ 40 an hour was con- replied. His wife worked right They look ,forward to
drilling a gas well on their
property to make them really
energy sufficient.
Besides his farming,
Mathews is a nut on nuts. A
member of the Pennsylvania
Nutgrowers Association,, he
works with the nut trees he
and his father planted which
are now grown to 40 to, 60 feet
tall. His interest in nuts could
be extremely profitable, he
said, as nuts are used the
world over for food.
tended.
What do they talk about for
the four-day celebration?
War, of course, memories
and improvements in todays
Air Force. They tour air
bases to view the latest
equipment. “I probably had
more interest in what went on
than most men. I wanted to
know what went on,”
Mathews replied.
At one such reunion, the
group took a side trip to
Hawaii and visited Pearl
But perhaps the least- Harbor. The reminiscing
known fact about the kindly “gets pretty deep,” he joked,
farmer is his role in World long as there are two people.”
Mathews doesn’t believe
War II. He functioned as a
the
draft should ever have
radio operator and gunner in
a B-25 bomber. He received been stopped. “Eternal
his radio training in Chicago vigilance is the price of
after he was drafted in 1942 liberty,” he prophisizei The
upon
graduation from all-volunteer army is in
Mathews
Alliance-then a two-year competent,
believes. “It never will work.
college.
Participating in raid after You get the deadbeats in
dangerous air raid of enemy there who just want a free
camps, Mathews escaped meal,” he charged.
Does he foresee war?
without any serious injuries.
He points down to his knee “There are always going to
and remarks: “I’ve got a be wars,” he predicted, “as
piece of Germany right long as there are two people.”
Mathews and, his wife have
there.”’
. • •- '
While flying over 65 three sons froht ber previous
Victor
missions over Italy, Southern marriage,
France and the Balkans, he Kwiatkowski, a contractor
remembered, sure there was from Edinboro, Vernon, a danger, but, with eyes teacher in central Michigan
lowered, he declined to speak and Vincent, a pharmacist at
about the death of fellow Corry General Hospital. They
enjoy visits from their three
fliers.
“You learned to pray. grandchildren. At their
When you come home, you home, they have at least 25 ■
don’t shoot ducks and geese,” bushels of toys for the tots.
he said simply. All he would Although Mathews sees the
say was: “You couldn’t hide area remaining rural, he is
up there. There were no prepared for the growth of
subdivisions and the resulting
windows and it was cold.’
“When they said go home, influx of people. “I don’t want
you just said, when,” he to be squeezed,” he
cautioned, however.
reflected.
He works every day, in
After his year overseas
tour, he was .sent to ptjorida to cluding weekends, but has
gradually sold parts of the
fly training missions.
Each year Mathews travels family parcel of land off, as
to different parts of the the work becames harder.
country to be united with “As you get older, you wear
s
fellows from the 57th bomb out quicker.”'
wing. He has been attoiding With another saying
the functions for the last ten springing to his lips, Mathews
years. Last year in San quipped: “Our wants are
Diego, some 600 people at- many, our needs are few.”
I’l^iSplSW^FcMciis^
By: Deborah Caso
With his face crinkled in the
i familiar wide grin, eyes
twinking and another quip
about to spring forth from his
lips, the Cambridge Springs
farmer talks about his 222
acres on McClellan Street
Extension and reflects,
somewhat reticently at
times, about his stint in the
Army Air Corp, during World
War II.
Although he admits he is 58
years old, the jolly, amiable
.“Bunk” Mathews, so dubbed
by his Grandfather Crow,
with his outdoors complexion
Bunk Mathews
<- i
and quick wit, seems at least
,
,
.
’
ten years younger. He works, sidered a good wage, alongside when it was:;
as does many an area far- Mathews employs one helper necessary to hand milk the.
mer, from sunup to past to care for his 80 head of dairy cows, he remembered.'^j
sundown running his dairy cows, but otherwise runs the Without all the fancy t
farm, and he readily admits farm by himself.
gadgetry was farming lessi
that the cost of farming today
Before it became necessap^ complicated? Surely it was;
is rapidly rising, as are all fur him to run the family less expensive, he said.,
other costs. Most equipment, farm, Mathews aspired to be However, “you can’t say you;
he said, has doubled in cost in an engineer and enrolled in prefer it that way—it’s
the last five years, and, he Alhance College. He had been evolution.
laments,
the
modern helping out at the farm since
Mathews and his wife,
equipment is necessary to he was 18 and a senior in high Helen, whom he has known
carrying on farming today, school,, milking the cows since the first grade in a oneHis biggest concern, and ‘ early in the morning and then room schoolhouse in Drakes
the one that pushes his costs leaving for school. After a Mills, live in his grand
skyward, is the fact that he series of heart attacks, his father’s house, built in 1840.
sells his product wholesale father was unable to carry on It’s really three houses in
and must buy everything the strenuous business of one, he explained. Many
retail—a 40 percent dif- running the farm, so years ago, part of the house
ference.
Mathews took it over after he was a barn, but has since
Mathews believes there returned from the war.
been rebuilt many times. The
should be less government Although once he had other house contains three sets of
intervention in the farming aspirations, he doesn’t regret rafters that “even a tet can
business. “That fellow in D.C. his years of hard, sometimes
get through, he said,
doesn’t know what’s going on back-breaking work on the Although
they
are
out there,” in the fields, he farm and added that he currently in the process of
stated good-naturedly. He prefers outdoor work; his job, redecorating the stately
advocates letting the process he says, “has to be outdoors.” house, .Mathew^ remarked
of supply and demand run the Although most days a total that it is solidly built that he
crop business, along with of about 12 hours are spent on can hardly hear a milk truck
crop control. “We’d be many farm related work, Mathews come up the drive when he’s
times better off,” he stated, likes to be his own boss. He inside. The structure contains
He added that all farmers credits his wife with helping five bedrooms and is big by
in the country work together out tremendously on the today’s standards, he said,
to forecast what any given farm, adding with a smile:
To keep costs at a
year will look like.
“It’s been a full life with a minimum, they burn wood
When Mathews-began with good wife.”
arxl coal, which they haul
his father’s farm back in the An interested mate, he themselves. They project
early 40’s, he remembers that maintains, is a necessary they save $25 a ton by hauling
milk cost’$1.75 per hundred, ingredient for a successful it themselves for the 60 to
Now that price had escalated farming venture. Otherwise, 100-mile round trip, Mathews
to $13 per hundred. In those “she can hold you back,” he stated.
■
days, $ 40 an hour was con- replied. His wife worked right They look ,forward to
drilling a gas well on their
property to make them really
energy sufficient.
Besides his farming,
Mathews is a nut on nuts. A
member of the Pennsylvania
Nutgrowers Association,, he
works with the nut trees he
and his father planted which
are now grown to 40 to, 60 feet
tall. His interest in nuts could
be extremely profitable, he
said, as nuts are used the
world over for food.
tended.
What do they talk about for
the four-day celebration?
War, of course, memories
and improvements in todays
Air Force. They tour air
bases to view the latest
equipment. “I probably had
more interest in what went on
than most men. I wanted to
know what went on,”
Mathews replied.
At one such reunion, the
group took a side trip to
Hawaii and visited Pearl
But perhaps the least- Harbor. The reminiscing
known fact about the kindly “gets pretty deep,” he joked,
farmer is his role in World long as there are two people.”
Mathews doesn’t believe
War II. He functioned as a
the
draft should ever have
radio operator and gunner in
a B-25 bomber. He received been stopped. “Eternal
his radio training in Chicago vigilance is the price of
after he was drafted in 1942 liberty,” he prophisizei The
upon
graduation from all-volunteer army is in
Mathews
Alliance-then a two-year competent,
believes. “It never will work.
college.
Participating in raid after You get the deadbeats in
dangerous air raid of enemy there who just want a free
camps, Mathews escaped meal,” he charged.
Does he foresee war?
without any serious injuries.
He points down to his knee “There are always going to
and remarks: “I’ve got a be wars,” he predicted, “as
piece of Germany right long as there are two people.”
Mathews and, his wife have
there.”’
. • •- '
While flying over 65 three sons froht ber previous
Victor
missions over Italy, Southern marriage,
France and the Balkans, he Kwiatkowski, a contractor
remembered, sure there was from Edinboro, Vernon, a danger, but, with eyes teacher in central Michigan
lowered, he declined to speak and Vincent, a pharmacist at
about the death of fellow Corry General Hospital. They
enjoy visits from their three
fliers.
“You learned to pray. grandchildren. At their
When you come home, you home, they have at least 25 ■
don’t shoot ducks and geese,” bushels of toys for the tots.
he said simply. All he would Although Mathews sees the
say was: “You couldn’t hide area remaining rural, he is
up there. There were no prepared for the growth of
subdivisions and the resulting
windows and it was cold.’
“When they said go home, influx of people. “I don’t want
you just said, when,” he to be squeezed,” he
cautioned, however.
reflected.
He works every day, in
After his year overseas
tour, he was .sent to ptjorida to cluding weekends, but has
gradually sold parts of the
fly training missions.
Each year Mathews travels family parcel of land off, as
to different parts of the the work becames harder.
country to be united with “As you get older, you wear
s
fellows from the 57th bomb out quicker.”'
wing. He has been attoiding With another saying
the functions for the last ten springing to his lips, Mathews
years. Last year in San quipped: “Our wants are
Diego, some 600 people at- many, our needs are few.”