During the last dozen years of Dad's life, he and Mom lived on her home place, on acres passed down through the Anderson side of the family. They built a house to replace the so-called shack where Mom and Auntie grew up, digging out the stones from the old cellar to make a new fireplace.
Every fall Mom and Dad went to the woods, sawed up a naturally fallen tree, and hauled the wood back to the house. Together they loaded a hay wagon hitched behind a tractor small enough to navigate Grampa Anderson's old logging trail through the 40+ acres of hardwoods and pines.
Mom and Dad loved those fall days in the woods. It wasn't easy for Dad—he lost a leg in an accident while finishing the new house so spent the last 12 years of his life with a prosthesis, compounded by a heart valve replacement and later cancer—but you can see how happy he was. Mom said they felt like kids going out to play on those days, working up a sweat, racing the sun, breaking for lunch when they got hungry, coming home exhausted and exhilarated.
On the day I took this photograph, they were happy to have not only my company but Claire's: she needed a photo of a chainsaw in action for a school project. She was so proud to have these family woods to go to, and grandparents to photograph, doing real work.
Margaret and Gordon Marty, Anderson woods, Rock Creek, Minnesota, October 2000. Kodacolor. Photo by Gayla Marty.
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