Still going strong after 71 years0
By:
Nancy Grindstaff
“The secret of life is to enjoy the passage of time,” wrote singer/songwriter James Taylor in 1977.
If anyone epitomizes that sentiment, it’s Weiser’s Maurice and Barbara Syme.
Coming up on their 71st wedding anniversary next month, the Symes still live and enjoy the view on the farm they bought in the northwest corner of the Weiser Flat in 1953, just less than a year after they were married and mere weeks before their first of four children, Penny, was born. Scott, Kelly, and Stuart came along in that order over the next few years.
Growing up through the Great Depression, World War II, and the country’s gradual economic progress following it, the pair had known each other as grade schoolers at Sunnyside School.
Four years younger than Maurice, Barbara said they had dated some while she was in high school. She then went off to college, but said she spotted him when she was home on a break and decided then “that Maurice Syme is the one for me.”
Full of good humor and gratitude for the successes life has brought, the pair laugh easily when reflecting on their early beginnings as a married couple.
Before they were married, a local, older gentleman, Mr. Snavely, had stopped them on the street, saying he had heard they were getting married.
“He advised us to never go to bed angry,” Barbara said.
She said that proved to be some of the best advice they received.
“Once in a while we wouldn’t settle something and we would pay for it,” she said. “The next day it got worse.”
Maurice added, “I think an important thing is to say ‘I’m sorry.’ We all make mistakes and I was always running my mouth off and it would hurt Barbara’s feelings. I have to say, I’ve said I’m sorry more than she has,” he laughed, agreeing maybe Barbara didn’t have much to be sorry about.
Wise man.
Their 656 acres is a combined original 340-acre homestead bought from Edgar Prouty, plus 316 acres of farm ground purchased from Vernon and Nola Ferrell Weston.
“When we moved out here there was no machinery, no money, nothing,” Barbara said.
“Mrs. Weston was one of my teachers at Sunnyside,” Maurice said. “This is known to be the hardest ground to farm between here and the Red River Valley in North Dakota.
That’s the truth.
They wouldn’t demonstrate a beet harvester on The Flat or in the Red River Valley because the ground’s too rough, hard old adobe.”
Maurice and his folks went in on a small Ford tractor and they were getting ready to put a plow to the ground for the first time.
“I was looking out the kitchen window, just so proud. They put the plow in the ground and the tractor went up just like that,” she laughed, moving her hand in about a 45-degree angle.
Maurice said if they both hadn’t worked jobs outside of the farm they “wouldn’t have ever made it here.”
“Barbara always had a pretty good job. We used her money to buy groceries and clothes for the kids,” he said. “What I made we would try to pay on the place.”
They both are quick to credit the generosity of people they knew and worked with for help along the way.
One of Barbara’s favorite jobs early on was as the draft board clerk for Washington County, and while she was there, they had decided her $100 per month check would go on the Prouty place.
“The nice part about it, the first time I went into the bank, interest was deducted from the payment,” she said. “Edgar Prouty went to the bank and told them there was to be no interest taken out of those payments.”
When they first moved into their now nicely designed, spacious home, it was the original farmhouse that was part of the Prouty homestead.
“We thought it was a mansion,” Maurice said.
Barbara said they moved in on Feb. 18, 1953.
“Mrs. Prouty had papered the walls and it looked so nice,” she said. “Summer came along, and it got hot, and ‘pop, pop, pop.’ All of that paper fell off the walls. Calcimine was behind the paper, and nothing would stick to it, especially when it was hot.”
They have hilarious stories that include mice and snakes, horses, cows, practical jokes, and a few mishaps.
“I don’t think you can survive this life without a sense of humor,” Maurice said.
Underneath the house, the Proutys had dug out space to pull a car into during the winter.
“As the cars got bigger, the space was made bigger,” Barbara said. “Maurice finished digging it out and we added the basement. But it still had its own entry separate from upstairs. The kids slept up here, and before we added an intercom, the system was this,” she demonstrated with a few foot stomps on the floor.
“One thing that made our lives better was we had good kids,” Maurice said.
Each one worked on the farm with him, played sports in school, and went on to achieve their own successes as adults. “That was our best crop,” Barbara added.
As time went by, the couple discovered a whole bevy of Symes in New Zealand.
“When my grandpa and dad came to the U.S. from Scotland, a couple of my grandpa’s brothers went to Christ Church, New Zealand,” Maurice said. “We found out about them, so we got on a plane and went and visited them. We went down there twice. They’re really nice people.”
“The second time, we went there was a family reunion, and there were 150 of them there,” Barbara said.
A favorite endeavor for the couple was buying and improving a cabin for the family at Pine Ridge in the mid-1970s. Lots and lots of time has been spent there with their kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids. Now, the couple is looking forward to their 33rd great-grandchild due later this spring.
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18 E. Idaho St.
Weiser, ID 83672
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FAX: (208) 549-1718
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