A lot of things have changed for Indiana farmers over the past 100 years. One farmer who has witnessed those changes is 97-year-old George Braden of Shelby County. He was recently honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award during the Shelby County Ag Promotion banquet in Shelbyville.
“I think the good Lord has taken care of me,” Braden said after receiving the honor. He said he started working as a young boy on his family farm near Waldron during the Great Depression.
“When I started farming, I helped my father and uncle,” Braden recalled. “We planted with horses. Then later, we started with the tractor. I was about 15 or 16 years old when I was driving the tractor and planting. I don’t know how we got along at all or how we had done it, but we did do it.”
Braden says the farming industry has come a long way since he first started.
“I had four-row planter. Then I had a six-row planter and that’s as big as I got because I never did farm very big. What I farmed was maybe two or three hundred acres. Now, the planters have 35 or 36 rows, so it really has changed.”
He also says he never could’ve imagined getting paid the prices that farmers are getting today for corn, soybeans and wheat.
“It was under a dollar for corn,” said Braden. “And if we got four or five dollars for beans, we were fortunate.”
Braden retired from farming when he turned 65, but still owns the family farm and lives in the same home where he was born. Braden even continues to drive and makes it a point to attend services every Sunday morning at Lewis Creek Baptist Church.
Even though Braden says he’s honored to have received the Lifetime Achievement Award, he says he wouldn’t have been able to farm for all those years without the help of his late wife Ruth, who passed away in 2017.
“Well, she did everything. We milked cows and she drove the tractor,” said Braden.
“I wish she’d been here to help celebrate. I’m sure she celebrating up there in heaven. We were married 73 years and we did everything together.”
George Braden will celebrate his 98th birthday in October.
Click BELOW to hear C.J. Miller’s report and interview with 97-year-old retired Shelby County farmer George Braden.
