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Memory of Trees: A Daughter’s Story of a Family Farm
Memory of Trees is a multigenerational story of Gayla Marty’s family farm near Rush City, Minnesota. Cleared from woodlands by her great-grandfather Jacob in the 1880s, the farm passed to her father, Gordon, and his brother, Gaylon. Hewing to a conservative Swedish Baptist faith, the two brothers worked the farm, raising their families in side-by-side houses.
As the years go by, the families grow—and slowly grow apart. Uncle Gaylon, more doctrinaire in his faith, rails against the permissiveness of Gayla’s parents. Financial tensions arise as well when the farm economy weakens and none of the children is willing or able to take over. Gayla is encouraged to leave for college, international travel, and city life, but the farm remains essential to her sense of self, even after the family decides to sell the land.
When Gaylon has an accident on a tractor, Gayla becomes driven to reconnect with him and to find out why she and her uncle—once so close but now estranged—were the only two members of the family who had resisted selling the land. Guided by vivid images of the farm’s many beautiful trees, she pores over sacred and classical works as well as layers of her own memory to understand the forces that have transformed the American landscape and culture in the last half of the twentieth century. Beneath the belief in land as a giver of life and blessing, she discovers a powerful anxiety born of human uprootedness and loss. Movingly written, Memory of Trees will resonate for many with attachments to small towns or farms, whether they continue to work the land or, like so many, have left for a different life.
As the years go by, the families grow—and slowly grow apart. Uncle Gaylon, more doctrinaire in his faith, rails against the permissiveness of Gayla’s parents. Financial tensions arise as well when the farm economy weakens and none of the children is willing or able to take over. Gayla is encouraged to leave for college, international travel, and city life, but the farm remains essential to her sense of self, even after the family decides to sell the land.
When Gaylon has an accident on a tractor, Gayla becomes driven to reconnect with him and to find out why she and her uncle—once so close but now estranged—were the only two members of the family who had resisted selling the land. Guided by vivid images of the farm’s many beautiful trees, she pores over sacred and classical works as well as layers of her own memory to understand the forces that have transformed the American landscape and culture in the last half of the twentieth century. Beneath the belief in land as a giver of life and blessing, she discovers a powerful anxiety born of human uprootedness and loss. Movingly written, Memory of Trees will resonate for many with attachments to small towns or farms, whether they continue to work the land or, like so many, have left for a different life.
248 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
August 24, 2010
What a special pleasure it is to hold in my hands a book created while I was watching and waiting on the sidelines. Memory of Trees, termed an "elegy for the American family farm" in the publisher's blurb, is much more than that. It is also a moving inquiry into the place of daughters in midwestern rural life, unexpected changes that come with shifts in family fortunes, and the escape offered by reading and education and foreign travel.
The author -- long known to me through professional and personal connections here in Minnesota, but now known in more finely layered textures -- traces her awakening in a voice that matures from her girlhood on the family dairy farm through time as an exchange student in Switzerland, at college in Minneapolis, a foray to Tunisia, and back home to contemplate the near-death experience of the land in the 1980s farm crisis.
It is hard for me to achieve any real objectivity in this review, since reading the book was both a revelation and a joy. So I'm glad to be able to agree with the assessment of another Minnesota author and memoirist, Patricia Hampl, who says of Gayla's book, "The prose burns with a transparent light, documenting a way of life and unearthing a family saga that together achieve the power of history. Part memoir, part social anthropology, Memory of Trees is a moving, spirited inquiry into a lost--or perhaps abandoned-- American ideal. Already it feels like a classic."
The author -- long known to me through professional and personal connections here in Minnesota, but now known in more finely layered textures -- traces her awakening in a voice that matures from her girlhood on the family dairy farm through time as an exchange student in Switzerland, at college in Minneapolis, a foray to Tunisia, and back home to contemplate the near-death experience of the land in the 1980s farm crisis.
It is hard for me to achieve any real objectivity in this review, since reading the book was both a revelation and a joy. So I'm glad to be able to agree with the assessment of another Minnesota author and memoirist, Patricia Hampl, who says of Gayla's book, "The prose burns with a transparent light, documenting a way of life and unearthing a family saga that together achieve the power of history. Part memoir, part social anthropology, Memory of Trees is a moving, spirited inquiry into a lost--or perhaps abandoned-- American ideal. Already it feels like a classic."
May 18, 2010
Yippee! It came today.
May 20, 2010
A bit slow to start, but then it's so entrancing, but not cloying. The story of the family farm, a way of life that's disappearing, but not overly sentimentalized or romanticized.
February 26, 2021
Being a farmer's daughter myself, I delighted in the memories the authors words recalled for me - the sound of the milk machine, the rhythm of the baler, the soft, fine sand in a cow path. I smiled, I cried, I didn't want to read on to the death of a family farm. I recalled when at 13 a tornado struck our farm, a few days later I remarked to a cousin, "Oh, all those trees gone!" and when she replied, "oh, big deal', I thought her heartless. I won't be forgetting this book for some time, it includes so many of my memories and emotions.
May 18, 2021
What responsibility does a farm hold for its daughters and what responsibility do they hold for it? Gayla Marty was formed and molded by the dairy farm, by kin, by history. This memoir traces her journey away and then back to the farm, traces the rise and fall of a century-old family tradition as agribusiness and family priorities change. Central to the book is the question: do you serve the land or does the land serve you?
November 19, 2020
Lovely
July 4, 2015
I'm doing a reading challenge for 2015, and one of the categories is "Read a book set in your hometown." I thought...no way. This would be the category that really would stymie me. I grew up on a farm near a small town in east central Minnesota and couldn't fathom a book actually set there. I mentioned it on Facebook, and a high school classmate mentioned this book. I was at first stunned that I had found a book for the category, but when I saw the author's name I grinned and was not at all surprised. Gayla was a year ahead of me in high school and we participated in speech and drama activities together. I didn't know her well, but I knew she was a talented writer, even then.
This is a multi-layered story, not only of her own life, but the lives of her parents, grandparents and great-grandparents who settled the land and turned it into a thriving family farm. And it is also the story of the farm itself, the land and the trees. The tale jogs back and forth from distant past to Gayla's childhood, to near-present day, unfolding precious memories for all to share, fitting puzzle pieces of the big picture together.
I could identify with many of those evocative memories...the descriptions of the land, the trees, the smell and sounds of the barn. Our farm was much smaller and more multi-faceted (a few dairy cows, but also beef cows, pigs, chickens, turkeys) and the actual farming operations shut down long before the Marty farm did, but my childhood days spent with the animals or clambered up into the huge cedar tree in our yard reading are very precious to me, and Gayla's descriptions brought them home full-force, all senses engaged.
Some things about Gayla's childhood were very different, of course. Our family was not at all religious, so those parts of the woven tale were a bit foreign to me, but the interspersed Scripture verses and references didn't come across as preachy; it was just how things were for her and how she was raised. Had I not had a brief period of religious fervor as a born-again Baptist in my early twenties myself, a lot of it would have seemed really foreign to me, but I understood well the whys and wherefores of certain attitudes and decisions, especially those of her uncle.
In short, I really enjoyed this book. Our farm was about 7 or 8 miles from where the Marty farm was, south of Rush City towards the even smaller town of Harris, and yet it was wonderful to see all the old familiar places come to life in her descriptions. It was also an interesting opportunity to catch up with Gayla and to see where life led her, as I totally lost touch after high school, as I did with most of my schoolmates. I think it would be an interesting read even for those who are unfamiliar with the area or the people--especially city children who have never had the joy of delivering piglets or bottle-feeding a runty calf or breathing in the intoxicating scent of newly-mown hay.
Read it! Read it, I say! :)
This is a multi-layered story, not only of her own life, but the lives of her parents, grandparents and great-grandparents who settled the land and turned it into a thriving family farm. And it is also the story of the farm itself, the land and the trees. The tale jogs back and forth from distant past to Gayla's childhood, to near-present day, unfolding precious memories for all to share, fitting puzzle pieces of the big picture together.
I could identify with many of those evocative memories...the descriptions of the land, the trees, the smell and sounds of the barn. Our farm was much smaller and more multi-faceted (a few dairy cows, but also beef cows, pigs, chickens, turkeys) and the actual farming operations shut down long before the Marty farm did, but my childhood days spent with the animals or clambered up into the huge cedar tree in our yard reading are very precious to me, and Gayla's descriptions brought them home full-force, all senses engaged.
Some things about Gayla's childhood were very different, of course. Our family was not at all religious, so those parts of the woven tale were a bit foreign to me, but the interspersed Scripture verses and references didn't come across as preachy; it was just how things were for her and how she was raised. Had I not had a brief period of religious fervor as a born-again Baptist in my early twenties myself, a lot of it would have seemed really foreign to me, but I understood well the whys and wherefores of certain attitudes and decisions, especially those of her uncle.
In short, I really enjoyed this book. Our farm was about 7 or 8 miles from where the Marty farm was, south of Rush City towards the even smaller town of Harris, and yet it was wonderful to see all the old familiar places come to life in her descriptions. It was also an interesting opportunity to catch up with Gayla and to see where life led her, as I totally lost touch after high school, as I did with most of my schoolmates. I think it would be an interesting read even for those who are unfamiliar with the area or the people--especially city children who have never had the joy of delivering piglets or bottle-feeding a runty calf or breathing in the intoxicating scent of newly-mown hay.
Read it! Read it, I say! :)
November 13, 2018
This detailed, rich book chronicles the last days of family farms in America. Offset by small vignettes about trees, it celebrates a life of nature, animals, space, and nature. Families, even ones that appear solid from the outside, show their fissures of financial stress and fewer resources. This book is a look at an ever-shrinking American landscape and life: The American Family Farm. But more importantly, it shows the wonder of children with animals, trees, and crops; joyful and curious about all of the relationships in an almost spiritual connection. That story is sheer beauty.
August 9, 2016
Interesting and authentic memoir on growing up on a farm in central Minnesota. It is at least a couple of books in one: the author's own growing up story and also the story of several generations on the same farm. The growing up story is about the author's tie to her home farm, but also about her need to find herself and her place in the world. The farm story is about different generations, what they did to survive, and ultimately, the story of how the farm could no longer survive in the agricultural climate of the 80's and 90's. I was torn between empathizing with the author and thinking that the two brothers (author's dad and uncle), needed some help with how they worked with one another as business partners. The lesson of the 80's which has not entirely been learned is that a farm is a business and must be run like one even as one acknowledges the emotional and stewardship aspects of that farm.
April 27, 2012
Gayla Marty writes with exquisite detail about her childhood on her family's farm in east-central Minnesota and the evolution of the farm to the point in which it eventually left the family's hands. This book is the perfect elegy to the family farm and to the quiet beauty of a time and place that no longer exists. Marty contemplates what it means to grow up surrounded by a loving family who cherishes hard work, and what it means when maintaining that hard work is no longer viable. Marty herself left the farm for the city, and you can sense the hole in her heart that will never be filled.
This was my second pass through this book and I liked it even better the second time around. I was able to catch more subtleties and better see the themes and motifs that run through the book. I recommend that you read this book slowly and truly savor it, for there is much to be savored.
This was my second pass through this book and I liked it even better the second time around. I was able to catch more subtleties and better see the themes and motifs that run through the book. I recommend that you read this book slowly and truly savor it, for there is much to be savored.
October 6, 2010
A feminine voice on farming--I've been waiting for this while I'm still forming my own voice. The rhythms and geography on this Minnesota farm are so similar to the ones I know from northwest Illinois. When Marty's Gramma dies at age 61 the siblings mourn, "She was such a hard worker...she worked so hard." Marty's dad says under his breath, "They mean the Martys worked her to death." Labor and love are so intertwined on family farms, it's hard to separate, but this author never forgets the feelings that accompany everything. We share this part of the story: "I was the displaced daughter of our farm, our farm that didn't know what to do with daughters except teach them to work hard and recognize beauty." I'll feast on the marrow of this book again.
December 7, 2011
she must have one terrific memory! so far 100 pages into the book she is still six years old!
Well, being about the same age as the author and growing up in rural Minnesota i could relate. I found very poignant and significant the frustrations of the fathers and grandfathers as they came to the realization that their children were not going to be farmers and they would have to give up their land. How many of us have grown up to reject our parents expectations...and is it fair for parents to have expectations.
We lived on a hobby farm for 30 years and i came to have a deep respect for farmers and their legacy...Now i never say "farmer" when i see a slow driver in the cities...Mpls i mean.
Well, being about the same age as the author and growing up in rural Minnesota i could relate. I found very poignant and significant the frustrations of the fathers and grandfathers as they came to the realization that their children were not going to be farmers and they would have to give up their land. How many of us have grown up to reject our parents expectations...and is it fair for parents to have expectations.
We lived on a hobby farm for 30 years and i came to have a deep respect for farmers and their legacy...Now i never say "farmer" when i see a slow driver in the cities...Mpls i mean.
January 30, 2012
As a daughter of a Minnesota farm, I enjoyed every page of Gayla Marty's superb book about her family's farm and commend her for telling her own story with such honesty and in poetic terms. The demise of the family farm goes back many years and Marty traces it with accuracy and a deep sense of loss. I hope to read more of Marty's work. She has a website that provides information about her ongoing efforts to preserve some aspects of this special way of rural life.
June 3, 2011
Carefully written early childhood memories in a very accessible style. Born in Rush City, MN area. Lived through the upheavel of the progress of I-35, splitting their farm. I appreciated this book for its vivid description of small MN farm life (Rush City), its introspection and broad worldview, and because I met the author in Red Wing.
March 3, 2012
Excellent story about a family farm in Minnesota, written by a local author. Pretty slow read, but I think that's the point - to dwell in her story. There's a nice rhythm to it, and is interwoven with descriptions and anecdotes about nature and religion. But it isn't preachy. Just telling the story of how it was. Very honest, not trying too hard, the way some authors do these days.
May 1, 2015
I loved Gayla's descriptions of the land and trees. It was so beautifully written and so visual. I didn't feel the connection between Tunisia and the rest of the book, so that felt disjointed. I didn't grow up on a farm but live in the Minneapolis/St Paul area. Lovely book
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January 27, 2011I can't get the yellow duck's feet out of my mind.
December 31, 2012
Beautiful memoir/coming-of-age story from my corner of the world.
March 29, 2014
Beautifully written book that brought back memories of my own childhood.
December 14, 2014
Beautifully written
August 3, 2015
A modern elegy for the family farm. It was a bit slow, but well-written.
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January 17, 2017I heard Gayla read and speak about her journey of writing this book - part memoir, part personal history.
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January 23, 2019The best memoir ever! I laughed and cried and, in the end, smiled in remembrance.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews