Little remains now. Just a simple white house, some charred timbers, and Jimmy Craddieth on the front porch, watching the sun slide behind the trees on Sand Road, just as his father used to do. His father built this house, built the barn behind it. For 72 years, this house has been Craddieth’s home, and the barn represented his livelihood.
When it went up in smoke three weeks ago, there was little Craddieth could do, but get his horses to safety and hope for the best. By the time he reached the pasture, flames were shooting out of the top of the barn. It sounded like a gunshot every time one of the Ford 4000’s tires exploded. The tractor wasn’t cheap. Neither was the horse tackle, the sacks of feed or the bales of hay. An errant spark from a nearby fire started the inferno.
After seventy-two years on this earth, if a man has lived his life right, he will have earned a friend or two. A few years ago, Craddieth’s postal carrier, Rebecca Garner Swain, was delivering his mail, when she drove over a three-inch bolt in the road and ended up stranded. He changed her tire and she continued her route, but she never forgot the unexpected kindness. And now, she’s repaying it, using social media and word of mouth to help her old friend rebuild his barn.
In less than three weeks, she and nearly 300 Facebook friends have raised more than $2,200. Every day, someone delivers a new load of feed for Craddieth’s four horses and 12 head of cattle. On April 7, the “Facebook Watch Barn Raising” group will trade their keyboards for hammers, holding an old-fashioned barn-raising. By the end of the day, Swain hopes Craddieth will be able to bed his horses down in a spacious new home.
Her husband, Columbus contractor Scott Swain, will oversee the construction. B.J. Rutherford, owner of Royal Carpet Service, is auctioning his professional services to raise money for materials. It’s not just about the barn, Rutherford says. It’s about a type of man, and a way of life, which is becoming as much an antiquity as the old leather harnesses that went up in flames.
‘Salt of the earth’
In an era of freeze-dried, flash-frozen, shrink-wrapped, drive-thru convenience, Craddieth lived off the land, plowing his fields with a team of four horses. As age — and diabetes — crept up on him, he acquiesced to the tractor and let most of his 100 acres go to pasture, but he still insisted on growing his own vegetables, selling some at the Hitching Lot Farmer’s Market and eating the remainder.
It was cheaper than going to the grocery store, he reasoned. Besides, the man who sits still for long, before long won’t be able to do anything at all. After working his entire life, first at a pallet factory and then on the farm, it was as much who he was as something to do.
“Salt of the earth — there’s no other way to describe him,” Rutherford said Monday afternoon. “Them people don’t exist anymore.”
Swain said the same thing. Craddieth has no computer, has never heard of Facebook . Swain’s not even certain he has a television. He’s just a humble, down-to-earth man, she says.
She stood beside him in the front yard the day the barn burned down.
“Bless his heart, he was just in dismay,” she recalls. “There went everything he had. He was just so sad and so worried about his animals and how he was going to feed them. I knew the feed had to be pricey, so I thought, surely if we could just get him that, it would help.”
But every person who became involved brought their own vision to the cause. Now, Rutherford thinks they may be able to raise $10,000 to purchase a used tractor, or perhaps someone has a tractor with which they would be willing to part.
Craddieth is just grateful for what he has already received, from the bales of hay and sacks of feed to the well-wishes and prayers. He figures if he can get some kind of barn erected, he can borrow farm equipment from his neighbors. They’re good about helping out, he says. If they’ll break the ground, he and his horses can work it.
He’s still amazed at the outpouring of support, though he’s not quite sure how it came about. He knows his “mail lady” had something to do with it.
“A lot of people I don’t even know, and they don’t know me either,” he says. “I’m just thankful.”
Carmen K. Sisson is the former news editor at The Dispatch.
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