Clad in a crisp dress shirt,
customary cup of hot coffee in hand, Ned Jennings fits the textbook description
of an everyday businessman. Lounging at
a local Starbucks, he’s nearly identical in appearance to the smattering of
local businessmen that frequent it: clean-cut, clothes perfectly pressed and
the sense that this is a man who is confident in what he does. Yet for all the stateliness he presents to
the world, Jennings understands perfectly well what it means to get down and
dirty – since the time he could work, Jennings was tasked with the
responsibilities of maintaining a 60-acre farm.
Handed a hoe from the time he
could carry one and able to operate a tractor by six, Jennings is a force to be
reckoned with. His upbringing instilled
him with a fierce work ethic that has since enabled him to achieve the success
he enjoys today as branch manager of the reputable engineering and
architectural firm, The East Group. And
hearing of his charges as a young farmhand, it’s no mystery why. Even as a child, he was put to work alongside
his father and held to standards assumed by most far older than he was.
“I can’t remember a time that I
wasn’t doing something on the farm,”
he recalls with a chuckle. “Some of my
earliest memories are of working in the garden, repairing farm equipment and
feeding the cows.” Indeed, life on the
farm was characterized by an array of duties that varied with the season, and
as the son of a farmer, Jennings was expected to contribute. Needless to say, responsibility was a term he
understood at a very young age. Age
mattered little – so long as you were able, you would work.
This mantra applied to most farm
families of rural Appomattox, the small Virginia town from which Jennings hails
and was perhaps no more evident than when it came time to harvest hay. Neighboring families would join together to cut
and bale hay that would serve to feed each farm’s respective livestock. Typically, two primary neighbors would arrive
with farm equipment and their children to aid in the process. In return, they could count on assistance in
their own fields. “It was a community
helping itself,” explains Jennings. And
that included even the youngest of farmhands.
As for the day-to-day
responsibilities of maintaining a farm, there was hardly a set routine. “There wasn’t really anything I did every day
– aside from feeding the cows in the fall and winter,” says Jennings, whose
daily chore was oftentimes conducted in the dark of early morning hours. However, that’s not to say there wasn’t work
to be done every day. In addition to
school, Jennings’s duties involved planting and harvesting vegetables during
the spring and summer seasons, weekly weeding of the garden and chopping wood.
His recollections of chopping
wood provide particular insight into the principles that dictated farm life, as
Jennings elaborates: “We would wake up at 6 a.m. every Saturday in the
summertime to chop wood. We’d use it to
heat the house in the winter, as our house was heated primarily by a wood fire
stove. And you had to get done early or
else you’d be working well into the day when the heat was unbearable.” Hours spent wielding an axe in the steadily
increasing heat was undoubtedly exhausting.
Yet despite the early hour and regardless of the heat, Jennings knew his
responsibilities came before all else.
This he holds true to even today – you do what has to be done, in spite
of all else. Certainly, it has served
him well.
 |
| 1950 Ford #8n |
Compared to today’s youth, whose
childhoods are characterized by leisure and a conspicuous lack of
responsibility, it would seem Jennings was years ahead in maturity and sheer
willpower. And then there’s the fact
that he learned how to drive a tractor by age six. “I’m sure my dad was there to keep an eye on
me,” he assures, “but there was only one seat.
I was driving on my own.” Said
tractor was a 1950 Ford #8n model and required
quite a bit of cunning on Jennings’s part to operate. While he can hardly remember his first encounters
driving a tractor, he does remember his mother’s frantic worrying over his
safety. According to her, he wasn’t
strong enough to press down on the clutch required to brake. Even his entire weight wasn’t enough to depress
it. His solution: Pull up on the
steering wheel to force his body down onto the clutch and brake. Gripping the wheel as though is life depended
on it, Jennings once again illustrates the broad range of skills he acquired
from farm life; in this case, problem solving.
Aside from the obvious
differences in lifestyle as a result of his father’s occupation, Jennings grew
up in a time and place void of many of the comforts we now come to expect. One such example is the fact that his house
didn’t have air conditioning installed until he had already entered his early
teens. “Summers were miserable,” says Jennings,
“and it wasn’t until the doctor said we had
to get air conditioning that my father did.
My mom had heart problems, and it was said the heat would aggravate
them.” In the meantime, however, summer
nights were marked by agonizing humidity and endless tossing and turning.
Phones were interesting affairs
as well. While today it’s perfectly
common for individuals to have a phone of his/her own, Jennings shared one with
his entire house. Not only that, but
this phone was connected to a party line, meaning that one line was shared by
multiple families. Upon picking up the
phone, you’d often hear another conversation taking place, in which case you’d
have either wait until the line was no longer in use or ask if you could make a
quick call. Private lines at that time
were very expensive and long-distance calls were reserved only for emergencies. Whatever the distance between you and your
neighbors, you certainly managed to get to know them nonetheless!
Despite Jennings’s less than
typical upbringing by today’s standards, he still maintains that he had a
normal childhood: “Comparing my upbringing to another would be like comparing
apples to oranges. You just can’t.” Even
so, it can hardly be said that Jennings experienced an altogether ordinary
childhood. After all, how many children in
today’s day and age know how to drive by six or feed a farm’s-worth of cattle
before school? It can hardly be said
that a growing up on a farm was uneventful.
Reared from humble beginnings, Jennings
exemplifies the triumphs of hard work and perseverance. A far cry from the farmhand he once was, Jennings
applies the same determination and dedication to everything he does. And despite his overwhelming humility, he
will concede one thing – when asked to describe his childhood, no other word fits
more perfectly in his mind: exciting.
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