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Family Operation grows from the broad axe to
space-age machinery.
Fred Batton of McKenzie, who turns 93 on the 30th
day of this month, last month celebrated 68 years of
marriage with his wife, Helen, on June 3. Still spry
for his years, with a ready smile, twinkling eyes
and spirited conversation that confirm his equally
bright mind, Mr. Batton has little advice for those
who might hope to duplicate his long life."The
Good Lord has been good |
Mr. Fred Batton shares stories of logging's history
over almost 100 years. His legacy moves from from
the days of the broadaxe, crosscut saw and mules
through chainsaws, tractors and front end loaders to
"feller bunchers", "knuckleboom loaders" and master
logger certification that ensures envirnmentally
sound practices in forestry. |
to me, that's all I can say," he smiles, "I give my God
credit for my life."He acknowledges, however, than when a couple of his
brothers began smoking during their teen years, he never
picked up the habit, and, as he has grown older, he eats
about half of what he once did with no desire for more.
Mr. Batton retired last year after falling from the
knucleboom loader that he manned until he was 92
years old. |
Even so, in 1996, he endured surgery to open clogged
arteries, then recuperated for two months before heading
back to work in the logging woods at the age of 86,
continuing to work until just last year when an accident
convinced him it was time to retire. It was a hard choice
for a man who was in the woods with his daddy from the age
of four and who started pulling his end of a crosscut saw
at seven.
Fred was born in Cuba Landing on the Tennessee River in
Humphreys County where his father, Andrew Jackson Batton,
was a farmer and a tie hack, hewing railroad ties with a
broadaxe and brute strength from trees felled by saw and
axe.
"Hard work was all people knew back then," nods Fred
knowingly.
His mother, Nora Bell, was also well acquainted with the
austerity of the times as the mother of thirteen children;
eight boys and five girls. Her first child, Walter, died
in infancy, leaving Fred as the oldest of twelve.
"I worked all my life, hard, and went to school mighty
little," says Fred, who spent summers working with his
father on the farm - growing peanuts and corn rather than
the more common crop of cotton - and fall and winter in
the woods cutting cross ties. "I got to the fifth grade
and really didn't know the second, I was in and out so
much," he says, explaining that children were often kept
in from school during harvest season.
Hunting for squirrels, rabbits, and possums helped put
food on the table. "We ate a lot of wild meat," says Fred,
who recalled his father's ingenuity in tanning the hides
of groundhogs for use in making shoestrings, since, "there
wasn't no good shoestrings in those days."
Fred began "musseling" when he was 17, an occupation he
continued for three years. The mollusk shells with their
iridescent mother-of-pearl linings were used for making
pearl buttons.
With the crunch of the depression limiting opportunity,
the family moved to Lake County in 1930 to pick cotton.
The following year, Fred's father died of pneumonia at
just 47 years old, leaving his wife with 12 children to
care for during some of the darkest days in American
history.
"We went ahead and made crops like he did; we didn't have
no choice," says Fred. He continued living at home to help
his mother for four years until she married and moved
away, a short-lived event that scattered the family with
the exception of the youngest children.
In 1935, Fred and Helen married. Fred had known the
14-year-old Lake County girl for years as the two families
came together at the rural get-togethers that were common
in those days.
Fred's new wife was also a hard worker. The two began
working together clearing land for $10 an acre, then got
lucky when they were offered a Model-T Ford for clearing
enough land to yield 20 four-feet-by-eight-feet ranks of
wood.
Fred farmed, picked cotton and eventually went into the
junk business, buying and scrapping old cars.
By the time the United States entered World War II, Fred
and Helen had two daughters: Freddie (Ghyers) and Irene
(Daniels). The family moved to Michigan in 1944, the year
their third child, Jackie, was born. There Fred worked in
the Detroit Army Tank Plant building landing craft tanks
while two of his brothers served in the military during
the war.
The family returned to Tennessee a little over a year
later where Fred continued farming. In 1947 - the year the
couple's youngest son, Bruce, was born - Fred began
logging once more, using tractors and mules to pull the
logs out and loading them onto one-axle trucks using
chains and skid poles.
After a move to Caruthersville, Missouri, where the family
spent the next 10 years, Fred became a carpenter, roofing
and siding houses as well as building them from the ground
up.
"I built four of my own in my life," says the erstwhile
carpenter. He bought his current farmhouse and acreage in
rural McKenzie in 1971, adding several rooms onto the
original structure.
Fred and his sons, Jackie and Bruce, raised corn and
soybeans on the land before Fred and Jackie sold their
share in the farm to Bruce, who now raises cattle.
"For the last 28-30 years I've been in the logging woods,"
says Fred who found his niche in returning to the work he
started at seven years old.
The new family operation began when Fred and his sons decided
to "log off" the farm and has grown into a major operation
using equipment undreamed of in the years when the broadaxe and crosscut saw were the loggers' tools and
mules his helpmate.
Fred Batton (top) is patriarch of the Batton
Enterprises logging operation that today is composed
of (l to r) grandsons Chad and Junior and youngest
son Bruce. |
"It's all machines now, you don't do it by hand anymore,"
explains Fred, at home in the limb-strewn logging woods,
rich with the fragrance of fresh cut trees, where his son
Bruce and grandsons Junior and Chad operate the heavy
machinery that performs every manual task of the past.
Junior and Chad call their father from the rear of the
operation by cell phone while Fred indicates the gigantic
"knuckleboom loader" he operated before a backwards
misstep last year resulted in his falling from the
platform onto the steel stabilizing feet below.
"I thought I'd broke my back," declares Fred, who
nevertheless has no qualms about scaling the heights of
the monstrous equipment.
The sound of an approaching engine interrupts talk of the
mule-days of logging. "Here comes our mule," quips Junior,
speaking of the "feller buncher" driven by his father. The
heavy duty logging machine grasps the tree by its trunk
and saws it down while the operator remains safe within
the cab, far surpassing chain saws in the technological
hierarchy of logging.
"We run more production in one good day than they used to
do in a week," boasts Junior. "Logging has improved
greatly in terms of safety and production."
In earlier years, Fred and Bruce logged the timber alone:
"He'd cut it then I'd drag it out and he'd come out and
cut them up and I'd load it," relates Fred.
The men gained an advantage when Junior, who spent six
years in the banking and financing industry after earning
a degree in business administration, traded his suits for
coveralls and his office for the changing landscapes and
weather of the logging woods.
Younger brother Chad, who has work completed toward a
degree in environmental management, also chose the logging
woods over other opportunities.
Both brothers had an early taste of their ultimate
vocation, like their grandfather growing up in the woods.
"Summer vacation was spending time out in the woods,"
smiles Junior who recalls making a dollar a day at his
first job: unhooking the chain that connected the logs to
the tractor once they were pulled out of the woods.
"It wasn't long before it was two dollars a day," he
grins.
Chad was six weeks old the first time he sat beside his
father as he worked the woods. By the age of 11 he was
running the knuckleboom and cutting limbs off the trees
with an axe.
"That boy had a thing with an axe," says his father,
relating further that Chad has stated he was born to drive
the skidder - that despite the fact he turned the machine
over when he was 12 years old.
"I have, too, a few times," consoles Fred, declaring, "You
just turn it back up and laugh about it and go on."
Helen, known by the boys as "Nana" and by Fred as "Mama",
once drove a front-end loader for the business before that
piece of equipment, too, became obsolete as technology
advanced.
"We've always been a family business," says Junior,
relating that his uncle Jackie was a member of the crew as
well before selling his interest to Bruce in 1994.
Bruce shares a tale about the family's Christmas in 1995
when his gift from Chad was a sign for his truck that
read, "Logging - not just a job but a way of life."
"That pretty much sums up how we feel about it," declares
Bruce, who is a certified master logger, having attended
the 40-hour certification course with instruction in
safety; best management practices for the environment and
soil erosion; CPR & First Aidl; methods of timber
harvesting including clearcutting, selective cutting, and
thinning; and business management.
"Logging's come a long way since the axe and cross-cut
saw; managing a forest is a bigger deal than most people
know about," says Bruce, who is proud of the heritage
begun by his father.
"Not many people you meet have seen it go from horses and
mules to the space program and beyond; I'm fascinated with
the changes I've seen in just the last 15 years," he
states.
Having "laid by" the logging business after his fall last
year, Fred remains as busy as a man many years his junior.
He enjoys fishing with friends James Sellers and Roger
Grissom, recently catching 21 fish in one day of fishing
at Paris Landing.
"I do a lot of fishing; I don't do as much as I want to
but I guess I fish enough," grins the fisherman who says
his younger buddies can handle the boat better than he
can. "They're mighty good guys, both of them. I think a
lot of them," he says.
A member of the Church of Christ since 1935 and a deacon
since 1974, he enjoys Thursdays spent at the church
helping to distribute food to those in need, and also
helps others by transporting them to medical appointments
and "doing different things through the church."
By far his favorite pastime is spending time with his
family, however, and he enjoys telling that all four
children, seven grandchildren and eight great
grandchildren are "all right here together" in the same
community.
"We have a lot of get-togethers," he says with a happy
smile, recalling Independence Day gatherings and his
recent wedding anniversary celebration.
Of his 13 brothers and sisters, only he, three brothers
and a sister survive. Casey lives in California, Lonnie in
Dyersburg, Jim in Indiana and Earlene in Michigan.
"I made a lot of money but I didn't accumulate a lot of
money," says Fred, continuing with satisfaction, "But I've
got a lot of good friends."
Perhaps another insight into his long and fruitful life is
revealed in his parting philosophy: "Something I've always
prayed about is to be happy in any situation because
you're always going to have ups and downs; you're not
going to always have things go your way; you've got to
give."
For more information about Batton Enterprises' logging
services, call 731-352-3763 or 9408. To learn more about
modern forestry and best management practices see
www.tnforestry.com and www.state.tn.us/agriculture/forestry. |
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