Dad

(1885 – 1957)

I feel very blessed to have had DeForest Baird for my father. Being born into the Baird family was probably the most fortunate thing that ever happened to me.

Dad was just about the most fair, considerate, loving, honest, moral, ethical person I have ever known. And I have known quite number of really good men. What more could I say to praise him!

But as a kid, Dad didn’t seem to be some kind of a saint--he was just a great Dad and had a great influence on us kids. He was bright, optimistic and cheerful. He was a much more interesting man than other fathers we knew and was always interested in our projects. He wrote our orations, speeches and demonstrations--and did an absolutely outstanding job of it. I remember once when I was in a Future Farmers of America oration contest among regional high schools my topic was The Farmer and his Radio. This seemed such a pedestrian or commonplace subject that some of my competitors snickered when I announced it. But Dad had written such a pertinent, well-reasoned speech that I won the contest.

When I reflect on my impression of Dad when I was growing up, I think of him sitting quietly at his desk, smoking his pipe and working steadily at his typewriter, while there was pandemonium among us kids at the adjacent dining room table (illuminated by a kerosene lamp). We fussed among ourselves as--with varying degrees of diligence-- we worked on our school lessons. When we had problems with our schoolwork, Mother was always ready to help us, but Dad was in his own world at his desk. If we asked him, he was happy to help--but he was usually absorbed in his work.

Dad seldom raised his voice to us--yet he was a firm, loving father. For a minor behavior problem we kids were made to “sit on the step”--our family’s version of “time out.” If he thought we deserved it, he didn’t hesitate to bring out the razor strap--it was like twin, double-wide belts--and it really helped to make you realize behaving yourself was the expected norm in our family. As we grew older he frequently told us when we were going out, “Remember, you’re a Baird” to hold us to very high standards. When he heard of poor conduct among other boys, his usual response was, “My boys would never do that.” He was quite proud of our family’s good reputation.

Dad was by far the most important leader in our community. He was Supervisor of Penn Township, an Elder in the church, a director at East Center school, a director of the Bethany Grain Company, director of the Farm Bureau and highly respected throughout a wide area. His word was always accepted as a bond. Yet he was never a proud man in his public offices or in any way “bossy.” I never heard him “run down” anybody; he always spoke well of others and was happy to give other people a lot of credit for his projects that turned out well. He often participated in debates and usually took the weaker side. Although he would put up a well-reasoned defense, he felt absolutely no loss of pride in losing, and heartily congratulated the winners. When he won he congratulated the opposite side on their strong points.

Dad was always interested in helping young people. For all of the time I was on the farm Dad taught the Young Peoples class in Sunday School. He called it the “L & L” class, which stood for Live and Learn. It was great! I think he was the best teacher I ever had.

Dad was a leader in the Prairie Home Literary Society. He was often chairman, and every two or three years he would select a three-act play, pick the cast, coach and produce great entertainment for the community. We all loved it.

Dad was a good farmer. He seldom rushed any job--he took his work seriously and did it right the first time. “Steady as she goes” was a frequently heard expression, although I have no idea how the phrase originated. He was a stickler about straight corn rows and although he would delegate other work, he insisted on doing all of the corn planting himself.

He was interested in trying new things. He was the first farmer in the area to plant soybeans, a crop that became tremendously important. He also experimented with small plantings of buckwheat, lespedza and a kind of kaffir corn called grohoma, but none of these other crops worked out well enough to continue. Dad was the first farmer in our area to put in a grassway, which has proved to be a very effective way to prevent soil erosion.

We always had stimulating conservation at the dinner table when we were growing up. Dad loved word games; his favorite was a simple exercise called Behead, where removing the first letter of a word produced a second word. Example: “Behead something in the room (chair) and get a part of the body (hair).” (Or John’s joking example: “Behead something that runs on a railroad track and get water falling down from the sky.”) We were always trying to think of word pairs that didn’t rhyme, like shoe/hoe, since we thought these would be a little harder for the others to guess. Dad felt that these games were not only a lot of fun, but that they also helped kids develop vocabulary and reasoning ability.