Potato Harvesting in New Brunswick

My mother, Elva Crabtree Harris Rodriguez (1914-1998), was born into a farming family in New Brunswick, Canada. I have an idea that her memories of farm life were not the fondest--she had little use for farm animals or pets, and when I was planning to move to Canada all she could think of was the hard work. And the potatoes!

I came across this old 1955 video* of potato harvesting in the Grand Falls region of Victoria County, New Brunswick. It looks like things hadn't changed so much since the 1930s and 1940s--not so long after my mother would have taken part in the harvests in Beaconsfield, just a 40 minute drive by car today.

Here is a comment on this YouTube video: I remember my grandfather working like this. All the neighbouring families came to help harvest, and then helped the next neighbour, and so on.
Hard work. Bending over all day. I remember very sore backs, and very dry hands.



For contrast, here is a more modern approach to potato harvesting, this time just across the border in Aroostook County, Maine, where the Crabtree family also lived.

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* Thanks to Wayne DeLong of the Facebook group, Carleton County Genealogy and Family Trees, for sharing the first video.