I’m at the Country Dairy farm store. I’ve just finished my third bottomless cup of chocolate milk; I’d love another cup, but my stomach says “no.” Outside, in the parking lot, I give Bessie a love pat and head to my car. Memories wash over me as I look around and realize how much the farm has changed since I grew up here.
“Preserve your memories. Keep them well, for what you forget, you can never retell.” (Louisa May Alcott)
I wrote Country Dairy: Looking Back, Moving Forward (CD)* in memory of my parents, Henry and Ellen Van Gunst, because I wanted my children and grandchildren to appreciate the farm’s history and legacy. The memoir of my mother, In the Garden: An Ordinary Woman; An Extraordinary Life – Ellen, A Memoir, is a tribute to my mother’s faith, as she struggled to accept God’s will for her life, “in the garden.”
To the north, just over the hill, lies the house that Henry built for his bride, Ellen, and where he carried her over the threshold after their honeymoon in March 1936. Trees now occupy the space where the cherry orchard used to be; where I stood on the top of a 10-foot ladder, on tippy-toes, straining to reach an elusive cherry overhead. My siblings and I communicated our picking prowess through pail levels - bottom thinly covered, bottom thickly covered, just under half, half, just over half, three-quarters full, level and heaping full. We emptied our heaping-full pails into containers, called lugs, and we competed to see who had the most lugs at the end of the day. My dad brought us morning and afternoon snacks, often staying to pick a few cherries himself, and to offer encouragement.
“The farm is bleak in March. A grim austere landscape greeted Ellen in late March, when she and Henry returned from their honeymoon and settled into their new home. Looking out the kitchen window, as the sun rose behind her in the east, she would have seen barren, scraggy trees dotting the yard. Sooty, stale piles of snow were reminders of winter’s frigid blast. Patches of green spotted the snow-covered pasture and a ring of water circled the frozen pond – hopeful signs that the bleak barrenness would not last forever. The pond wound lazily uphill to the woods, a scruffy army of trees guarding the rear boundary.” (In the Garden, pg. 22)
I look to the east, where Dan and Daze, the draft horses, graze in the pasture - where the asparagus field used to be. I remember walking the rows, after school, in the spring, with my siblings, breaking off the stalks and placing them into my basket. My dad would bring us a snack and walk a couple of rows with us.
“Hinie loads the baskets into the truck, and drives to the asparagus field. He snaps off the tall, green, spindly stalks, then he’s off to market with his yield.” (CD: Looking back, Moving Forward)
To the south is the little town of New Era, put to sleep by the expressway to the west. We went to church here, and walked the mile and a half to and from school each day. My parents are buried here. The grocery stores are gone, as is Jack’s Ice Cream, where I worked one summer. Sadly, my employment ended after I threw a lighted match into the trash bin, but, come to find out, that wasn’t my worst transgression. Someone I waited on that summer told me years later that I had forgotten to put bananas in his banana split! Not wanting to get me in trouble, he never mentioned it at the time. (That was before the trash bin debacle). Postema Hardware, owned by my grandfather and, then by his sons, my uncles, is now Veltman’s Hardware and the New Era Canning Company was taken over by Burnette Foods, but Meyers Chevrolet still stands as a proud monument to the past.
“On the Sabbath, Hin’ and Ellen go to church, dressed in their Sunday best.
Then it’s home for chicken with all the trimmings, and an afternoon of rest. (CD: Looking Back, Moving Forward)
Looking west, I imagine my parents sitting on their front porch, taking a break from their chores in the midst of the day, and relaxing in the evening after their chores were finished. On a clear day, my father said he could see all the way to Lake Michigan.
“Many years passed, Hinie and Ellen were tired. It was time to pass on the torch.
They sold the farm to Wendell, their son, and went out to sit on the porch.
Birds are singing, crickets are chirping, with nature in perfect accord;
A breeze is blowing, the sun is setting: Perfect peace – with each other, and their Lord! (CD: Looking Back, Moving Forward)
A snort and neigh from Daze and Dan bring me back to the present. I say good-bye to the farm, but not to my memories. Though a part of me will always remain at the farm, the memories are part of who I am and they go with me wherever I may roam.
*Country Dairy : Looking Back, Moving Forward is available at the farmstore. **In the Garden: An Ordinary Woman, An Extraordinary Life – Ellen: A Memoir is available from the author at janethasselbring23@gmail.com More information about the author and her books at www.janethasselbring.wordpress.... Information about Country Dairy is found at www.countrydairy.com.
