The End of a Family Era

Coming up the lane to the home place.

Eventually it becomes inevitable that ancestral history and emotional family memories are trumped by the need to face the end of an era. The Bailey/Buchholz Farm is in the process of being sold. A deal closed yesterday on the portion of the land that includes the home place, the “North Farm”. Sale of the remainder, the “South Farm”, will close next month. That land will now be owned by a local farmer who is a family friend.

My husband’s maternal family, the Buchholz’, owned hundreds of acres of farm land in central Illinois' Ford County since settling there in the mid-1800’s. Rons’s grandfather and namesake, Ronald Buchholz, was the last in a long line of family farmers. He retired in 1980. The livestock and chickens had already been sold, and local sharecroppers Ray and Jimmy took over farming the corn and soybeans. Ron’s parents, James Bailey and Barbara Buchholz Bailey retired to the farm in the mid-1980’s. Jim reveled in his retired life as a “gentleman farmer” until his passing in 1995. Barbara succumbed to Alzheimers and spent the rest of her days in a nursing home in Springfield, IL. Ronald lived until he was 95. A cousin sold her acreage to a corporation over ten years ago. The beautiful old farm house has remained, loved but unoccupied, except for occasional family gatherings since 1995.

For many, many years in Melvin, generations of Buchholz’ were not only farmers, but entrepreneurs in the small town, and pillars of the community. The building housing Melvin’s general store and “opera house” even had the Buchholz name carved in stone on the façade. It was demolished about 10 years ago, a depressing harbinger for the town of Melvin as well as for Bailey/Buchholz progeny.



Amandus Buchholz (Ron's Great Great Grandfather) in his general merchandise store.

 

The five Bailey heirs are scattered across the country, living their own lives and building their unique legacies. There is not a farmer among them. The rising value of farm land and commodities, and the deteriorating condition of the farm house, pushed the possibility of a sale to the forefront of consideration. It became clear that it was time to let go. So the sale moves forward.



Ron on the farm in the mid-80's.

Divestiture of the farm is providing an unexpected boost to our retirement. We always included Ron’s share of the farm as an asset in our net worth, but did not count on it being sold during our lifetime. It’s a bittersweet turn of events.

Current generations of family do not share the same dreams as our ancestors; however we believe that they would want us to live our own lives and follow our dreams. I think they would be pleased that they could help.







A Fork in the Family Farm Road

The maternal side of my husband’s family (the Buchholz side of the Bailey/Buchholz family tree) owns an active farm in Melvin, Illinois, a small town about 40 miles north of Champaign-Urbana. Ron’s grandfather, Ronald Buchholz, retired some 30 years ago, and the land is sharecropped by 2 other local farmers on behalf of the estate. None of Ron’s generation are farmers and no one is planning to retire to Melvin. We’ve come to a fork in the road in regard to stewardship of the family farm, and it’s time to think about selling.

Childhood memories of family visits and countless holidays celebrated inside the walls of the old farm house make this decision a complicated and emotional one for Ron and his siblings. Generations of Buchholz have called this place home since the mid-1800’s, and family farmers and merchants were pillars of the small community. Sadly, circumstances change. A sale won’t rewrite past history, but it will irrevocably sever ongoing practical ties to Melvin – a step that will be taken with regret.

On Tuesday, Ron and I attended an auction of some nearby farm land, as observers. It was a reconnaissance mission. Our goal was to assess the level of interest in available land near Melvin, and to witness at what price it would sell. We made the two hour drive from Chicago to the Elliott AMVETS Hall (about 10 miles south of Melvin) in time to grab a cup of coffee and find a seat.

The auction began after a description of the 60 acres for sale. It was obvious that the majority of the approximately 80 locals in the room were merely interested observers, including farmers, bankers, investors, land brokers, and (I think) a few veterans just waiting for the kitchen to open for lunch. The auctioneer opened bidding at $7,000/acre, but there were no bids at that price. The first bid was made at $5,100, but with 3 bidders very quickly rose to $6,800 before the auctioneer called for a brief break. A 4th bidder jumped into the fray at $7,350. The 60 acres sold for $7,450/acre, a total of $447,000, to farmers from nearby Paxton (a man and his grown grandson). There was much handshaking and back-slapping in congratulations, as people left the hall.

Commodities (including corn and soybeans) are hot right now in the financial markets. Last year’s crop yields were high. The value of farm land has been increasing. The Buchholz acreage is desirable and will probably sell for more than the land that was auctioned Tuesday. If we decide to move forward, our next step would be to retain a broker to put together options for structuring a sale.

Selling the farm will notably enhance the financial security of the current generation. I like to think that all those practically-minded German ancestors that worked so hard and invested in the future of the family would understand and approve.

The Home Place & Family History

This past weekend, Ron and I spent several days in Melvin, IL at his family’s farm. Along with two of his brothers, Tim and Ken, and Ken’s wife Joy, we began the process of cleaning out some old belongings from the “home place”. No one lives in the farm house now, and it is suffering from inattention and disrepair. A weekend of dusty work made a dent in what needs to be done, but the hard part is still ahead of us – deciding what to do with the house and the farm land for the long term. Sharecroppers still plant and harvest corn and soybeans on the acreage. There are no longer any farmers in the immediate family, and the sensible thing to do is to sell it all. But the history is long (back to the early/mid 1800’s) and complex emotions run deep, swirling around family memories. It’s not a decision to be made lightly.

Joy and I spent a good deal of time working our way through boxes and boxes of family photos, spanning generations back to Civil War times. The images are with me still, and I am intrigued by the people long gone. Now that I know their faces from so many photos – baby pictures, class photos, wedding portraits, and on into old age - I want to know their stories. Many were not marked with names or dates, so are part of a genealogical puzzle to be slowly pieced together. When we opened a box that included old newspaper clippings with obituaries, it was a jackpot of names, dates, and lists of relations. The experience made me want to go home, write on the back of all my old photos, and better organize and tag my digital images.

There is lingering feeling of sadness after this weekend of work. So much of what we saw, handled, and in some cases threw into a dumpster, were belongings that were important to people that were dear to us. We have the memories, but parting with the evidence of the details of their lives is painful. The photos make it a little easier, I think. In the photos is proof of love, happiness, vitality, and loads of personality across generations. In the Buchholz lineage (Ron’s mother’s family) you see serious and hearty German stock that settled farmland in Illinois, Minnesota, and Nebraska. Here, the Buchholz men consistently married the prettiest girls in town, as evidenced by class photos from Melvin high school. There was also sadness in lives cut short by accident or illness. It’s all part of the texture of rich and complex lives.

This walk through history somehow makes the present more precious. We inhabit just brief blips in time, and we all should relish every moment we have to enjoy life.

Photo is circa 1890, of Dr Charles Buchholz and his father August Buchholz (Ron’s great-great grandfather) at Balanced Rock, Gateway Garden of the Gods, in Manitou, Colorado.