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“Sunnyside”
Half-hidden by a spreading hardwood tree, the white silo, nearly dwarfed by the tall brown one behind it, states it, plain and simple, “Sunnyside Farms, Dr. J.A. Auker & Sons.” And it’s a big one, sporting a gambrel roof, three large dormers, and plenty of room inside to house dairy cows. One hundred and thirty of them. On 1200 acres. This is a big operation.
When the barn was finished, owners staged a square dance and invited Jay Gould and Bob Sievers, who were two popular farm radio broadcasters from Fort Wayne – every morning on a show called “The Little Red Barn.” They took the title for their show from the song, “In a Little Red Barn (on a farm down in Indiana),” which was written by Joe Young, Jean Schwartz, and Milton Ager in 1934. So, even though the 1930s were hard times for farmers in the Great Depression, this morning show helped to bring smiles in rural communities.
This barn probably dates to the early 1930s and was owned once by a Dr. Galbreath, a dentist. The Auker family bought it in 1963 and proudly painted their name on the silo. However, now owned by Auker granddaughters, Carl and Arden Jenkins now farm it and own some of the acreage. The sun still shines here.
“The Best of Both Worlds”
I looked at this barn from several angles. One was from the left – with the pond in full view. Another was from the right, showing the worn path between two trees, leading to the barn, but without the pond. I liked both and, as an artist can, decided to cheat and move the pond to enter the composition, shift the trees a bit, and let the road lead into the barn. The best of both worlds.
“The Savior”
Mike Copp owns this barn, which is about 200 yards away from one of my favorites, a barn I painted last year. Its roof was sagging and boards were missing, giving it charm and character, at least in my opinion. Like many other deteriorating barns I’ve painted, it’s now gone, only a memory, though it’s still present in my painting, wherever it may be.
This 1920s barn, much smaller than its big brother, was used to house cattle. And it was used for weighing cattle – as the crumbling weighing station in front – attests. The cattle would walk onto industrial strength scales, get weighed, and then taken to market. The ones over 1000 pounds fetched the best prices, Ron told me. So, yes, the scales were as tough as the farmers. But there’s more to this story.
A Mr. Peabody owned the farm during the Great Depression, a terrible time for farmers, especially when the weather was unkind. But Simon Jack Peabody grew up long before the Depression and he knew poverty, “We lived in such poverty as children that I determined to get ahead if hard work would accomplish such a thing.” When his father died, he, at 15, became the provider for his mother and younger brother. Luckily for Simon, the railroad provided a job for him – sawing wood – which he kept for two years. Then, at 17 – kids grew up quickly in those days – he started his own shingle mill. Within a few years he partnered with Eli Meiser to build a sawmill in Columbia City. That, presumably, was a larger mill and it opened in 1871. Immigrants and folks from the crowded east were moving in, building homes and barns. Seemingly, the sawmill business had a healthy market.
But, a year later, after suffering through a bitter winter, Meiser sold his share of the business to Simon, now the sole owner. Unfortunately, times became hard: the railroad couldn’t pay him for the timber he cut, orders became scarce, and his men went unpaid. By the fall of 1872, Simon Jack Peabody was broke. But he didn’t give up and, with a bit of good fortune, orders for lumber started growing, coming in from Pullman Car, Chicago Northwestern, and McCormick Reaper. Even the Studebaker Wagon Company – the same company that hired my great-grandfather who immigrated here from Germany in 1885 – gave him orders. His reputation for delivering good quality lumber helped his career to blossom and he eventually became a multi-millionaire, playing golf in Florida with the likes of John D. Rockefeller.
Then the Depression hit. Unemployment. Bread lines. Businessmen jumping out of tall buildings in the cities. Banks going under. But not here in Columbia City, thanks to Mr. Peabody. He loaned the bank $275,000 to keep it afloat – when farmers couldn’t make their payments. His noble generosity helped the bank to survive and, with it, many farmers to keep their farms. Yes, he was the savior of Whitley County. He died in 1933, leaving behind many other legacies, including the Peabody Library in Columbia City.
“The Sentinel”
It sits there quietly like a lonely sentinel, looking over acres of farmland, wooded forest in the distance. Built into a natural bank, the barn goes back a long way, as its rugged hand-hewn timbers attest – probably to somewhere between 1840 and 1870. Christian Doenges, Sr., bought the farm and the barn in 1905 and passed it on to his children where it has remained for over a century. And, constructed well, it survives, its siding and roof intact, along with an impressive new course of stonework, recently completed in 2017 by the owner, Virginia Doenges.
We didn’t have the chance to meet her on our tour, but I learned that she’s a great friend of the agricultural museum’s trustees. Virginia allows them to use her barn for storage of new additions – antiques and memorabilia that they acquire. And the barn, if it could talk, would affirm that it’s glad to be of use again.
Today“Dulcius ex asperis”
The title of this painting comes from the Fergusson clan motto, which means “sweeter through difficulty.” Having written several books on Scottish golf and having played golf on hundreds of courses in the U.K. and Ireland, I can attest to the difficulty – wind and rain – and the sweetness – the camaraderie inside the clubhouse after the round.
Austin Fergusson owns the Dulcius Vineyards, one that Ron and I saw on our barn tour in the fall of 2016. Though the vines weren’t full of green leaves and clusters of grapes hanging down in November, the composition made me want to give the painting a try. Since that time I’ve seen four other vineyard-barn- wineries in Ohio and Kentucky. What a great way to keep an old barn alive!
His website explains that soon after Austin received his doctorate in plant physiology from Purdue in 1971, he purchased this 100-acre farm and raised corn and soybeans. But, after years of corn and beans, he decided to take a chance in the vineyard business and in 2012 he planted vines on 19 acres. Today, this old barn, once the site of the freight office for Columbia City, houses equipment and materials for the vineyard.
His efforts have paid off: several varieties of wine grapes, ranging from spicy to mellow and from deep red to white. He sells them to wineries in Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio. Maybe I’ll get a chance to try one someday, though my heart lies in the single malt of Islay, a remote island off Scotland’s west coast. Who knows, maybe Austin will follow his Scottish roots into the distillery business. I’ll definitely return for a dram of that.
“The Underground”
Ron and I were rummaging for wood in this barn when the lively 79-year-old Jean Dunn drove down in her truck to see what we were doing. Well, thanks to Ron, she knew we were coming and that we’d take some wood for framing. Jean was born a Keiser, daughter of Robert Keiser, who moved into this farm in 1940 – when Jean was three. She grew up here – in an old log house, now covered with siding. She remembered the dirt floor.
Her grandfather, Otto Keiser, owned another farm in Whitley County where the family lived for some time, and he passed on stories about the barn and its role in the Underground Railroad. Jean learned from her dad that slaves hid in this barn – on their journey north. This may be true since the massive hand-hewn beams look as if they date before the Civil War.
When her mom died, Jean and her late husband Bob purchased the farm and had a difficult decision to make. A year ago they dismantled the larger barn, once the pride of the farm. Having become non-functional, it had to go – along with so many others, including one in Whitley County that I painted in 2017. Barn gone, painting done, essay written. Mission accomplished.
“Coordinated”
Any interior designer would wholeheartedly approve of this barn and its complex of buildings, all painted red with white trim. The doors feature matching white painted arches, showing the artistic flair of whoever owned this barn prior to the current owner, Anita Kelley and her husband Brian. They purchased the barn in 2012.
Inside the massive hand-hewn beams take us back to the 1800s, though some of the wood is sawmill-cut, suggesting remodeling over the years. Regardless, the timber is old and probably came from giant trees on the property, which was common practice in the old days. Why buy timber from a mill far away when you’ve got some in front of your nose?
Whoever the former owners are or were, they deserve an award for the best color-coordinated barn complex in Whitley County. Impressive!
“Meadowbrook Lane”
The title of the painting reminds me of a tune by the Beatles, Penny Lane. As the words go, “Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes. There beneath the blue suburban skies I sit, and meanwhile back … in Penny Lane there’s a fireman with an hourglass, and in his pocket is a portrait of the queen … He likes to keep his fire engine clean … It’s a clean machine.”
Well, this is not suburbia and there’s no queen to honor, but there is a lot of love and tradition and respect for this barn, which is well maintained. In fact, a sign on the barn shows pride of ownership: “Meadowbrook Lane, since 1957, McDevitt.” It’s a clean machine.
Ron and I met 92-year-old Jean McDevitt on a chilly overcast November afternoon, who kindly allowed us to forage for wood inside the barn. On the rear of the granary, inscribed in wood is the date 1879 and a name – either Myers or Byers, probably referring to the barn builders. Jean told us that she and her late husband bought the farm – 116 acres – in 1957 and raised corn and cattle. She farmed it for 55 years – a pretty good track record – and kept going until it was physically too difficult.
As Jean wrote to me, “for many years it was a gathering place for young men and boys to play basketball,” which Jean referred to as “barn ball.” It was so popular from the late 1950s to the early 1970s that it was difficult to find a place to park. The lads knew it was safe and they felt welcome. But, as the years passed, Jean insisted that the boys sign in – to let their parents know that they were here and not somewhere else. “We love the barn,” Jean wrote, “and we have tried to preserve it the best we could.” After nearly 150 years of work and play, the barn looks spotless, testifying to McDevitt attention.
The composition appealed to me: a long red fencing leading up a short rise to the barn, which was also painted red. Painted white arches framed its doors and a monstrous spruce guarded the right. Woods, now missing leaves with winter approaching, stretched across the horizon. A hardwood had just shed its leaves, the orange and yellow dotting the foreground. Yes, it was a clean machine.
“1903”
This was another one of those tempting compositions – an old barn with weathered whitish-gray siding, a quaint cupola, an old farmhouse nearby, and a road that leads down and then up before fading into the horizon. The fall colors didn’t hurt, either.
Don Pequignot, who owns the barn with his wife Sharon, told me that a stone slab at the foot of the barn bears the date, 1903. Maybe that’s when the barn was built, which would date this one to over a century ago. Another oldie but a goodie.
“P-Dome”
Domed stadiums are nothing new in the arena of major league baseball and the NFL. But, before these colossal concrete creations entered mainstream life, there was the “P-Dome.” I’ve done paintings of several barns where farmers nailed a hoop to the hand-hewn beams, sometimes two hoops if the size of the barn allowed, and kids played basketball – inside, out of the weather, year round. Kerry & Marna Perlich’s sons played basketball here, on a makeshift court made by their father in the barn’s loft, and they called this “The P-Dome” – after the Perlich family.
Kerry and Marna Perlich, descendants of Lloyd Perlich – who purchased the farm in 1935 –have done their best to preserve the barn, adding metal siding and a metal roof. I don’t usually paint barns with metal siding, but, since Ron took photos in 2016 of the original wood siding, I made an exception. And, when Marna showed me her husband’s woodworking shop, I knew I’d made the right choice: Kerry will make the frames for this painting from barn wood. It was a matter of skill – his versus mine. Not much debate there.
Marna told me the barn may have been built in 1928, not the best way to start a farm – a year before the beginning of the Great Depression. She sent me an advertisement dated in 1935 for their farm “Farm Number 426. Price $65.00 per acre.” It encouraged buyers with, “Buy that farm NOW! Convenient, easy-to-pay terms may be arranged.” I wonder if anything was easy in the 1930s and I’d guess that not much was convenient. Marna explained, “To make ends meet, Lloyd’s two older sons went door to door to sell vegetables, eggs, and chickens.” Surviving in those days meant working hard to keep the bank away.
But survive they did. Kerry was born after the war in 1947 and married Marna in the late 1960s. They raised their family in the same farmhouse that Kerry and his brothers grew up in. And I’m sure their boys spent many happy hours shooting baskets with their friends, honing their skills, and having fun … in the “P-Dome.”
“Country – City”
The name on the side of the barn, small but still legible in my telephoto lens, intrigued me: “Elmer – Helen Heinley, Country – City View Farm.” Well, yes, it’s in the country but, situated on flat ground, it doesn’t show me the city, though it’s not far from one – Columbia City, the county seat. I’m sure Elmer and Helen had their reasons for these words, whatever they were.
The name made me think of the two vastly different cultures – country folk and urban dwellers. Though urbanites love to dine at trendy restaurants and enjoy food, they often forget where the food came from. I’d like to think that urbanites respect the hard work of farmers, those hardy men and women who raise crops and farm animals, but I’m afraid that’s not always the case. Visit New York or Chicago or Los Angeles and ask around. The common perception of the farmer by city people is not flattering, but perhaps it will change in time.
This barn was not on our barn tour, but it looked wonderful to me as we drove down the road leading towards it and so I asked Ron to stop. As I was taking photos, a truck pulled up and a gent asked me what I was doing. It turned out to be the farm’s owner, Mike Copp, whose barn I painted last year. His nephew will move into the farm house and begin, once again, using the barn to house Holstein feeder calves. Later, Ron told me that Elmer’s daughter said the barn was built around 1869. The long hand-hewn beam that runs the entire length of the barn was cut from a tree on the farm.
Elmer was two years old in 1917 when his parents bought the farm from Lem Dorio. They raised milk cows and then remodeled the barn for hogs. The work must have agreed with Elmer: he lived in the farmhouse for nearly 100 years. That’s longevity!
I liked the composition: furrowed corn rows leading to the barn, a road and telephone poles fading into the distance, and striking evergreens filling in the right flank. It’ll be used for a good cause: the agricultural museum.
“Horseshoes”
When the two Rons and I met Connie Reimer, the owner of this massive barn, we didn’t know the treat we were in for. In the oldest section of the barn the beams were hand-hewn and long, just the kind that Montana billionaires want for their magnificent mountain homes. The timbers made me wish I was there to see the pioneers cutting the tree down, carving the beams, and then raising them to support the barn. All without modern equipment. It’s a giant – 100 by 60 feet with five haymows. But, sadly, nowadays the barn is less useful than it was 150 years ago.
It sits next to a large pond, formerly a quarry that Connie rented to gravel companies. She also grants access to some of her 146 acres to deer hunters. In exchange, they give her some of the venison. Fair enough. And they leave the wild turkeys alone. Good guys. But this entrepreneur, formerly employed by WalMart for 15 years, saved the best for last. “Would you like to see my barn? I’m pretty proud of it,” she asked us, referring to the new metal-clad pole barn.
As she entered the barn, Connie glowed, explaining that she built this 20 years ago, envisioning it as a source of income to fund her retirement. Partially true. You see, Connie is a ringer horseshoe champion. You don’t want to play her for money. Just look at her trophies along the wall. Kind of like Jack Nicklaus building his own golf course.
The barn is heated by a geothermal system and it’s long enough to have several horseshoe pits. Scoring boards dot the walls. An American flag hangs. Connie told us that the sport is dying, even though the National Horseshoe Hall of Fame isn’t too far away in St. Louis, Indiana. “The old boys and gals have trouble with their legs, have bad shoulders, and their backs hurt. Some have trouble seeing.” The younger crowd isn’t too interested.
But Ron and Ron and I were. So we tossed, taking advantage, as Connie directed, of a forward line, reserved for older folks. It was fun, taking me back to decades ago when I threw horseshoes. Now it’s cloths filled with weight – cornhole. I’ll take horseshoes anytime. And, no, we didn’t take Connie up on her offer of a money game.
“Walgamuth”
I liked this composition, rows of furrows stretching to the barn, a road and its telephone poles winding around the corner, a mighty barn with its white silo peeking over the roof’s edge, and dark evergreens towering over several other outbuildings. Trees with splotches of fall color gave a hint that winter was coming.
The barn was old, its hand-hewn beams pointing towards 1850, though its tongue and groove siding was added later. Though Henry Bauman built the barn in the late 1800s, he may have re-purposed the beams from an earlier barn. It passed down through the family over the past century to the fourth generation, Jerry Walgamuth, the present owner.