Detwiler Farm receives ‘Century Farm’ status

By CRAIG SHIRK

WEST LIBERTY – Detwiler Farm, Upper Val­ley Pike, recently became the ninth farm in Cham­paign County and one of 934 in Ohio to be rec­og­nized by the state’s Cen­tury Farms program.

Admin­is­tered by the Ohio Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture, the pro­gram pays trib­ute to farms main­tained by a fam­ily line for 100 con­sec­u­tive years or more. With the sta­tus, the Detwilers receive a cer­tifi­cate signed by the gov­er­nor and may dis­play the Cen­tury Farms logo at their home­stead just north of West Liberty-Salem High School.

Tom Detwiler, co-owner and res­i­dent, is grand­son to one of the first taskmas­ters of the farm, Rufus Detwiler, who pur­chased it in 1904 from the orig­i­nal owners.

The 1,200-acre prop­erty was cul­ti­vated as early as 1817, accord­ing to Detwiler and his wife, Pat. The cou­ple made it their home in the 1960s, main­tain­ing the orig­i­nal fire­places, wrought iron fence and over­all struc­ture of the farm house now almost 200 years old.

“We thought this would be a neat des­ig­na­tion,” Mrs. Detwiler said of attain­ing the Cen­tury Farms sta­tus. “It’s been such an honor to have it in the fam­ily for that many years.”

“It was quite a process,” her hus­band said. Cit­ing the program’s qual­i­fi­ca­tions, he said they devoted hours of research and scan­ning of doc­u­ments to val­i­date the farm’s ties to his lineage.

Shar­ing the honor is Tom’s brother, John, an equal part­ner of the busi­ness respon­si­ble for half the farm’s oper­a­tions since the 1960s. The home­stead has been a fam­ily effort, how­ever, and the legacy includes to a large degree all mem­bers, includ­ing the Detwilers’ three chil­dren, six grand­chil­dren, one great-grandchild and many oth­ers over four generations.

The 108-year legacy has sig­nif­i­cant mean­ing to the Detwilers, high­light­ing achieve­ments born of a tire­less work ethic and of com­mit­ment to family.

“It was a won­der­ful life for rais­ing chil­dren because the kids always had chores, always had respon­si­bil­i­ties and they could spend time with their dad. They always had access to him,” Mrs. Detwiler said. “They are the light of our lives.”

Despite hav­ing jobs removed from the fam­ily farm today, Kathy, Andy and Matthew are still inte­gral parts of their father and uncle’s oper­a­tion and they all live within four miles of the farm. When Andy isn’t trav­el­ing the coun­try show­ing his cham­pion goats and when Matthew isn’t work­ing at Honda, the broth­ers help run the grain carts and do var­i­ous tasks in the fields.

The old­est, Kathy, works in West Lib­erty and also finds time to help with the farm. Mean­while, the grand­chil­dren are active in many of the same activ­i­ties their par­ents enjoyed: band, 4-H, FFA, sports and any­thing musi­cal. The full-time guys, Tom and John, still run the trac­tors and com­bines. Hav­ing expanded to a farm on state Route 507 as well, the group stays plenty busy and enjoys every minute.

“(Tom) smiles all the way through his cereal every morn­ing,” his wife said. “Every job to him is fun.”

She claims the best time of year is har­vest season.

“How excit­ing har­vest time was, when the kids could ride in the trac­tors with their dad,” she said, adding the farm has become a cen­tral gath­er­ing place for her grow­ing fam­ily today.

The Detwilers have seated as many as 43 peo­ple in their home for Thanks­giv­ing din­ner. They’ve made exten­sive ren­o­va­tions to their roughly 3,000-square-foot home, built in 1817, to make these occa­sions pos­si­ble. One such ren­o­va­tion had them fear­ing the upstairs might fall into the liv­ing room, Mrs. Detwiler recalled with a chuckle.

What remains of the home’s orig­i­nal brick was taken from clay found on the prop­erty in the early 1800s. In addi­tion, Detwiler’s grand­fa­ther built the stor­age barn in 1913 from trees taken from a sec­tion of the farm bor­der­ing U.S. Route 68. The prop­erty also holds the orig­i­nal hog house and corn crib, both con­verted to stor­age areas for the farm’s equip­ment and for a few toys such as Tom’s antique tractors.

The 1,200-acre farm com­prises some wood­land but is almost entirely corn and soy­beans. It had included a prof­itable dairy herd until 1988 and sup­ported corn nuts, a spe­cialty pro­duced in Cham­paign County and parts of Cal­i­for­nia, dur­ing the 1990s.

One of the top dairy feeder herds in the nation, Tom and John’s herd sold for a good price, and Tom wasn’t entirely sad to see it go.

“With milk­ing, if you do it your­self, you’re mar­ried to it,” he remarked. “It was great hav­ing all that free time, see­ing the kids’ activ­i­ties (after the herd was gone).”

“We did every­thing together,” Mrs. Detwiler added. “When the kids got in 4-H and started show­ing at the fair, that was a good time. It was a vaca­tion for us.”

Rais­ing corn nuts started in the early 1990s and ended around 1998 when the corn pro­cess­ing plant in Urbana was bought. It proved to be a good money crop, said Mrs. Detwiler.

Regard­less of weather, the soil con­tin­ues to pro­vide strong corn and soy­bean yields. Even floods and droughts have failed to affect har­vests sig­nif­i­cantly, the Detwilers said.

“What we do have is ours, and it’s good ground,” Mr. Detwiler said.

“I can’t ever say we had a year where we were liv­ing hand and mouth or any­thing like that,” Mrs. Detwiler added.

When Detwiler’s grand­fa­ther retired from the farm in the 1930s and moved to West Lib­erty, his son Howard pur­chased the prop­erty and con­tin­ued the legacy until he moved to Michi­gan. There­after, Howard’s brother Lawrence, Tom’s father, cash rented the farm until his sons took own­er­ship in the 1960s.

Changes made since then likely would baf­fle Rufus today.

“I think he’d be amazed,” his grand­son said.

In the early 1900s, Rufus and his sons worked the soil with the help of horses. Much of the work com­prised hard, man­ual labor. Today, trac­tors drive themselves.

“Noth­ing was too easy back then,” Mr. Detwiler said. “It has been a 100 per­cent change (from horses to trac­tors with their own guid­ance sys­tems) … It would go clear around the world straight because it’s directed by satellite.”

Even the slight­est devi­a­tion from a straight line trig­gers an alarm, he explained.

The need for big­ger and bet­ter equip­ment spurred design changes in the century-old stor­age barn. Mr. Detwiler made a big­ger door, scaled back the hay loft and installed an I-beam to accom­mo­date the upgrades.

Amid the vari­ables, the Detwilers are assured of one con­stant: Fam­ily and com­mu­nity come first.

“We’re really for­tu­nate to live in a com­mu­nity like this,” Mr. Detwiler said, remem­ber­ing the out­pour of sup­port the fam­ily received when their 2 1/2-year-old son, Andy, sus­tained seri­ous injuries from falling into a grain auger years ago.

“That’s when you really find out who your friends are,” Mrs. Detwiler said.

For the Detwilers, “good ground” is more than soil. It is the foun­da­tion, the bond between loved ones achiev­ing com­mon goals, the val­ues passed down from gen­er­a­tions and the com­mu­nity that enables it to happen.

Craig Shirk writes for the

Urbana Daily Citizen

[/media-credit] Pat and Tom Detwiler stand by their Ohio Cen­tury Farm sign at their home on Upper Val­ley Pike in Cham­paign County.

Posted by Rachel Lloyd on Nov 13 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.