—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, July 3,1971
18
Mrs. Dak HiestandLikes the Role of Farmer’s Wife
By Mrs. Charles G. McSparran
Farm Feature Writer
Mrs. Dale E. (Sharon) Hie
stand of Bambridge RDI, says,
“I just love being a farmer’s
wife and living out in the coun
try.”
She has a philosophy that a
farmer’s wife belongs at home
She thinks there’s no place like
a farm to rear children She
also thinks a farmer needs
some time for fun and relaxation
and she sees that her husband
gets it.
Mrs. Hiestand runs farm
errands for her husband The
Hiestands don’t have any hired
help on their farm and this
saves him a lot of time She
helps every evening with milk
ing and washes the milking
equipment morning and eve
ning When Dale is harvesting
or working out in the fields, she
does the milking herself She
also docs it when he goes deer
hunting and she finishes the eve
ning work when he plays soft
ball
She does most of the farm
book work and keeps records for
income tax She does not keep
the dairy herd records
Mrs Hiestand bales hay and
works most of the ground in
preparation for corn planting and
planting of small grains and al
falfa Mr Hiestand does the
plowing and planting.
Hiestands live on what is
known as The Old Homestead
Farm Dale is the fourth gen
eration to own and farm it It
is next to the Word Of Life
Chapel and is m Conoy Town
ship Conoy Farms was used as
the prefix by Dale’s father the
last 16 years he lived. He died
six years ago His father owned
this farm and adjoining farm,
also a farm in York County. The
last eight years he lived, Harold
Aungst was a partner m the
business.
Dale took over the Old Home
stead Farm and adjoining farm
where Ken Keener rents the
chicken house and keeps 12,000
layers. This is known as Keen
ers Poultry Mrs Hiestand was
helping two mornings a week
to gather eggs for Keeners until
recently
When Dale and Sharon took
over these farms five and a half
years ago, they used parts of
each of their names and named
these two farms “Shardale
Farms ” There is 155 acres in
the two faims Dale was born
and laised on this farm
Hiestands grow about 55 acres
of corn and sell some of it
They grow 10 acres of sweet corn
v;hich they sell to Copes of
Rheems They also grow al
falfa, wheat and barley They
do the work themselves except
hire some help for harvesting
and this year will have some
combining done for them.
Mrs. Hiestand works on a quilt back for her church
They have a fine herd of 35
registered Holstein cows 'and
about 25 heifers and calves.
They received an award last
year for being in the top 10
Holstein herds m Lancaster
County with an average of over
600 pounds of butterfat. They
have five cows still producing
that are over 150,000 pounds of
milk each m their lifetime and
four of them were born and
raised on their farm One ex
ceptional cow “Burke” will be
14 years old in November and
has 165,000 pounds lifetime milk
production now She was sired
by their old herd sire They
have five daughters of hers and
have had 10 of her granddaugh
ters, some of which they sold
They bought “Ivy”, an Ivanhoe
daughter and another high pro
ducer, at a dispersal sale in
1966 She is 12 years old and has
a lifetime milk production
record of 164,000 pounds with
five straight lactations of over
20,000 pounds of milk in 305
days each She had a heifer calf
in June.
Hiestands are in DHIA and
sell their milk to Mount Joy Co
operative. They sell some
heifers
Dale belongs to the Penn
sylvania Holstein Association and
the Holstem-Fnesian Associa
tion of America. He is a mem
ber of the Pennsylvania Farmers
Association and is a worker for
their membership drives in
Conoy Township.
Sharon, the daughter of Mr.
and Mrs. Irvin Auker of Master
sonville, was born in Akron and
at four years of age moved with
her parents to a farm where her
father was a hired man. When
she was 13, they moved to Mas
tersonville and she lived there
until she was married. She grad
uated from Manheim Central
High School. After graduation
she was a clerk-typist for Hamil
ton Watch’s Vintage Plant at
East Petersburg. She has four
brothers.
She is president and a charter
member of Farm Women Society
29 which organized two years
ago She also served as their
vice president They set a maxi
mum of 29 for number of mem
bers in their Society and all of
them at the present time are
under 35 years of age
They are an active group.
Recently they baked 61 dozen
cookies for a USO birthday
party at Moose Hall in Lancas
ter. Sharon baked 10 dozen of
the cookies and acted as one of
the hostesses. They gave $25 to
the Child Development Center,
which is a county Farm Women
project, and $lO to the 4-H
Walk-A-Thon May 12. They are
planning to entertain the Alpha
Club by serving them refresh
ments some Friday evening.
Mrs. Dale E. Hiestand, Bainbridge RDI, daughters, Gad, left, and Diane, are shown
spends lots of time in the vegetable garden checking the garden with her.
and grows great quantities of vegetables. Her
Mrs. Hiestand does lots of canning and preserving.
They are planning now for a
square dance to be held Septem
ber 11 at Bill Kauffman’s on the
Richard Nissley farm, Bain
bridge RD, which is the next
farm to Hiestand’s. They will
have a professional caller and it
is open to the public. They had
a sub sale recently.
Sharon sings alto in a trio from
her Farm Women Society They
call themselves “The Milkmaids”
and made themselves long dress
es for their act. Others in the
trio are Mrs. Richard Shellen
berger, who sings and plays the
guitar, and Mrs. Richard Garber.
They won first place in the Lan
caster County Farmers Associa
tion Ladies’ Day Out talent con
test and will compete July 21 in
the Pennsylvania Farmers As
sociation District talent contest
at Penn Harris Hotel, Reading.
They will sing at the County
Farm Women’s convention No
vember d. Sharon is also chair
man of the bazaar table commit
tee for the county convention.
Mrs. Hiestand is publicity
chairman for Lancaster County
Farm Women executive Board
meetings. She was first runner
up in the County Farm Woman
of the Year contest at the 1970
convention.
Mrs. Hiestand is vice president
of the Bainbridge PTO for the
coming season
Hiestands have two daughters.
Diane is six years old. She was
in kindergarten this past school
term and will be in first grade
this fall. Gail is four years old.
Mr. and Mrs. Hiestand are
members of the Congregational
Bible Church of Marietta. They
are members of the Young Mar
ried Couples Sunday School
Class and go with the class some
times for week-ends in the moun
tains. Mrs. Hiestand is a mem
ber of the Women’s Fellowship
organization and of the Women’s
Sewing Circle. She sews quilts
and makes little girls dresses for
a mission project in Greece. She
used to sing in the church choir
and sang solos, but quit because
she couldn’t go for rehearsals on
account of the barn work. She
does sing in a church sextette.
She won the church reading
contest November through Feb
ruary. She received the most
points for reading books from
the church library. She says, “I
love to read.” Dale plays on the
church softbal team twice a
week.
Dale also plays softball two
nights a week for Risser’s Mar
ket at Elizabethtown. He and
Sharon play some tennis and en-
joy swimming. They go to the
beach sometimes. Dale goes to
the mountains deer hunting from
live to seven days for buck and <
usually about three days for doe.
Sharon Says, “My hobby is gar
dening." She does all the work
in it except making the rows.
She plants, cultivates and picks
the vegetables, then cans or
freezes them. She sells some of
the vegetables she grows, too.
She also takes care of the lawn.
She mows the lawn, trims the
shrubbery and plants about 500
annual plants. She also has
tulips.
Sharon does a lot of canning
and freezing and picks all the
fruit herself. She picks cher
ries, strawberries, peaches and
pears.
Another of her hobbies is
doing paint by number pictures.
She makes a lot of bread,
sticky buns and doughnuts. She
gave a few demonstrations to
small groups of friends on mak
ing doughnuts and sticky buns.
Here is her recipe for
SWEET DOUGH
(for doughnuts and sticky buns)
1 cup scalded milk
1 cup lukewarm water
2 pkgs. yeast
% cup shortening
Vz cup sugar
IVz teaspoons salt
2 eggs, beaten
7 cups flour
Vz teaspoon nutmeg
Scald milk and pour it over
sugar, salt and shortening. Dis
solve yeast in lukewarm water.
Add beaten eggs to yeast and
water. When milk has cooled to
lukewarm temperature, add the
yeast and beaten eggs mixture.
Beat well. Add flour gradually,
beating well. Knead lightly,
working in just enough flour so
that dough can be handled. Place
dough in greased bowl, cover
and let stand in a warm place.
Let rise until double in bulk,
(about two hours.)
DIRECTIONS FOR MAKING
STICKY BUNS
Roll out dough in rectangle
shape Va inch thick. Spread soft
butter over surface. Sprinkle
with sugar and cinnamon and
brown sugar. Put pecans or
english walnuts with roll as jelly
roll. Cut in % inch pieces. Lay
cut side down in pan on top of
syrup and bake at 350 degrees
till golden brown. Ingredients
for sticky portion:
Vz cup butter
(Continued on Page 19)