NATIONAL FARM FAMILY OF THE YEAR relaxes in the living room Renea and Barbara, wife Tina, and sons Dennis and Eddy,
of their Hyde County, N.C. home, L. to R., Gerrit Boerema, daughters
National Farm Family of Year
It has been a long time since America’s farmers began
their westward trek, opening new lands to agriculture while
battling adverse conditions that would have made less
hardy men give up in despair.
Gerrit and Tina Boerema, who visited Lancaster Coun
ty recently, faced a different set of adverse conditions in
1949 when they began‘a westward trek from Holland to
America, and these conditions, too, might have caused less
determined people to give up.
Instead, the Boeremas clung
to their belief that America
offered them hope if they
worked hard. As a result, they
have been named “National
Farm Family of the Year” by
the Farmers Home Adminis
tration (FHA).
It’s quite a success story
that Gerrit and Tina have to
spin. After graduating just
prior to World War II from a
Dutch University where he
studied dairy husbandry, Ger
rit worked on his family’s 50-
acre farm which supported his
parents, five sisters and a
brother. He knew his future
was to be in agriculture; but
in Holland, that future just
didn’t appear to be too prom
ising.
DECIDE TO COME
TO AMERICA
At the close of the war, land
in Holland was selling for
around $3,200 an acre. Acre
age was rarely available, and
when it was, any piece of land
attracted 125 to 150 bidders.
Gerrit and Tina were married
about this time and, realizing
that opportunities in Holland
were becoming more and more
scarce, made the decision to
come to America
“We certainly didn’t leave
our homeland because of fi
nancial hardship,” Gerrit
recently said, “we just felt that
America offered a good op
portunity for us.” Reflecting
on this country’s free society,
he said “Communism was con
MODERN FARM MACHINERY, self feeders and com
puterized record-keeping have made the Gerrit Boerema
family farm one of the most successful dairy operations
stantly coming closer to us,
and we felt sure that Com
munism would never come to
America. At that time, many
people in Europe felt the same
way and they just wanted to
get away from it.”
They migrated from their
native Holland while they
were in their mid-twenties and
anxious to see what the “new
world” had to offer.
When the Boeremas first
arrived, they were understand
ably homesick and, just to
complicate matters, they
couldn’t speak English.
Tina tells of one of her first
American “experiences”: “We
tried ordering from a menu
once in a restaurant, but we
really didn’t know what we
ordered until it came. And we
couldn’t stand it! Finally, we
ordered from others plates—
indicating to the waiter that
we wanted some of this on this
plate and some of that on that
plate!”
Springfield, Mo, was their
first home in America, where
Gerrit had a job working on a
dairy farm for a small wage, a
free house, and a half share
in a flock of chickens. After
nine months, they moved to
Minnesota where they settled
on another dairy farm. Gerrit
took a part time factory job,
and for seven years, they
worked hard, saved, and built
for the future.
“HEAVENLY LAND”
The Boeremas always
wanted to have their own
farm Opportunity to realize
this came through their active
affiliation with the Christian
Reformed Church A news
letter mentioned that land was
available in the Grassy Ridge
section of Hyde County, N C ,
in an area known as Terra
Ceia translated ‘Heavenly
Land’ in their native Dutch
language.
A trip to North Carolina
convinced Gernt that there
was the opportunity he had
been working for, and he
moved his family to Tar Heel
Country in 1957
There was very little “heav
enly” about the land they ulti
mately leased it was marsh
land heavily covered with
reeds and scrub pine. High in
sand and organic matter, the
low, black, tidewater soil
requires tremendous amounts
of lime to adjust the acidity
To make matters worse, wood
from centuries of decay lay
just under the surface, making
tillage of any kind all but im
possible. But, just as their
Dutch ancestors had pulled
back land from the sea, the
Boeremas started to reclaim
land from the useless marshes
about them
The first livestock they were
able to acquire was seven dairy
cows, a number they raised to
One, Two and Three
Row Pickers
also UNI-SYSTEM PICKERS
SPECIAL LAST YEAR'S PRICES
A. L. HERR & BRO. Qu< V r £3 5 e 2i Pa
A Story of Modern Pioneers
thirty within a year “We
didn’t have any feed, so I
looked everywhere to find
peanut hay,” recalls Gerrit
“And the cows lived on this
until spring We worked hard
to get some pasture estab
lished and the cows used this
pasture and helped clear the
land of marsh reeds during the
summer months.”
Commercial credit was un
obtainable; they simply didn’t
have the required collateral
The land wasn’t worth any
thing unless cleared, and clear
ing land leased at that
without heavy earth-moving
equipment was a backbreak
ing, endless task.
FHA HELPS OUT
In 1959, ten years after com
ing to America, they turned
to the government for help
And help came in the form of
an operating loan from the
Farmers Home Administra
tion FHA makes operating or
land loans when, as was the
Boeremas case, no other lend
ing agency will take the risk
Using his dairy herd as col
lateral. Gernt and Tina were
approved for the loan that was
the toehold they needed for
success.
About the same time, the
WVTry***,..
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ONLY DURING SOLANCO FAIR WEEK
SEPTEMBER 13 THRU 17
Lancaster Farming, Saturday, September 11,1971 —I
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land company that had leased
them their tract offered to lend
the Boeremas a considerable
amount to purchase the 176
acres, and to equip their farm
with the necessary machinery,
livestock and fertilizer. Gernt
and Tina accepted.
Now four in number, the
family worked hard to clear
‘ their” land, olten spreading
the necessary lime by hand
Most of the work was manual
labor, and the hardest chore
was working the submeiged
wood free and burning it Over
coming adverse conditions was
a daily ritual For instance, in
the area it’s not uncommon
for more than a foot of rain to
fall in a single 48-hour period.
Such torrents can undo in two
days what took months to
build
Yet, by 1962, the hard-work
ing family, now with five mem
bers, had cleared the land and
made it productive enough to
qualify for a FHA land loan
With the FHA behind them,
and commercial credit sources
giving them a second look, the
Boerema family started build
ing what is now one of the
(Continued on Page 14)
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