C2—Lancaster Faming, Saturday, October 11,1980
" Construction 11 is key
to Meyers 1
family farming
BY RUTH ANN BENEDICT
Staff Correspondent
CHAMBERSBURG Doris Meyers of Boundary Road,
Chambersburg, feels that her family is a family of the by
gone days. She probably couldn’t be more accurate in that
description.
Doris, her husband Dean, and their five blond-haired
children, Nadene, 18, Natane, 16, Doren, 13, Ryan, 11, and
Darwin, 9, live on a typical farm -190 tillable acres, 22
Holstein milking cows, 51 veal calves, a few pigs that the
children raise as a 4-H projects, and several playful dogs.
Sounds typical alright.
Yet when one gets deep into conversation with Doris you
truly sense an unmistakable aura of the by-gone days -
when bring self-sufficient was a part of your daily diet.
There is an exciting pioneer flavor existing in the
Meyers family - if that is still possible in the mechanical
age of sophisticated blenders, TV dinners, 12 unit milking
parlors, and tractors so-large that one may catch himself
wondering if it is possible to turn them around in a five
acre field.
Upon arriving at the Meyers farm one sunny Saturday
morning, I was greeted at the kitchen door with heavenly
aroma of freshly kneaded dough. Nadene, Dean and
Doris’s eldest daughter, was kneading dough to make
homemade soft pretzels.
Jars of canned vegetables soup, ready for the cellar,
were setting on the kitchen cabinet.
On the front porch the Meyers’s three sons were
phnming butter in an antique butter chum. “The boys
have wanted to chum butter all summer long but it has
been so hot that I just kept putting it off’ said Doris.
Churning butter and making soft pretzels are just two of
the many projects that the Meyers family enjoys. When
there is work to be done they are all there ready to pitch in
for the cause.
“Farm family survival. That is my husband’s and my
goal” stated Doris. “Dean and I are strong believers in
the family working together as one and in doing things for
ourselves.
“A lot of women ask me how I can do this and that with
such a a large family to cook and care for, along with the
formwork that I do.
“Hogwash. Who says it’s almost impossible to raise five
children and still have tune to wallpaper my own walls?
The children can help. They may spill a bucket of water
over the floor but they are learning at the same time I am
getting my work done.
“Perserverance is the key. Doing things yourself is
important,” she commented.
Doris believes you shouldn’t say you can’t do something
until you have really tried. “That is the only thing that has
kept us going,” she stated.
Perserverance seems to be what the Meyers family is
made of. Obviously with Dons Meyers where there is a
will there is a way.
Aside from wallpapering their own home, Doris ex
plains that she and Dean have remodeled their home with
the help of their children. They did almost all of the
painting, building and staining.
Dons expressed that she feels part of their farm family
survival lies with her children. She senses that as a result
of her children being just as involved as she and Dean are
m tackling a task, that the children seem to appreciate
more deeply those things that have taken them time to do.
“My philosophy on children is construction - no
destruction. “It can be playful construction or working
construction,” said Dons.
“Dean and I believe in flexibility with our children. You
have to give them the time to make their own decisions
“You encourage them, give them responsibility, give
them interest, but don t force things upon them. Don’t
smother them.
“Our children help in making decisions when decisions
need to be made. They may be small ones but the im
portance is there and it helps”, she said.
Out cm the farm the responsibility of the farm-work is
shared among Dean and Dons and their five children. The
Dean and Doris have been in the veal calf
business for about a year and a half. Working out in
the veal calf barn is Doris’s serenity. “I really enjoy
it” she says.
Doris Meyers, right, and her daughter Nadene Freshly made pretzels are not uncommon around
shape dough into pretzels in the Meyers’ kitchen, the Meyers household.
Finally the butter is
done. Doris, right, helps
her sons take the butter
from the churn. Her sons
from left to right are:
Doren, Ryan and Darwin.
children help with the machinery in the fields, take part in
making hay, feeding the young stock, milking the cows,
weeding the garden, and fill in when necessary for Dean
and Doris.
They are busy, just as any farm family Is busy. While
Doris was finishing up the soft pretzels, Nadene had to
rush off to her part-time job and one of the boys burst
through the screendoor and asked Doris how long it would
take until their butter was done.
“It takes time. Just keep churning and don’t give up”
said Doris. “But it didn’t take this long last time” recalled
the youngster.
Moments later upon looking out the screendoor at the
three boys we found them intently playing a game of
“Life” while they were taking turns with the butter chum.
They were timing each other with a cloth," changing at
exact five minute intervals.
“Construction, no destruction. That is what we aim for’’
laughed Doris.
Having the children so involved in both the farm and
house work is part of the Meyers’ farm family survival.
“The existing economical squeeze is hard on a farm
family but we can still survive m this day and age” said
Doris. “You must be willing to work hard to stay the way
you want to and to control your future. “We have also
tried to keep the farm small enough so that we are always
capable of handling the workload ourselves.”
In this sense, the Meyers’ can more closely control their
own small farm survival by being more independent and
self-sufficient. They feel that some farmers let their
farms get so large that the only way for them to stay alive
is to keep on growing in size.
“More farm families need to share their individual
anilities to help combat rising inflation problems. As
things become more expensive, we must share to sur
vive,” said Dons.
To Doris part of surviving requires changine your way
of living.
“It is hard to change your living style. Things that you
once viewed as a luxury now appear to be a necessity
because you have had them for years. “They are con
venient but sometimes not actually necessary.
“We used to heat with oil. Now we have switched back to
wmes^ead
*A/c(es
wood. It was hard for me at first but I have gotten used to
it.” -
Also to the Meyers, part of farm family survival is in the
preservation of the farmlands. “Dean and I are totally
against any farmer who feels the need to sell off any
wooded area of frontage to survive the crunch” she
stated. “We need to keep the farmland. It took me a long
time to understand the importance of this.”
Doris expressed that the money looks great from selling
good frontage but once you have started to sell and let
houses go up it is hard to stop.
The Meyers’ try to be as self-sustaining as possible.
They raise a good variety of their own vegetables;
freezing and canning a large amount as well.
They butcher their own beef, hogs, and chickens; cure
their own meat: ham, shoulder, bacon - sugar cure and
hickory cure; and make their own bologna and chipped
beef.
They boil their own apple butter and make their own
potatoes chips and doughnuts.
“I used to make noodles to supply three area markets
but now I have cut that down to one store” said Dons. “It
was getting to be too much work and mess here at home. ’ ’
The family trys to make use of everything. After
making butter, Dons explained that she freezes the
buttermilk and later uses it for baking.
A new project that Dean and Dons have undertaken
within the last year and a half is a veal calf operation.
Standing in the middle of the veal calf bam, which the
family renovated themselves from a hog bam, Dons
proclaimed, “This is my serenity. I really enjoy it m here
I spend about one hour and a half each morning and
evemng feeding and cleaning, I really do enjoy it.”
“It is a family affair the first two weeks after a hew
group of calves are moved in because we try to get them to
dnnk from a bucket. After that Dean and I mainly care for
them,” she explained.
Surprisingly, Dons finds spare time to indulge m other
hobbies like reading, sewing and making useful crafts
which complement her home.
“Right now I am making a cathedral quilt,” she said. “I
also like to recycle old clothes and recontruct them into
something new” said Dons.
She said hse learned many of her skills and crafts from
her mother-in-law, grandmother, mother, and the
Cooperative Extension Service.
Dons finds time to be active with church work by
assisting in teaching, doing crafts at Bible School, and
helping with Pioneer Girls.
The Meyers children also enjoy making crafts such as
latch-hook, they are also active 4-H members.
On one kitchen wall hangs a small piece of wood in
scribed with a Bible verse that Doris’ son Doren made and
gave to her as a gift
“They come up with things by themselves. It is small
and inexpensive but it has a lot of meaning, ” she beamed.
(Turn to Pace C 4)