Thomas Goodheer is a Perry “Dutchman”
BY BETH HEMMINGER
Staff Correspondent
Perry County’s Thomas
Goodheer is a Pennsylvania
“Dutchman” in every sense of the
word This German-born hog
producer was raised in Holland for
eleven years before making his
home on a farm in Blam, near the
heart of Pennsylvania’s “Dutch”
country.
Goodheer’s bfe and love for
farming began in 1959 shortly after
his mother made a daring escape
from East to West Berlin during
the construction of the city’s
famous “Wall.” But Goodheer was
not to know his natural mother
who, he later found out, made her
living as a farmer, for soon after
Conoco-Brook, owned by John Book and , and barn to an expensive livestock operai
family, is nestled in the village of Blain. Over dealing in dairy, beef cattle, and swine,
the years, the farm has grown from a house
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his birth he was placed in an
adoption agency
There, the young boy with curly
blond hair and blue eyes was an
irresistible sight for two United
States missionaries who were
living and working in Holland. The
Goodheers adopted Thomas and
took him to live with them near the
Netherlands seat of government,
The Hague, where he lived for
eleven years.
The Goodsheers, first generation
Americans, were quite at home in
the Netherlands, a country twice
the size of New Jersey bordering
the North Sea with West Germany
as its eastern neighbor and
Belgium on its southern side. It
was young Thomas’ adopted
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grandfather who, many years
before, had made the venture from
his native Holland to the United
States in search of a brighter
future As a young man he made
the trans-Atlantic trip and settled
in New Jersey
After their 11-year stay in the
Netherlands, the missionary
family returned to the United
States and settled in West Chester,
Pennsylvania. That was when
young Thomas got his first glimpse
of a full-fledged dairy farm He
recalled how living near The
Hague, a metropolitan area, left
little opportunity for him to see the
farmer’s life in Holland Con
sequently, he was intrigued by the
dairy operation and the gigantic
machinery used by a neighboring
farmer
"It didn't take long until I was
hanging around the farm across
the road and then finally I got a job
there doing odd things in the
summer and after school," he
remembered
:ion
Being born in West Germany and raised in Holland gives
Thomas Goodheer an appropriate title of Pennsylvania
Dutchman. The young hog producer, now a U.S. citizen living
in Perry County, says he likes "best” his life on Conoco-Brook
Livestock Farm, where he lives with his wife and in-laws.
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Thomas’ childhood fascination
for fanning blossomed during his
college years His love of the
agrarian way of life became in
tertwined with his love for a fellow
student at Northeastern Christian
Junior College
(Turn to Page 030)
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