BZ-UncaHw JamUng, S«turo«y t April 22,1989
A Typical And Not So Typical Farm Woman
BY BONNIE BRECPBILL
Franklin Co. Correspondent
CHAMBERSBURG (Fpnklin)
Farm women tend to be versa
tile, but Doris Meyers has to be one
of the most flexible and versatile of
the lot Not only is she mother to
five children and grandmother to
three, and pursues such typical
farm-wife activities as leading the
4-H Capon Club, the 4-H Quilt
Club, gardening and crafts. She
also is president of Meyers Bus
Lines, Inc. and is responsible for
the day-to-day logistics of getting
1,500 children safely to nine
schools on 16 bus routes.
Doris’s life hasn't always been
quite this complicated. For awhile,
all she managed was five children,
a huge farmhouse. 51 veal calves,
and a chicken house full of fryers.
But when she and her husband.
Dean, purchased a bus company in
1980, Doris suddenly found her
self juggling the scheduling of
drivers and substitutes, hiring driv
ers, troubleshooting, and keeping a
daily log of any incidents that
occur with students.
“It’s a lot of book work,” Doris
said. “If a child falls, or gets off at
the wrong stop, I log it, because of
insurance and liability claims. This
is a high-risk business, and I take it
seriously.”
“We haven’t had major prob
lems,” she adds. “We feel well
blessed.”
Meyers Bus Lines is Chambers
burg Area School District’s largest
contractor. The district is geogra
phically the third largest in Pen
nsylvania. All Meyer’s drivers
have two runs, a secondary and an
elementary, with three also having
noon time kindergarten routes.
The drivers average 65 miles a
day.
This of necessity keeps Doris
home on school days. She must be
19 years to hold herd records in the barn. When Doris
claimed It for the house, she discovered that one of the
panels had been ruined by water, so she created a tin art
panel to replace It.
Doris displays several of her handcrafted items, Includ
ing a crib quilt for her newest grandson. Cross-stitched on
the back of the quilt Is: “The best kind of sleep/Bestovyed
by Heaven above/ls under a quilt/Handmade with Love.”
close to the two-day radio base—
each bus has a two-way—and to
the phone exclusively for bus calls/
in die event of a breakdown, the
need to geta substitute driver, or to
solve any other problem that may
arise. Fortunately, there are few
breakdowns, thanks to the mainte
nance performed by Dean and his
son-in-law. The busses—lB full
size busses, one mini-van and one
Caravan—are serviced in a con
verted wagon shed on the farm.
Besides being responsible for
the maintenance. Dean also acts as
a substitute driver in a pinch. “He
drives maybe three times a year,
when it’s a necessity,” Doris said.
“He keeps his bus license up so he
can do that.” Son Ryan, 19, who
works full-time on the farm, also
substitutes occasionally.
Not that Dean and Ryan don’t
have enough to do otherwise. With
40 cows to milk on the home farm
and another 38 on a neighboring
farm, they have plenty of work.
Youngest son Darwin, a high
school senior, milks at the neigh
boring farm in the evenings. They
also have 18 sows and about 100
feeder pigs, and 160 acres of com,
alfalfa, timothy and grains on the
home farm. Rented land brings
their total acreage to about 400.
The bus company is a family
affair—one married daughter
drives full-time for Doris, and the
other is the company’s bookkeep
er. Doris is not involved in the day
to-day operation of the farm. The
oldest of eight children, seven girls
and one boy, she grew up on a farm
and was “Dad’s right hand for any
thing but milking,” she says.
Her farm training has stood her
in good stead, though. The years of
experiencing the unexpected
occurences and interruptions that
crop up daily on a farm have pre
pared her for managing 16 bus
routes from her kitchen.
“I don’t mind interruptions,”
she says. “I live by flexibility.
When the phone rings or someone
needs help, I drop what I’m doing
and run. I’ve turned the oven off
with something in it already, to
drive school bus because of a break
down.”
“The bus company is our top
priority,” Doris adds. “The farm
work is done around the bus
schedule.”
While Doris spends a large part
of her time managing the bus com
pany, she still finds time for the
crafts and 4-H activities she loves.
“When I’m not on the phone.
I’ve got my hands busy,” she said.
Her hands were busy recently
making a crib quilt for her newest
grandson, bom April 10.
For the past year, she has been
the organizational leader of the
county-wide 4-H Quilting Club. “I
got into it because of the need for
leaders, and also to help myself
learn,” she explained.
Doris’s mother and one of her
sisters are quilters; Doris always
had the desire to learn, but couldn’t
find the time. The year-round club
“makes me find the time,” she said.
The capon club is Doris’s other
4-H love. Her children joined the
club about ten years ago, and when
the leader retired after a few years,
Doris’s children encouraged her to
pick up the responsibilities. “I
didn’t want to see the club dissol
ve,” she said. She recently ordered
500 caponized chicks to start her
fifth year as leader.
About 12 children participate in
the 18-week, county-wide prog
ram. Doris teaches them the care
and proper feeding of capons, and
also how to dress and package the
birds for market
“This is the best 4-H project
there is, for kids to have a profit for
their work,” Doris said. “Each
child makes SS-$lO profit per
bird.”
Doris was well-prepared to take
over the Capon Club, as she had
raised and dressed fryers and
capons for her family for years.
The Meyers live on Dean’s
home farm, built in the 1860 s.
When Dean and Doris married in
1960, they moved into a mobile
home on the farm and lived there
for three years, as Dean’s parents
still lived in die house.
The spacious home has two
stairways, including an open one
in the kitchen. Triple doors
between the parlor and the living
room, and between the living room
and the kitchen, allow most of the
downstairs to be used as one large
room. Dean’s parents had used the
rooms to hold religious services.
Decorating those rooms are
many of Doris’s handmade items.
“I got into making crafts out of
necessity, to decorate the farm
house,” she says.
Doris spends a lot of time running Meyers Bus Company
from her kitchen with the help of two phone lines and a two
way radio.
This palming of Doris’s first bus route Includes the his
tone' Rocky Spring church. She calls the painting, by her
sister-in-law, “My Serenity.” Doris won the trophies (at
right) at local and state bus rodeos.
Prominently displayed is a bear
Doris made out of a baby shawl
used by her father-in-law, as a
baby. She also had teddy bears
made for each of her children,
using the shawl material for the
ears and paws.
Chicken and duck collectibles
preside over the living room, while
the teddy bears watch over the par
lor, but throughout the kitchen and
office areas, schoolbusses are the
homestead
Tin art sample shows
Doris’s skill.
c K/oies
main theme. Ceramic busies, bus
refrigerator magnets, small metal
busses, a large calendar with a pic
ture of busses-Doris has them all.
“I love the busirtess,” Doris says
simply.
The business to Doris means
being a mother, grandmother,
wife, 4-H leader and executive
director. A combination just right
for someone who enjoys flexibility
and versatility.
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