Saturday, July 16, 2016
SEE ALSO: Vienna boy embraces competitiveness of raising cattle for Trumbull fair
By Ed Runyan
BAZETTA
The Dietz-Bates-Nelson family of Southington, which has shown animals at the Trumbull County Fair since 1947, shows that being a farm family isn’t an all-or-none proposition.
The family has owned a 60-acre farm in Southington for more than 100 years, but circumstances have dictated whether the family used it to make a living or as a “hobby farm.”
Lorrie Dietz is the great-granddaughter of Magnus and Hannah Nelson, who acquired the property when they came to Southington from Sweden in the early 1900s.
Their son, Harry Nelson and his wife, Emma, ran a dairy farm there until Harry was struck by lightning and died in 1968. Lorrie’s parents, Reed and Janet Bates, had other jobs – Reed worked at Copperweld Steel and Janet was a teacher – so the family sold the dairy cows, keeping only the young livestock.
Lorrie and her boyfriend, Jim Wolfe, bought the farm a year ago after Lorrie’s grandmother, Emma Nelson, died at age 100.
Keeping the property in the family all those years has allowed Lorrie and her two daughters to continue the family’s fair and farming tradition.
“We could have given up a couple of times, but we didn’t,” she said of selling the property. “Being raised on a farm has kept us humble. It’s taught us a lot of life lessons.”
“The cows come first,” said Lorrie’s youngest daughter, Amber, 21. ”They get fed first. They go to bed first. Our cow’s comfort comes first before anything else.”
One factor that has helped the family stay close to the farm is that even family members who didn’t live on the farm lived not far away, so they could continue to drive or walk there, Lorrie said.
This year the family is showing nine guernsey heifers and calves, hoping to come away with several that can continue at the state fair and three national fairs — in Harrisburg, Pa.; Madison, Wis.; and Louisville, Ky.
Lorrie, her sister, Cindy Bates, and both of her daughters have shown the best animal in their class in the country at one time or another.
Lorrie, who recently retired after working as a school teacher 33 years and has been Southington High School softball coach with her sister for 15 years, said the key to their success has been their successful animal-breeding techniques.
“We show what we have,” Lorrie said. “There are big farms that have 200 animals to pick from. We are smaller, but we can still compete with the big dogs.”
Growing up around bovines has made an impact on the girls — Lorrie’s oldest daughter, Ashlee, 25, has a master’s degree in dairy science, and Amber is studying agricultural communications and dairy science at the Ohio State University.
“We grew up on our little farm. Even though our farm is small, we have a passion for dairy,” said Amber. “I’m a big promoter of agriculture as a whole. I like to educate people on agriculture because a lot of city people don’t know what it takes to produce milk. Cows produce one of the most important products a human needs, which is milk.”
She said farm life also taught her to be responsible and to care about something other than herself.
“I’m just thankful the kids liked it enough to stay with it,” Lorrie said.