From homestead to Century Farm, 7 generations tend Leimkuehler place

Although the year is unknown, this picture shows Martha Leimkuehler's grandfather, Peter Dennis, with a new buggy. This picture was taken on the farm in southwestern Saline County, which was recently designated a Century Farm. (Contributed photo) [Click to enlarge]

Martha Leimkuehler speaks with pride about her family's 120-acre Century Farm located near Herndon in southwestern Saline County.

The farm was one of 11 farms recognized for being in the same family for 100 years or more, during the recent Century Farm celebration held Nov. 8 at the Saline County Courthouse.

Leimkuehler said her late father, Roy Dennis, would have been very proud of the designation.

"It gives me great pride, because I know my dad would be so proud. He was proud of that farm, because it had been in his mother's family. He would be so proud to know it was a Century Farm," she said.

According to the family history, the family originally homesteaded the farm.

Leimkuehler said it has been a matter of great pride through the years that no part of the land has ever been mortgaged.

In order to get the Century Farm award Leimkuehler used a plat book listing her great-great-great grandfather Jonathan L. Masters as the owner of the land in 1896 -- although it was probably in the family even longer, she said.

Leimkuehler remembers her grandmother, Maude Mae White Dennis, and grandfather, Peter Everette Dennis, living and farming on the land. Maude Mae was the granddaughter of Masters.

The house her grandparents had lived in was taken out by a tornado that hit the farm on March 12, 2006. The farm home had been vacant since her grandparents had moved to town many years before. A barn and a cattle shed were also destroyed during the tornado.

"It weathered many storms, but it didn't weather that one," said Leimkuehler's husband Clyde.

One part of her grandmother still lives on the farm, though.

"She planted a row of those yellow jonquils almost all the way up the drive from where the house was," said Leimkuehler. "They still bloom every year. It's like my grandmother is still there."

Her family is still farming the land, which this year was planted in wheat and after-wheat soybeans.

After her grandfather finished farming, the farm was then taken over by her father, and then her husband, also a farmer. He has since retired and their son, Danny, now farms the land. He will someday inherit the ground along with his brother, Lynn, and sister, Leigh Ann Graves.

Leimkuehler remembers when her grandfather and father used horses to farm the land.

"I'd ride on the back of the horse when my grandpa took them down to the pond to get them water at noon," she said. "I just knew I was going to fall off in the pond when the horse leaned over, but every day I was ready to go back and ride the horse again."

At that time, more of the land was in pasture, and the front pasture included a spring, which is still there. Her grandfather had a few cows, some pigs and raised some corn for feed on the farm. "I remember we did our own butchering."

She also remembers helping her grandfather plant the garden.

"He told me you could raise more potatoes in a crooked row, than you can a straight row," she said. He also told her that you had to plant the seed potatoes, "with their eye up, so they can see how to grow up," she said laughing. "I believed my Grandpa, because he said that."

She also remembers going fishing with her grandfather. They would cut their own poles and dig their own worms.

"I wanted a fish to bite right away, and I'd get impatient."

He'd tell her she had to sit still and be quiet.

When she would catch "a little 'ol mudcat, you'd think I'd caught a whale," she added. "Grandpa took patience and time with me."

She also remembers the beautiful canned items her grandmother put up each year, including the "pretty quart jars of cherries that she canned," and made into pies.

Her family lived not far away in Herndon, and she said even if she had already eaten, if her dad were going over to her grandparents she would go with him. She would see what her grandparents were eating, and, "then I'd be hungry again," she laughed.

Another memory from Leimkuehler was before she was old enough to go to school. A big snowstorm came in and her grandfather came to get her.

"My grandfather couldn't drive over to the house, so he came over and got me and put me on his shoulders. He walked me through the woods to his and grandma's house."

She also remembers her grandfather would give her father new bridles for the horses every year for Christmas.

"Nowadays people would never think of giving something like that for Christmas," she said.

Leimkuehler said she was happy to get the Century Farm designation.

"I did it for my dad and for my kids."

Contact Marcia Gorrell

marshallag@socket.net