Saline County Century Farm: Tuckwiller Peterman: 'The land will always be there; we are just passing through'

The Tuckwiller family might not have had three Century Farms had it not been for two people: their great-grandfather Francis Marion "F.M." Hudson, who accumulated the farms, and their mother, Ruby Tuckwiller Shull, who kept the original land and purchased additional acreage before she died in 1984.

"F.M. Hudson put them together, but it was Mom who kept them together," said Charles Tuckwiller, who now farms all the family's ground located south of Marshall.

F.M. Hudson came to Saline County from Georgia after his family was impoverished by the Civil War. He was "a man with a mission and a vision," who became a successful cattle breeder and farmer here. He and his wife, Mary, purchased three farms between 1889 and 1905.

Two of those farms have been in the Tuckwiller family even longer than those dates, because they were purchased from Mary's father, Civil War Captain W.L. Corum, who bought 160 acres southwest of Marshall for $1,000 in 1857.

His wife, Virginia Ewing Rubey, was the great-granddaughter of the famous Revolutionary War soldier Brig. Gen. William Lee Davidson.

Davidson College in North Carolina and several other sites are named after the general.

In 1883, Corum purchased another 80 acres nearby. He sold that farm to his daughter and son-in-law on May 17, 1889, for $2,000. Around 1905, the Hudsons built a large 11-room home there for themselves and their nine children (one died at age 2).

The farm, called the Hudson Home place, is owned by Charles and his wife, Carol, who live there.

Mary Hudson was Corum's last living heir, so in 1905, Corum sold his original 160-acre farm to his daughter and son-in-law.

The house on that farm was a "simple structure with four rooms and one hand-dug cellar." When it was torn down many years later, the family found out there was another room in the cellar.

"One was used as a fruit cellar and the other room ... well, no one knows for sure -- or why it was walled up," said Mary Tuckwiller Peterman of Knob Noster, who is the fifth generation to own the farm they call the Corum Farm.

Speaking of the hidden room one day at a family dinner, the remark was made, "You just don't know how many skeletons are in the closet."

Peterman's son, who was still not of school age and had "bravely" spent the night in the large Hudson home in one of the upstairs bedrooms alone the night before, got pale, according to his mother, and asked, "Which closet has got the skeleton in it?"

In 1890, Hudson purchased a 140-acre farm for $5,250. Charles and Carol now own 80 acres of that farm, which they call the Flynn Place and it, too, was named a Century Farm for 2008.

F.M. Hudson, "had four boys (who) no doubt helped him farm," said Charles. Of those, three initially became farmers, while one, Ewing Hudson, went on to become a Presbyterian preacher.

Eventually, all three farms came to be farmed by one son, Lewis Hudson, who never married.

He farmed "this place, the Flynn place and the (Corum) 160," explained Charles. "He had a hired man and they lived here (at the Hudson home place) together. "

At that time, they farmed with mules and much of the ground was in grass.

They also grew oats, wheat and corn and they were known for Shorthorn cattle.

"Oats was a big crop back then, and soybeans weren't in the picture yet," said Charles.

In 1958, Lewis Hudson died. His nephew, John Tuckwiller, who was the son of Margaret Hudson Tuckwiller, had been raised one farm south. Tuckwiller moved back to the farm with his wife, Ruby, and their six children.

He farmed all three of the Hudson farms, as well as the farm in Houstonia they had left.

Charles, the youngest of the six children, recalls they farmed with two-row equipment and International Harvester tractors.

"We had an 'H,' an 'M' and a 'super M,'" he said.

The older Tuckwiller children attended Green Mound School, which was about three-quarters of a mile from the home place. They believe it was the same school their father and grandmother attended.

"If it was really muddy, daddy took us in a wagon or we took a horse," said Mary. But they only had one horse.

"One horse, four kids. We didn't ride the horse to school very often."

The Tuckwillers still have a bell that apparently from the old school.

"Somebody took the teacher's bell," said Jenny Tuckwiller Cornine, the daughter of Charles and Carol. "I remember when I was a kid, Grandma remembered somebody taking the bell and she went behind the chicken house and she dug it up and came up with the bell."

The grandma Jenny was referring to was Ruby Tuckwiller Shull. Family members say it's Ruby Shull who deserves much of the credit for keeping the farms in the family for more than 100 years.

Only six years after moving onto the Hudson home place and taking over the farms, John Tuckwiller died while putting up hay in one of the barns.

"Mother took it upon herself to sell the machinery and rented out the ground," said Charles.

Ruby managed the farms from that time forward, all while earning her GED and becoming the "first president of the first LPN nursing class" at Marshall's vocational school in 1968, according to the family and a 1980 "Cook of the Week" article in The Marshall Democrat-News article.

"A lot of the credit goes to mom. She was a financial whiz," said Charles. "It took quite a bit of stuff to keep this going."

Ruby married Murrel Shull in 1972. The family remembers Shull as a "super-nice guy." He died in 1980. Ruby lived in the house until she moved to town in 1984.

Jenny now has a piano that F.M. Hudson had given one of his daughters when she married in 1900. It got passed down to Ruby Tuckwiller and she gave it to Jenny.

"It still really sounds good," said Jenny.

As children, Jenny and her brother, W.C., along with their cousins, weren't allowed to play on the piano.

"We would come and stay here on weekends when dad traveled on construction ... and when grandma was gone we played the piano and slid down the banister," recalled Jenny.

She does remember hearing her grandmother play the piano.

"After Murrel died, she was one woman living in the big old house," said Jenny, who recalled hearing her grandmother playing from outside the house. "If you'd come up here, you'd hear that piano playing in here, and she could play. "

Ruby also remodeled the old house through the years, adding an upstairs bathroom and siding.

In the 1980 article, Ruby said she "spent hours refurbishing and updating the interior" of the home. In her spare time, she also conducted the "Melody Makers" senior citizen's band in Sweet Springs.

Because of her business skills, she not only kept the family farms, but also purchased more farm ground. When she died, she left a farm to each of her children.

"She was quite a businesswoman," said Mary.

Charles began renting some of the family ground in 1982. He and his family moved to the Hudson Home in 1984, when his mother moved to town.

"We moved here in September and August and on Dec. 18 of the same year, that house burned down," said Charles, adding the temperature was six degrees below zero on that day.

They spent three years living in a trailer, but then built a modern brick home on the same spot where the old Hudson home once stood.

Recently, the family found negatives of many old photographs, but they have been able to identify only some of the people in the photos.

"We're hoping that if you print this picture in the paper, that somebody would call up and dispute that. We would welcome that," said Charles.

Mary also advised others to "Keep telling and write down the old stories and identify those pictures," she said.

The problem, she said, is that, "you don't get interested in this until your hair gets thinner and your waist gets thicker."

She said they were proud to be recognized as Century Farm owners and stewards of the land through five generations.

"The land will always be there. We are just passing through and we have high hopes that it will continue in our family for a long time."

Contact Marcia Gorrell at marshallag@socket.net