AT PEACE ON LIFE’S JOURNEY

By Bob Fitch

Loren and Terri Vanden

Bosch are complementary cohorts in life’s endeavors. She is his sidekick in the hog barns and he is her sidekick at quilt shows.

Loren went right into farming with his father and brother after graduating from Western Christian. Terri grew up in southwest Minnesota near Valley Springs, S.D., on the farm of parents, Marlin and Karen Vis. Terri graduated from Southwest Christian High School in Edgerton, Minn. She decided to go to nursing school to become an LPN.

The story of their life together didn’t exactly have an auspicious beginning. Terri’s roommate, Cheryl Den Boer, was a friend of Loren’s from Western Christian. Cheryl told Loren, “Hey, I know this girl who grew up on a farm and I think you’d hit it off.” Of course, the blind date had to wait until after harvest. Loren shared the story of their first date: “There were four other girls living there. I had no idea who Terri was or what she looked like. In fact, I couldn’t remember her first or last name. So I was going to go out with whoever came to the door. That's how much I knew when I got into this.”

On that first date, a friend hollered Terri’s name across the theatre parking lot – clueing Loren in on her first name. However, for three more weeks, he still didn’t know her last name. “Finally, I thought I was clever to ask: ‘By the way, how do you spell your last name?’ But I was thinking, ‘Please, Lord, let this be a hard last name.’ And her response was ‘Vis, V-I-S.’ I felt like such an idiot.” But Terri wasn’t taken aback, “I didn’t suspect anything, because sometimes people spell it V-I-S-S or V-I-X, so I was used to it.”

Nevertheless, their marriage has stood the test of time since 1986. Like his parents, the couple lived frugally. However, in the cold winter of 2014, when the water in the only toilet bowl froze solid in the old, rented farmhouse where they lived, they decided to build a new home. They enjoy having their children and grandchildren live nearby. Their daughter, Ashley, and her husband, Tyler Attema, live near Inwood. Ashley is super creative and previously was an interior designer at a Sioux Center furniture store before becoming a stay-athome mom. Tyler is a fire fighter for Sioux Falls Fire & Rescue; plus does diesel mechanic work on the side at their acreage. They have three children: Emily, 9, and Will, 7, go to Inwood Christian School; and Isaac, 5, starts kindergarten in the fall.

Loren and Terri’s son, Josh, is a conservation officer for the South Dakota Game Fish & Parks Department. He’s based out of Canton and patrols along both the Sioux River and the Missouri River. He lives in Harrisburg and, in September, will marry Laura Carlson, who has a seven-yearold daughter, Estelle. Loren said Josh is chip off the block with his high-energy work drive. Terri said a youth spent doing hog chores and practicing football instilled a strong work ethic.

When he graduated high school, Loren was glad his dad needed more help on the farm. His parents, Leonard and Geneva Vanden Bosch, grew corn and soybeans and had a small farrow-to-finish hog operation. “A few years into it, Dad gave me the money to buy two sows. He told me, ‘When you sell the hogs, pay me back. If there’s anything extra, we’ll take the feed off and the rest is yours.’ And that's how we started off. It was a nointerest loan because that’s what dads do.”

His dad started farming a half section on a crop-share basis beginning in the 1950s. Sixty-some years later, Loren and his brother,

Leon, now farm 1,100 acres and continue the arrangement with landlords who live in Chicago. In 2005, Leonard, Leon and Loren purchased 80 acres. With a little bit of emotion, Terri said that was the first land her father-in-law ever owned: “He was so proud and excited to have bought it.” Loren said his dad could never buy land because his mom suffered from rheumatoid arthritis and there were always bills to pay at Mayo Clinic. “He literally spent millions taking her to the doctor. We figured out the bills he paid accumulated to the equivalent of three farms. He basically operated hand-to-mouth, making monthly payments until Mom passed away – and then several more years after she died.”

Providing Feed and Vet Supplies for over 30 years. We also provide consulting services for feedlot cattle and cow calf pairs.

Two acres of the new land was carved out for Loren and Terri to put up a hog barn and later a second one, and, finally, their home. He and his brother later bought a little bit more land. Loren both owns hogs and custom-finishes others.

“Terri is essential on loading hogs,” Loren said. “You tell people that and everybody says, ‘You still love each other?’ Well, it was a learning curve when we started out. But now it's so good that when we go in to sort, we barely communicate.”

The couple pre-sorts the hogs the night before and gets up about 4:45 a.m. to load them out. He said, “It's to the point where she is just as good, if not better, at reading hogs. She can see if a hog is going to turn or not. We don't say a word.” Terri added, “We know exactly what the other thinks and exactly what's to be done. We can do a load in about 45 minutes. Ever since 2005, I've helped with every load, except for two when I had breast cancer last year.”

The only time they ever got mad at each other was during harvest in 2014 when they were also in midst of finishing construction on their house and had to agree on little things like where to put the plug-ins. Terri laughed, “We were both stressed and so tired we couldn’t see straight. During sorting and loading, we did throw a panel at each other. We both did.”

Terri said her quilting customers think it's hilarious she helps sort and load hogs. “They say to me: ‘You get smelly and dirty and then you make these pretty things?’”

Terri has been “running wild” in the quilting business for 30 years. Previously, she made wood crafts to sell. Then friends took her to a quilt shop and she got hooked. She founded Lizard Creek Quilting and, in 2007, she borrowed $10,000 from Farm Credit Services to buy a longarm machine. Taking quilt tops others have made, she uses the longarm to finish quilts by stitching together the top, the batting and the backing. She impressed Loren when she paid it off in a year-and-a-half.

“I was never competitive in things like sports. In fact, in grade school, they used to fight over who had to take me on their team. But, in quilting, I’m very competitive. I'm very precise. My points have to match and I like my colors to be right. I've entered quite a few contests and won quite a few ribbons. In 2016, I entered a national contest by AccuQuilt in Omaha. I designed an original quilt block and won first place.” AccuQuilt displayed the block essentially as a billboard on the side of their warehouse, visible from I-680. The display was 17 feet high and wide.

“Winning gave me confidence,” she said. Winning also gave her opportunities and contacts. As the contest winner, she was featured in a national quilting magazine. Since then, about 40 of her quilts have been featured in magazines. People across the country recognize the name Lizard Creek Quilting.

She’s a frequent speaker at quilt guild meetings, where Loren serves as her sidekick, selling her merchandise and being her driver. In addition, she’s begun designing patterns for her Signature Fabric lines, four of which are being sold by Island Batik. She relishes the chance to use her creativity in different ways. “I like to do things for a while and then I’ll look a different direction and think ‘Oh, pretty thing. Let's try this;’ or ‘Ooh, shiny thing over here. Let's try that.’ If there's anything quilt-related, or anything that can be made or tried with fabric, it's what I do. It brings me joy.” Loren said, “The best saying on her wall is: ‘My brain has too many tabs open.’ That's exactly her. She's a hog-sorting, quilt-making, fabricdesigning, motorcycle-riding, good cook and grandma. She's all the above.”

Three sections of a 12-set series of “Sew True Quiltlets” which Terri developed in 2022:

• The left one is for May: The theme is the Lord is unchangeable. Even when the wind and rain and snow are rough on your tulips, the buds remained tight inside the leaves until it was time for its purpose.

• The middle one is for August: The refreshment you enjoy when eating watermelon is an allusion to the Bible verse of “Jesus is the living water.” When you trust in Jesus for living water, you’ll never be thirsty again.

• On the right, the November quiltlet focuses on the Abundance of God. Just as God provides oak trees and acorns for the squirrels, He came to give believers abundance, something that is added to make life happy, including joy, peace, fellowship and other blessings.

“I've never been scared to put my faith into my work. That's very important to me,” Terri said. “Even when I first started out doing woodworking things, I added a little tag with a Bible verse on each thing I sold.” Her Blessing Baskets design helps people recognize that “The Lord gives you all of these blessings to put in life’s basket.”

Last year, she was inspired to design a new quiltlet pattern for every month, each focused on one of God’s truths. She continued designing even when she was shocked with a diagnosis of breast cancer in April 2022.

“I don't know how people can survive hearing that diagnosis, or any traumatic diagnosis, without having the assurance of knowing that, even if I die, I'll go to heaven. The verse that I clung to was: ‘Go in peace for the Lord is watching over your journey.’ No matter where the journey goes, you can be at peace because He's there.” The cancer was caught early; doctors were able to do radiation during the surgery to remove the tumor; and ongoing hormone inhibitor treatment has been going well.

Many quilters follow her on social media and they have proven to be blessings and prayer warriors for her during cancer treatment. Terri has become more bold in sharing her faith in person and online even at the risk of having a few customers turn their back. “At my core, that’s who I am. I have to tell people about my personal relationship with Jesus.”

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