Remembering Nathan Hieronymus
A new meaning to the Family Farm
Dan Reynolds helping Tom finish up harvest.
“P
eople always say, ‘call me if you need anything,’ but you can’t call someone and ask for a combine,” says Connie Hieronymus. “Our friends just showed up when we needed them most.”
Whether he was riding to the elevator in the grain truck with his mom or learning how to drive the tractor through the field with his dad, he always wanted to be involved on the family farm in some way.
2020 has been a challenging year for most everyone in one way or another, but what the Hieronymus family has gone through this year changed their lives forever. On July 20, 2020, Tom and Connie Hieronymus’s son, Nathan, passed away unexpectedly at just 42 years old. The emotions they have had to work through and the hardships they have experienced these past several months are hard to put into words, but the outpouring of support that the farming community around them has offered has been an unbelievable blessing to their family.
After graduating from Parkland College, Nathan began working with his dad full-time, becoming the fifth generation in the family to farm in Farmer City, Illinois. Nathan had been transitioning into taking on more ownership of the farm over the last several years. In the spring of 2019, Nathan purchased his first piece of farm equipment, a Case IH Magnum. Although their time unexpectedly got cut short, Nathan and Tom got to farm together for 20 years.
has been following in his father’s footsteps and wants to be involved as much as he can. “He was a born farmer,” says Connie. “He already knows more about farming than most farmers do. We want to keep this going for him.”
In the midst of grieving the loss of their son, Tom and Connie had no choice but to begin thinking about how they were going to get the crop out this fall with harvest quickly approaching. At first, Tom thought that he could have local grain elevators send semi-trucks out to help haul their grain, and they could figure out the rest from there. However, before any plans could be made, family, friends, and neighbors from near and far began reaching out to the Hieronymus family with Nathan and his wife, Ashley, have one common question: what can we two children, Paisley (8) and Hank do to help? From a very young age, Nathan (4), who also love to be in the field developed a love for farming. with their grandparents. Hank
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