Walsh family WEBSTER

Bob Walsh said. “Back in the day, you didn’t have spray so you pulled them.”

When Bob Walsh and his wife Andrea, who had grown up in town in Boone, joined the farm, Bob’s mother, Mary Ellen Walsh, had some sage advice for her new daughter-in-law.

“She would tell me not to do too much work on the farm because I would be stuck doing it,” Andrea Walsh said with a smile in her voice. “I wish I would have taken her advice, because every year I seem to learn to do more and more.”

-Submitted photo

Iowa

Hallie, Hannah, Kadie and Kyle Cech. Kneeling, from left, are MacKenzie Condon, Haley Free, Kelsie Bahlmann, Briley Condon, Anne Condon, Bailey Walsh, Jody Walsh, Kasie Seil. Standing, from left, are, Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig, Bob Walsh, Zachary Walsh, Andrea Walsh, Lucas Walsh, Karen Free, Kari Walsh, (partially hidden) Tom Walsh, Matthew Condon, Pat Walsh, (partially hidden) Logan Jepsen, Paige Condon, Jacob Seil, Connor Hackman, Kevin “Poppie” Walsh, Kevin Walsh, Mike Free, Dee Cech, A.J. Free, Dan Condon, Alyssa Walsh, Nathan Walsh, (partially hidden) Corey Cech, Alyssa Brown, Mark Condon, Jaidyn Rowley, Lee Walsh, Morgan Walsh and a Farm Bureau representative.

Fair. Sitting in lived their lives.

“Mom and Dad taught us that you have to work hard,” Condon said. “There’s no free hand-outs. If you want something, you have to work hard for it.”

Of course, with Irish families, they are always there to help one another.

Bob Walsh and wife Andrea are working to pass on those values to their son, who has joined the family farm operation this year.

“It gets hard with all the big farmers around, but we’re trying to help our son, the same way Bob’s dad helped us,” Andrea Walsh said.

It’s been that way from the beginning, with Walsh members taking an active role in their community.

Anne Condon recalls her grandparents, Leo and Catherine Walsh, as always wanting to be a part of whatever was going on with the family and community.

“When they moved off the farm, they moved into Barnum, and I believe my grandfather was mayor of Barnum for awhile,” Condon said. “He went to all of the sporting events. I don’t think it mattered if his grandkids were playing or not. He used to just go down and watch basketball, or whatever was going on.”

Condon’s brother Bob Walsh has great memories of his grandfather working on the farm, despite the fact that he had just one arm.

“He lost his arm in a corn picker accident, but he was still a hard worker, he was a trooper,” Bob Walsh said. “My dad had just gotten back from the service — he served in the Korean War — and it was after that my grandfather lost his arm.”

No matter that a hoe is harder to use with just one arm, clean fields were a big priority for his grandfather, according to Bob Walsh.

“He was always a weed man,”

Fortunately, there’s another generation coming along to join the effort.

Bob and Andrea have two children. Daughter Morgan is studying agriculture at Iowa Central Community College and enjoys working with the cow-calf operation that is part of the Walsh farm. Son Nathan graduated from Iowa Central and works in precision agriculture for K.C. Nielsen. In addition to his full-time job, Nathan has now joined the family farm operation and is cash renting a portion of the farm for the first time this year.

“He is just kind of getting his feet wet this year, using our equipment,” mom Andrea Walsh said.

They know it’s not easy for the younger generation to get established in farming, but by working together, they hope to keep family farm tradition going strong.

The brothers John and Edmund Walsh who started it all in 1870 would surely approve.

By DOUG CLOUGH

Farm News writer

ANTHON — Cecelia “Cec” Karhoff knows if there is one thing in life that is constant, it’s change.

“Where the fence is behind my house is where the road was when my grandfather bought this farm,” said Karhoff. “In 1926, he sold three and a quarter acres to the county for a road, which is the one that now runs in front of the house — and that’s how my acreage came to be.”

Karl Forch was Karhoff’s grandfather, and he and wife Mary began their first-generation ownership in September of 1916, purchasing 117 acres from W.F. and Mary J. Walling. Cecelia’s father Albert was one of three children adopted by Karl and Mary Forch. Albert was 11 when he was adopted.

In 1926 Karl passed away, so Mary was sole owner until her passing in 1949; Albert with his wife Margaret purchased the farm in 1950, which at that time had 109 acres of land.

In 1969, Albert Forch sold 5.4 acres of land to his daughter Cecelia and son-in-law James Karhoff to build the couple’s home.

In 1984, Albert Forch sold the remainder of the farm to Cecelia; the current farm ground has 105.6 acres.

The original house no longer stands but, when it did, it was at a different location than where Karhoff’s home is today. “When my grandfather became ill in 1926,” said Karhoff, “he was living at the house and passed away soon after. My dad was farming in Danbury and came here in 1927 with my mom. He had two kids and another on the way when he came back, so Mom and Dad moved into the big house. Another house was built on the hill where my grandmother

Woodbury

lived.”

Albert and Margaret Forch had seven children and Cecelia was number five. During Cec’s formative years on the farm, her dad farmed with horses.

“We had two horses, Jim and Prince,” said Karhoff. “We were not allowed near those horses. They were work horses. We eventually got an old John Deere B tractor.

“I followed my dad around a lot. I had an older sister who helped in the house, so that gave me the leeway to be outside. I started milking cows when I was 6 years old, only in the evenings during the weekdays. On Saturday morning, Dad would holler, ‘I’ll give you a nickel if you help me milk cows!’

I don’t know if I ever got that nickel or not, but I jumped out of bed and went outside and started milking cows!”

Karhoff also remembers having sheep and feeding bottle lambs. Her father also had calves, cows, and pigs, and she was always around those animals. “My dad and I had a garden,” said Karhoff. “Like I said, my older sisters were in the house; I still don’t know how to cook! I had to clean the house, but I didn’t have to cook.”

It wasn’t all work for Karhoff, although she didn’t shy away from work either.

“Sometimes, I’d just find nails and pound them into an old tree for fun,” she said. “I went down to the creek to fish. The creek had pilings, and I had to crawl down them to get to a spot under the bridge where the bullheads would be. If I wanted to get away from people, that’s where I’d go, or I’d go climb a tree with a book.”

Karhoff also played basketball at Anthon Community School and was a majorette.

“I think I was Dad’s favorite; I never knew it at the time,” Karhoff said. “When my mom died, my dad took me to the bank to put me on the accounts. When he had his stroke, it affected his speech, and I was the only one of us kids who knew what he was saying; we were just around each other that much. When he died, the only picture that was in his billfold was a photo of me when I was about 6 years old.”

Cecelia with her husband James had three children: Rhonda, Danny (deceased), and Patty, a six-year span from oldest to youngest. Karhoff’s daughter Patty remembers, when she lived at the farm, having bottle calves and hogs aside from the acres of corn. Patty was born in 1966, and it was 1976 when her mother began working at the veterinarian clinic where she remained employed until 2001.

Even with the changes that have occurred through the years, Karhoff’s farm is still being worked on by her family. “My dad farmed this land, and my husband Kenny farmed it when Dad got sick,” said Patty Kollbaum. “My husband farmed it, and now my 28-year-old son Derek farms it.”

And it’s a real certainty that Cec Karhoff feels blessed to know that her land continues to be in good hands.

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By CLAYTON RYE Farm News writer

ROWAN — Mary-Louise Burt is the fifth generation to live on the Burt Heritage Farm that had its beginnings in 1872. She wrote a five-page manuscript, detailing the history of the family and the farm, that was used to write this story.

Henry Burt, her great-greatgrandfather, was born in 1850 near Bristol, England, where his father William farmed. He was one of 12 children. In 1879, at age 22, Henry Burt left his family for America.

Crossing the Atlantic Ocean then required 25 to 30 days by steamship under perilous conditions and a poor environment of cramped, dirty, poorly ventilated quarters, infested with rats and lice. Meals consisted of “rice pudding, sea pie, pea soup, and oatmeal porridge.” More affluent passengers would bring along extra jam, sugar, biscuits, eggs, cheese, and ham.

The manuscript describes the ship’s toilet, located at the head of the ship where the spray from the water would help clean it. Toilet paper was a rope that, when not in use, hung in the water for cleaning.

Upon arriving in America, travel was by covered wagon or buggy, covering eight to 20 miles a day.

Henry Burt first traveled to Ohio, where he lived for three years. Mary Ann Franklin left England in 1874 and the two of them were married in America, eventually moving to Galesburg, Ill., then to Franklin County, Iowa, for a year before moving to Wright County.

After seven years of renting, the Burts bought 80 acres of land east of Clarion for $6.25 an acre, where they built their home. Closets were