TODAY’S FARM

LEFEVRE cont’d from page 20

“My oldest son picks this one book over and over again and it goes like ‘farm dad takes farm kids out to feed the cows, slop the pigs and collect the eggs. Then they go to school. They come home from school and they ride horses and their ATV.’ On the very last page of the book, it goes something like ‘and thanks, Mom, for frying us chicken for supper,” she said.

LeFevre said each time she read the book, she found herself thinking of all of the tasks that make up her own day, as a farm wife and stay-at-home mom — or as she calls them on her website, farmwifeatheart.com — “farmHERS.”

“Each time I read it, it was like a dagger straight to the heart. As someone who grew up on a farm, and now being a farm wife, I was like: We do so much more,” she said.

LeFevre graduated from Amboy High School in 2010 and attended beauty school in Champaign, then opened her own salon in her hometown of Sublette.

LeFevre said that before she wrote her book, she didn’t have publishing ambitions, but the lack of recognition of farm women like herself, plus being in contact with other farm wives and farm women on social media, inspired her.

“I follow other farm women and farm wives on social media and I kept seeing these posts: What is holding you back from doing the thing you want to do, that you should do, that you are being called to do? It really resonated with me and I thought absolutely nothing is holding me back,” she said.

While her sons napped, she searched online for information on writing a children’s book and publishing. She also made notes for the book, based on her own experiences and those of the farm wives and farm women she knows.

“I do everything a stay-at-home mom would do. I make sure the house is kept up, do the dishes, the laundry, pay the bills, take care of the kids,” she said.

“I really try to instill an interest in farming in my boys, as well. I will load them up and take them to the farm for tractor rides.

“If there’s a breakdown and they need me to go, I run for parts. I bring lunch out to the field if needed and all kinds of little things here and there.”

LeFevre and husband, Andrew, married in 2018. They farm their own ground and also farm with Andrew’s parents, Mark and Stacy LeFevre, near Ashton, raising corn, soybeans and seed corn.

The Sublette farm that she grew up on was sold after the death of her grandfather, Elroy Lauer. Her father, Tom, now lives near Andrea and helps out on the LeFevre farm and also with Andrea’s sister and her husband, who also farm in the area.