Our September Farmer of the Month is Dorothy Ewald of Oshkosh who began the farm with her late husband Dennis 50 years ago, but Dorothy was born and raised on her parent’s farm with her seven brothers and two sisters. She explained that only three out of her nine siblings didn’t end up dairy farming. Unfortunately, all but one sister has passed away, making Dorothy the last of her brothers and sisters still milking cows with the help of her children and grandchildren.
When Dennis and Dorothy bought the farm, things were quite a bit different. “It was a tumbled-down weed patch when we moved here. We slowly got it built up. Then the highway came through in 2000. It took about 25 to 30 acres away,” she said. “This farm has been divided twice because of roads.” Dorothy also mentioned the changes she’s seen in agriculture in general over the years. She said that one of the biggest changes that stand out to her is the equipment most farmers are using nowadays compared to when she was growing up. “My family had the old International M’s. When we sold the farm my dad’s biggest tractor was an International 560…look at the tractors nowadays.”
After her husband passed away from brain cancer in December 2018, she had a tough decision to make about the dairy. “When Denny passed, we still had a mortgage. So it’s either sell land or just keep working to pay the mortgage off.” She went on jokingly, “I haven’t retired yet because I have no hobbies, so I might as well keep milking cows.”
Over the years on the farm both Dennis and Dorothy had a lot of help from neighbors, family, and friends. Especially after a house fire complicated things for the family. Luckily, a neighbor took them in while the house was being rebuilt and another neighbor actually got the family a camper to live in during the transition time while waiting for the construction to be completed on the house.
Speaking of people who’ve helped out on the farm, Dorothy’s six children also played a huge role in running the farm with two of her kids currently working full time on the dairy and the rest helping out when needed. “The Lord was good enough to give us healthy kids. We’ve made it through all of this time. You have your good days and your bad days,” she said.
Dorothy mentioned that if she could give any farmers a piece of advice, it would be to make sure they don’t go too far into debt. As she recalls, she and her husband found that out early on when FHA started foreclosing on people in the mid-70s. “Boy, we were worried. We were just barely in the borderline when we first moved here,” she explained.
She also said that the farming generation is a dying one and that it’s becoming tougher and tougher for the younger farmers to start a smaller-sized dairy successfully. “I’ve been told we’re a dying generation. If you’ve got less than 500 cows, you’re not going to make it,” Dorothy said. “I just hope every day that the milkman will still take my milk and let’s face it, I don’t have a lot of milk. I have all of these colored breeds.” That’s one issue she worries about. She hopes that she never has to get the call from the milkman saying that they’re done picking up from her farm. For now, farms such as hers can still get their milk picked up, but she doesn’t seem too hopeful about that continuing down the road.
“There are so few farms left. Like in the town of Oshkosh, when we first moved here there was a farm everywhere you looked. There is only the big farm up the road and me left in the town of Oshkosh, there are no other milk cows.” – Dorothy Ewald
One of the most generous things Dorothy does at her dairy is that she gives kids who don’t live on a farm the opportunity to show her cattle. For example, this year they had ten Cloverbuds showing calves at the Winnebago County Fair. “These kids have nowhere to take and get calves from. The bigger the farm gets, the farther away they send their cattle. There are no cattle for these young kids to take,” she said. “I think it’s good for a kid to learn that you can’t have your own way. You can throw a temper tantrum and people will give you your own way, but that calf ain’t gonna give you your own way.”
Dorothy and her family have played a huge role in the local 4-H program for over 45 years. You can hear the rest of the conversation with Dorothy on our agriculture podcast page. She speaks a little more about what happened after her husband passed away and about the house fire they had while the kids were growing up.
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