WANDERINGS FROM YOUR PRESIDENT

BY GAYLE STUART

As we entered the beginning of this year of 2021, with COVID very much on a rampage, Leo dismissed the idea of celebrating our 150th farm anniversary. His grandfather had purchased the land where we live in February of 1871.

Leo’s brother, Robert, died in January of this year and only the immediate family attended the funeral and committal.

So, when COVID subsided, Robert’s family decided to have a memorial service and picked June 19th, the Saturday of Father’s Day weekend. This created the problem of not being able to use the church, as parking would be impossible, because of the Antique Walk.

Plan B was to have the memorial service and 150-year celebration here at the farm. Our shop, which was built in 2012, had to be emptied and cleaned; Grant did a marvelous job.

Darlene, Robert’s wife, fell and broke her arm the day before our celebration and could not attend. However, Robert and Darlene’s 4 children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, as well as our 3 children, grandchildren, and great-grandchild attended. We were so blessed to have cousins from Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Nebraska here.

A cousin of Leo’s and I had done a lot of research on the family back to Scotland. We had been to Scotland with our spouses to the farm where the Stuarts lived. We also visited where they 1st settled in Canada and in Clinton Co. in eastern Iowa, where they settled in the states before coming to the Walnut area.

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