I am Dolores Isom Olds. I was born in 1929 and grew up in Hurricane, Utah. My parents were Eugenia Walker McAllister and Thomas Irving Isom. My Dad was a farmer and mainly grew fruit trees. He and his three brothers each had an orchard. Uncle Leslie and Uncle Bernard grew apples and pears. Uncle […]
The catalpa tree in the front yard of our family farm is still living today. As far as we know our parents planted the tree. There are six of us. Pa and Ma referred to us children as “first and second crop hay” as they had two girls and a boy (like first cutting of […]
In the 1860s, an 83-acre property on what was then Smith Road, now South 51st Street, in Franklin, Wisconsin was bought by our great grandfather, Johann (John) Barg and his wife Maria (nee Tietgen). The Barg homestead’s main barn was erected in 1877. Later, his son, our grandfather, Edward J. Barg and his wife Annette […]
In the 1960s I learned everything I needed to know about gardening and cooking from one of the original organic gardeners and foodies: my grandmother. After World War II she noticed that it was hard to get good produce anymore; the peddlers who used to sell door-to-door didn’t come around any more. So she bought […]