Des Moines Register
05-07-06
Patience builds bond to land
After 60 years of farming, he holds onto 80 acres and a tree
JERRY PERKINS
REGISTER FARM EDITOR
Earlham, Ia. — For 60 years, Marion Patience has farmed around an old maple
tree standing watch on the west side of an 80-acre field.
Patience, 79, has cut back his farm operation and sold off some his land to a
nephew. He has auctioned off much of his machinery, but he still disks the land
near that tree.
Iowa State University sociologist Paul Lasley says improved living standards,
better health care and more mechanization of tasks help farmers work longer.
But it's more than that, Lasley said: Farmers like Patience develop an abiding
bond to the land they work.
"Their identity is often determined, shaped and formed by their farmland," Lasley
said. "People pass by and make judgments about that farmer based on the
straightness of the rows, the amount of weeds and the conservation of the soil. ...
Farming is more than their occupation. It's who they are."
Patience hangs on to the 80-acre field and the old maple tree because of its
connection to the people who gave him his start in farming.
Flossie Atherton brought the tree to Iowa from her native Vermont when she
married George Atherton, the man who gave Patience his chance to start farming
in 1946. Patience started farming after returning from service in the Navy after
World War II.
He rented the land from Atherton for 10 years, then bought it for $225 an acre.
"I paid for that land with $3 soybeans over several years," Patience recalled. At
first, he used Atherton's team of horses to farm.
Atherton died several years after Patience paid off the land. "He was like a
second father to me," he said.
Over the years, Patience farmed as many as 340 acres of corn and soybeans.
He raised alfalfa pasture for his Angus beef cattle.
Patience met his wife of 47 years, Berneita, when a rebellious milk cow kicked
him in the face.
His father took him to the Dexter hospital, where Berneita, a young bookkeeper
at the hospital, fetched the doctor.
"We kind of clicked," he said.
Marion and Berneita had one child, then opened their home to 17 foster babies.
They adopted two of the children.
"We took those kids everywhere: Niagara Falls, the Grand Canyon, everywhere,"
Patience recalled as he filled his tractor with diesel fuel. "I don't know if we're
special people, but we're friendly people."
Darrell Adams has known Patience since 1971.
"He's a good neighbor, about the best I have," said Adams. "He's got a million
stories and if you ever get a little bit down, all you have to do is go talk with
Marion."
After weekend rains left his fields too wet to work, Patience busied himself
changing the oil filters on his tractor. He was in no hurry to get into the soggy
fields.
"You get those big tractors out there in the wet ground and they just pack it down
so you don't get anything," said Patience. "You're better off waiting a day or two."
Patience showed a visitor the 80-acre piece of ground he has farmed for 60
seasons and the tree that has witnessed his work.
Local legend has it that bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde Barrow had a flat tire on
the road that runs by the tree.
A neighbor offered to change the tire, but the outlaws declined his help, Patience
recalled with a smile.
"They didn't want him to see the guns they had hidden in the trunk of the car," he
said.
The tree's trunk has a hollow, rotten spot big enough to hold a basketball, and its
leaves shade the ground around it, yet Patience refuses to consider cutting it
down.
Years ago, his brother suggested taking it out so Patience could plant more corn.
"I said, 'Listen, you bum, I need a place to eat my lunch in the shade, and that
tree and the history it represents is worth a lot more than any corn,'" Patience
said.
Iowa farm owners
65 AND OLDER: People older than 65 owned 48 percent of Iowa's farmland in
2002, according to statistics compiled by Iowa State University economist
Michael Duffy. That percentage increased from 29 percent in 1982 and 42
percent in 1992.
74 AND OLDER: Farmland owners over 74 years old held title to 24 percent of
Iowa's farmland in 2002, Duffy said, double the 12 percent they owned in 1982.
TURNOVER: The graying of Iowa's farmland ownership shows that a high
turnover of land can be expected as the land is transferred because of death or
other age-related reasons, Duffy said.
LAND OWNERSHIP: The percentage of farmland owned by Iowa's elderly
population increased from 1982 to 2002, the most recent year statistics were
available, while the percentage of younger people owning land decreased.
• People 35 to 44 years old owned 10 percent of Iowa's farmland in 2002,
compared with 14 percent in 1982.
• Those who were 45 to 54 years old owned 16 percent of Iowa's farmland in
2002, down from 23 percent in 1982.
• People 55 to 64 years old owned 23 percent of Iowa's farmland in 2002, about
the same as 1982.
— Jerry Perkins