Glandorf Feed Co. 1942; Glandorf, Ohio

I grew up in an agriculture community where almost everything that happened depended on the weather, family functions and high-school sports.  Both sides of my family were in the ag business and there were things about that lifestyle that I took for granted. Like where our food came from… besides the store or restaurant.

Growing up in a small town and having lived as an adult in several large cities, I interact with many people who are removed from where their food comes from; most of whom have never been to a farm.

My maternal grandfather was a second generation row crop and occasional cattle farmer. There were usually chickens in the coop as well as a few hogs or goats in the barn. Grandpa Hoffman taught me about raising animals when I was a kid and I knew that our family ate the food that he raised on the farm. One time as a kid I helped butcher chickens and found out first-hand what it means to be a chicken with his head cut off. A chicken actually came running directly after me flapping its wings, immediately after having his head cut off! Needless to say I ran as fast as my eight year old legs would carry me and to this day, that may have been my fastest recorded 40 yard dash.

Although I’m from a farming community, I grew up “in-town” on Main Street, not in the country. So I was not a farmer. I did work on Grandpa’s farm, but not every day like farm kids. I mostly played sports and went swimming during the summer months until I was about twelve; that’s when I started bailing straw and working more. Farm kids were driving tractors and doing chores way before twelve.

One of my favorite things about living in town was that I grew up less than a mile from my fraternal grandparents and I spent a lot of time there. I was really close with my Grandpa Inkrott; he taught me a lot about farming, but not so much on the farm stuff. He knew the feed business. Grandpa Art and his buddy E.J. Meyer started Glandorf Feed Co. in 1942 when they purchased a flour mill; it has been a growing family business ever since.

Grandpa knew crops and the weather better than anyone I’ve ever met. He and my Grandma, and sometimes me, would take “crop tours” all over the Midwest just to look at fields. Grandpa would get out of his suburban on an old state highway and walk a few rows into the field, touch the crops, smell the crops, pick up some dirt and get back in the suburban and talk for an hour about moisture, yield, and water sheds and heat index. He was pretty awesome. I learned more about crops and the weather by the time I was 10 years old than any meteorologist on television today. I also prayed more Hail Mary’s and said more rosaries than anyone on TV today, but that’s what a crop tour was. Crop talk, praying, and usually talking to farmers about the weather and if there was a place nearby to get an ice cream cone.

My grandfathers, who have both passed, taught me many great lessons over the years. Where my food came from was just one of them. I recall dozens of memories and stories that involve my family, farming, raising animals, planting and harvesting crops… These experiences have shaped who I am, and yes, many of them took place on a farm, a feed truck or in a field.

Many of the folks I come across today on the subway, in a convenience store or eating in a restaurant would have no idea what a grain elevator or a hog trough looks like. Their food is on a plate or on a shelf, and folks simply take it. People today know and expect that their food tastes good; but where it comes from… that is the best part.