100 years of family farming
Olson farm gets Centennial Farm designation
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| Some members of the Engerman and Emma Olson family recently met to commemorate the Centennial Farm designation of their family farm. Pictured are (front row, from left) Bennett and Martha Williamson of Rock Falls; Miranda Johnson of Rockford; Ava Little; Autumn Miller of Sterling; and Betsy Hoover of Tampico; (second row, behind sign) Nancy Pierson of Woodridge; Joan Johnson of Tampico; Michaela Johnson of Rockford; and David Mack of Queen Creek, Ariz.; and (back row) Terry Johnson of Rockford; Jon and Ben Hoover of Tampico; and Ben, Dan, Adam and Danny Mack of Sharon, Wis. (Photo contributed) |
FAIRFIELD TOWNSHIP — Another Bureau County farm has joined the lengthy list of Illinois’ Centennial Farms.
About 120 years ago, Engerman Olson and his two brothers left their home in Sweden to seek adventure and a better life in the New World. In 1904, Engerman and his wife, Emma, bought what was then known as the Ruck farm in Fairfield Township, and the land has been in the Olson family ever since.
Recently 28 of the descendants of Engerman and Emma Olson gathered to commemorate the designation of the Olson Family Farm as a Centennial Farm.
To qualify as a Centennial Farm, a straight or collateral line of descendants must own the agricultural property for at least 100 years. The Olson family received this historical distinction to their farm after their application for designation as a Centennial Farm was approved.
The application was completed by Joan Johnson, who is the managing partner of the family partnership. Johnson said the three brothers farmed together in the New Bedford area when they first arrived. Three years later, Engerman decided to send for his wife, Emma, who traveled all the way from Sweden alone with three small children, Alfred, Matilda and Amanda.
“Grandma is my idol,” Johnson said. “She came across the ocean with three children to a country where she didn’t speak the language.”
Emma and her children took the train to Illinois. She and Engerman went on to have two more children, Sigrid and then Boline, who was Johnson’s father.
Johnson wasn’t sure how big the original farm was, but remembered her grandfather paid $55 per acre for the land. The farm now consists of 314 acres, all in Bureau County.
The Olson Family Farm was recently recognized with other centennial and sesquicentennial farms at the Illinois State Fair. The Illinois Centennial Farms program has recognized more than 8,700 farms since its inception in the early 1970s. Centennial Farm owners receive outdoor display signage and a certificate signed by the governor and the director of agriculture.
There is at least one Centennial Farm in every county of the state. Champaign County has the most with more than 200 Centennial Farms, but Bureau County isn’t far behind with 192.
Johnson said her family is pleased to have the designation and said she enjoyed the process of putting together her family’s history in the process.
“It’s just been really an honor to think what all our ancestors went through to get started,” she said.
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