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The largest used equipment inventory in the Mid-Atlantic is only a click away. Visit our website by clicking here or visit us at one of our 11 locations throughout MD, DE, VA and PA.
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Passing on knowledge from Annie
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The largest used equipment inventory in the Mid-Atlantic is only a click away. Visit our website by clicking here or visit us at one of our 11 locations throughout MD, DE, VA and PA.
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Passing on knowledge from Annie
12.18.2007
By BRUCE HOTCHKISS
Senior Editor
Her name was Annette Kohlhagen. Her friends and family called her Annie.
As a teenager in Illinois, she was a 4-H Club member — her family remembers she sewed many fine dresses — and she spent many hours visiting her grandparents’ farm.
She was a rabid Chicago Cubs fan and showed off Dizzy Dean’s picture and autograph, which she got at an August 1938 game at Wrigley Field.
A graduate of Illinois State Normal University, then Teachers College, in 1942, she raised two sons and two daughters, and taught first and second grade school in Frankfort, Ill., for five years before marrying Frank Fleck on July 20, 1947.
She died in 1997 at the age of 75.
But that’s just a part of Annie’s story.
Annie was a woman who grew up in a small town in northern Illinois. Her goal was to marry a farmer, and she did. Annie spent her lifetime learning how to be an involved business partner with her farmer husband. Together they did great things, but it wasn’t easy.
Challenges Annie faced included three generations living under one roof, low profitability, changing farm enterprises and raising a family.
Annie faced pressure from brothers and sister-in-laws, and a mother-in-law. New regulations for selling processed food directly to the consumer forced many changes.
Low profitability did not leave a lot of money to raise a family of four children, even though the family worked hard. Annie had to make many painful sacrifices that tested her conviction to be married to a farmer.
There were days of tears, anger and sorrow. There were days of laughter, contentment and accomplishment.
Through it all, Annie kept records. She kept the farm business running, she kept the family running and she kept her marriage. Annie knew deadlines, reporting requirements, tax issues, and did the little management jobs that kept big management jobs under control.
When big decisions had to be made, Annie was there with her records. To increase cash flow, Annie sent her husband to work off-farm while she milked cows and kept an egg route in Chicago.
Eventually, her records guided them to discontinue an egg laying enterprise, a seasonal turkey enterprise and the dairy business. Other farmers with larger equipment and more resources could better run the farm. So Annie became the landowner renting to other farmers. She paid expenses and marketed corn and soybeans.
When others looked upon decisions Annie had helped to make, their opinions were not always kind, and that was very hard on Annie. But she stuck with her decisions. She corrected mistakes, and learned from experience.
As an ex-school teacher, Annie had never-ending patience, and the ability to weather bad times.
Annie had been married to a farmer for 50 years. She died in 1997. She was a wealthy woman, and she did things her way.
But the story does not end there.
One of Annie’s daughters, Ruth, married a man from a farm. And the story starts all over. She did not follow her mother’s pattern, but she carried her genes.
While Annie would never dream of working off-farm, Ruth works for University of Illinois Extension as a farm business management and marketing agent.
As a tribute and a memorial to her mother. Ruth founded Annie’s Project, as observed and lived by her mother.
Farm women have diverse backgrounds, some which prepare women well for the responsibilities of running a farm business.
Other farm women come into farming operations by way of marrying men who happen to be farmers, or by means of their spouse or family members dying and leaving them in charge.
Being married to a farmer or being a woman in a male-dominated business has its challenges. Some women have learned to handle this responsibility very well and are valuable mentors to women who have not had it so easy.
Through Annie’s Project, Ruth takes the skills instilled in her by her mother, and mentors and educates farm women.
Farm women find answers, strength and friendship, in Annie’s Project. Farm women grow in confidence, business skills and community prestige.
Annie’s Project is dedicated to the life of Annette (Kohlhagen) Fleck (1922-1997) by its creator, Ruth Fleck Hambleton, mother, wife and Extension agent.