East Randolph
When she graduated from high school, nursing was an accessible career path for young women. It would get her away from the relentless barn chores and the bookwork that consumed her mother so much that she missed seeing Joan graduate from high school.
Joan and her husband, Craig, stepped in to care for the herd when her mother couldn’t run Green Acres Farm by herself anymore. Their Milking Shorthorns had become known for quality breeding among farmers nationally.
The Wortmans took over the farm with energy and resolve. They put off other plans and gave up old pastimes. They borrowed against their retirement to improve the farm’s infrastructure even as declining milk prices made it hard to break even. They were rewarded by the relationships formed with their animals.
And they worked hard to preserve the farm so that a small-scale dairy operation could continue, providing that a new generation had the will to work against poor returns for the effort required.
On May 23, Joan Wortman stood in the barn at the East Randolph farm surrounded, for the first time, by cows there that were not her own. She helped the new herd of Holsteins find their stalls and did her best to pass on her knowledge and systems of running the barn to the farm’s new stewards, the Deome family.
It was only a brief moment. Then there was more work to do.
— James M. Patterson
