'Century Farm' spans history

With neighbors renting his fields, Ron Paulson quit cutting hay three years ago, and the only animals left on his 100-acre farm are cats.

Nowadays, the most vital crop Paulson and his wife, Marjorie, are tending is history.

Their Nowthen farm is being honored with Century Farm status this year by the Minnesota State Fair and the Minnesota Farm Bureau. The recognition is reserved for farms of 50 acres or more that have been continuously operated for 100 years and, more importantly, owned by the same family.

The Paulson place is the only Anoka County farm to be honored this year, and one of only five in the metro area, although 180 others are receiving the honor around the state.

The program started with 1,177 farms in 1976. Although the Farm Bureau carefully vets applications, no one keeps track of what happens to farms after they're accepted into the program. To date, more than 9,000 Minnesota properties have received the Century Farm honor.

"Agriculture was a fundamental foundation of the start of the state of Minnesota," said Karin Schaefer, the Farm Bureau's associate director of public relations. "Settlers came over and started these farms, and we want to recognize those farms that stayed in the family through the generations and still operate as that family's farm. It's a testament to the heritage of agriculture here in Minnesota."

Ron Paulson's father, Paul, and uncles Albert and Oscar purchased the farm in 1911 from the Hill family. Yes, that's the Hill family, as in railroad baron James J. Hill, who owned several other parcels in the area.

Paulson, 84, has lived on the farm for all but 15 of those 100 years. With his two brothers and one sister, he grew up in the old farmhouse, now rundown and awaiting demolition. He remembers sitting on an old basswood tree, looking over Pickerel Lake when it went dry during the Dust Bowl 1930s. He recalls that his father cut hay that grew on the lake bottom and that, during the darkest part of the Depression, his father rejoiced when he was able to pay the $37 property tax bill.

He also remembers the hard, hot work of making hay in the summers.

"They said if you killed a spider it would rain," he recalled, laughing. "I was always killing spiders."

He remembers going to town in a horse-drawn wagon or a Model T Ford, and going with his father to truck pickles from an Elk River storehouse to the Gedney factory in Minneapolis. They'd stop for a quart of maple nut ice cream on the way home, and have to finish it off that night because they had no freezer.

Better than pumping gas

He rarely second-guessed the decision to carry on with the farm, he said, and when the two of them traveled, "the best part of the whole trip is the last mile," he said. But there were moments.

"I remember baling hay, standing on the back of the wagon catching hay bales and seeing people with boats and campers," he said. "I was out there sweating my head off catching hay bales, and I thought, 'I bit on the wrong end.'"

But gradually progress left its mark on the farm. At first, the Paulsons built a basement-only house, just down the slope from the old farmhouse. Then they upgraded to a rambler with a huge rec room.

Paulson also worked at Hoffman Engineering in Anoka for 28 years. He and Marjorie raised two sons and three daughters, whose families still come to the farm often. Paulson loves that his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren go down to that same basswood tree to look over the rippling lake.

Those children and grandchildren are why the Paulsons stay put for now. They all have their own lives and none really is in a position to buy the farm, but Ron and Marjorie will stay as long as they can. Paulson says mowing his 2 1/2-acre lawn keeps him busy.