It was January of 1979, almost exactly 40 years ago to the day that our parents Archie (“Archman”) & Mattie Jennings were told ‘You’re never going to make it.’ As the skeptical FHA (Federal Housing Administration) loan officer sat across the table in Hastings, Michigan trying to convince two very determined young people of their bleak future. Granted, the loan officer was doing his job – to ‘discover the people who didn’t have any GRIT’ my dad would say.
With two little babies waiting back in Missouri, along with nearly $40,000 in debt wrapped-up in an Old Oliver tractor, about 100 head of hogs which had contracted a nasty viral disease (TGE) over winter, and some other miscellaneous, used equipment,…just HOW in the WORLD would they possibly be able to buy a farm and make it work in Michigan. Well,.. the short answer is some really nice people, maybe a little divine intervention, and TRUE GRIT with a wild dose of optimism to prove the world wrong.
This whole thing started during the summer of 1976 while the Olympic games were running and gymnast Nadia Comaneci of Romania was on her way to scoring the first perfect 10. My parents headed down Highway 69 from Minnesota to Missouri – ready to start a new beginning after working a short gig on a large dairy.
As they were driving down the road near Gentry, Missouri, Archman saw a ‘Pioneer Corn’ sign in a farm house yard. I imagine my dad said something like ‘Let’s stop and visit,’ to my more bashful, young mother, and so they decided to pull in for a visit – to talk to a farmer about farming. That conversation at the Collier’s house turned into a lifetime friendship and mentorship that included passions for farming, family, and sports. With such an open and kind first impression, my parents decided that the community around Eagleville, Missouri would be a nice place to stop and start their new life together.
A lot happens to a person in a lifetime, and if we were to go into all the details over the next 2.5 years of my parents’ life in Missouri (from 1976 – 1979) – you would think there were enough stories for an entire lifetime. But I will try to tease out just a few of the main points.
Life in Eagleville started in a tiny apartment over a lumberyard where Archman bartered labor bulldozing cattle ponds for rent. During this time, they met some of the nicest people that would become their forever, lifelong friends. One of those friends was Leland Grabiel.
Mr. Grabiel happens to be the namesake of little brother Leland Jennings and probably deserves a whole story to himself, but we will save that for later. Mr. Leland Grabiel showed up one day and offered rental of his old, decrepit farmstead to my parents in exchange for keeping up the barns and house, and providing some labor. In exchange, my parents got out of the modern day ‘indentured servitude’ that they were under, bartering for their tiny space above the lumberyard, and Leland provided my parents an education on everything he knew about raising and trading hogs. While they also tried their hand with sheep, they quickly learned that sheep get “SOO” (Sick Only Once), and Archie and Mattie followed Leland’s lead and decided raising hogs may be a better bet.
Now during this time ‘going out’ on a hot date for our parents meant going to the gas station to get a couple dollars to pay for the local high school basketball game entry, which they followed enthusiastically (GO Harrison County Shamrocks!), and 39-cent chuck steaks with sliced tomato and onion were their version of filet mignon.
My father has always said, ‘you pay for your school one way or another.’ – their college was on the land, and while it might not show up on a school transcript, they each earned “PhD’s” in Missouri.
But hogs wouldn’t be the only things Archie and Mattie started raising. They also welcomed two baby girls to the farm.
After a couple years of renting, learning, serving, struggling, and trying to make sense of things, they were ready to go for it and have their own farm and their own place to root down. Missouri’s weather was too extreme, ‘too hot and dry, or too cold and wet’ my mother would say. They placed an ad in the Battle Creek (Michigan) Enquirer in the fall of 1978 – each word cost money so the message was basic ‘Farm wanted for purchase in area.’
Naturally, about every real estate agent in Michigan and northern Indiana called them and eventually they settled on visiting a foreclosed farm in Barry County, shown by Mr. John DeBruin. They made one visit that fall, at which point they decided it was ‘good enough’ to get their dream rolling. However, as anyone knows wanting to buy a property is just the first step. But remember, they had little money and were $40,000 in debt to the Bethany Trust Bank of Missouri, a small farmer’s bank in Missouri that had loaned them operating funds to start farming.
Now we’ve reached the point where we started the story. In January of 1979, about 3 weeks after their second daughter Janette, was born, my dad with his friend/farmhand ‘Big Foot’ drove up to Michigan to meet with the FHA officer. As they were driving through Chicago around 2 a.m. with the temperatures near 20-below, a highway patrolman pulled them over for having a taillight out.
He said, ‘Son you have a taillight out. Get the HELL OFF my road!’ Who knows what Big Foot was thinking at this point, being a gentle kid barely out of high school and having never left Eagleville before, but like Dorothy and Todo, I’m sure the Archman and Big Foot quickly realized that the place they were wasn’t the place they came from.
Eventually they made that critical meeting with the FHA officer and they sat there while the loan officer, who was in complete disbelief that my parents would be able to move their life, babies, hogs, debt, and little equipment that they had with them all the way up from Missouri to the farm in Michigan in time for the property closing. He nervously kept pushing numbers on his phone as if he were making calculations on a calculator, and proceeded to say over and over, ‘You’re never going to make it’.
Well, anyone who knows Archie and Mattie knows they were going to get up to Michigan in time for the closing in early April – no matter what. And that’s it right there. Grit.
What that loan officer failed to see was that from Minnesota to Missouri and everywhere before that, their hard work, compassion, commitment, and determination were unquestioned to their community. They always were true to their promises and just needed an opportunity to get out of the ‘indentured servitude cycle’ and have a farm of their own.
But given a little time, maybe a few conversations with the Archman, and the true grit shines through for everyone to see. They had some incredible gifts in people that made bets on them to succeed. Danny H, the banker at Bethany Trust in Missouri, was able to convince the bank board that this young Jennings Family was good on their word and hardwork, and allowed my parents to make the move up to Michigan, debt in tow, and even provided a positive recommendation that help secure the FHA financing. Their realtor in Michigan, John DeBruin, even loaned Archie and Mattie his commission from the farm sale to make the downpayment on the farm – a notion almost inconceivable today.
So coasting in to their newly purchased farm on nothing but fumes in the tank, and with two little babies in tow, my parents made it ahead of schedule in early April in time for the closing. My mother said, ‘if gas would have been anymore expensive, they never would have made it.’ Friends from Missouri helped move the 40 hogs that survived the TGE that winter, and it just so happened the farm next door was going out-of-business that day and had a crib full of corn. My parents would get a ‘heck of a deal’ on this feed for their hogs.
All the way through May, Archie and Mattie and their two daughters (Amanda, aka ‘Buff’ and Janette) would live in a 8 x 8 foot milkhouse on the farm while the former owners ‘took their time’ to pack-up and leave. Through it all, they made it happen – they got their start with 250 acres, a house, and some barns. That spring they got their first corn crop in on swampy ground criss-crossed with a lot of fence rows and trees. They made logs to build and reinforce barns.
And all they thought about was, ‘We have our place. Now it’s time to make it happen.’
Webster can keep his definitions. We have our own definition for grit.
