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News from Garfield Farm |
What: 2012 Garfield Farm Museum Awards
When April 28, 2012, 6:00 pm reception & dinner 8 pm Awards
Winners: Heritage Prairie Farm of Elburn,IL. Dr. Paul Sorensen of
DeKalb, IL, and Geneva, IL residents Sheila Penrose & Ernie
Mahaffey Where: Dunham Woods Riding Club 33W333 Army Trail Road Wayne,
IL Fee: $50 for dinner or $5 for just the Awards Ceremony,
RESERVATION REQUIRED by April 23
Contact: 630 584-8485 or info@garfieldfarm.org
On Saturday, April 28th at 8 pm. Garfield
Farm Museum will recognize individuals who have made contributions to
the fields of historic, agricultural and/or environmental preservation
at the Dunham Woods Riding Club in Wayne, IL.
Garfield Farm Museum's three themes of
history, farming and the environment are annually celebrated by
recognizing groups or individuals which share such common interests by
their actions and deeds. For 24 years, these awards are to pay tribute
and draw attention to the awardees and their impact on the community,
region or nation.
From the inception of Garfield Farm
Museum in 1977, the desire to emphasize the importance of farming to
this country's democratic and economic success has been reflected in
the museum's daily efforts to preserve and restore Garfield Farm as an
1840s working farm museum for public awareness and education. Embracing
principles of modern, traditional, organic, sustainable, and local
agriculture it is gratifying to find a neighboring operation, the
Heritage Prairie Farm, pioneering in food production that was almost
non-existent at the time of the museum's founding in 1977. Growing
vegetables, fruits, etc. for local consumption began disappearing from
most of northern Illinois when the orchards and truck farms were paved
over by O‚Hare Airport (ironically coded ORD for Orchard Field)
and the ever expanding suburbs. By the 1970s, corn and beans dominated
what "food production” was and the growing of fruits and
vegetables were relegated to specialty farming. It seemed no future lay
in the traditional growing of foodstuffs in a region of 7 million
people with some of the most fertile and rain abundant land in the
world. Yet the interest in organic foods, heirloom varieties of
produce, poultry and livestock grew through the years, that individuals
who did not have traditional farm backgrounds, saw no reason not to try
such production. Heritage Prairie Farm,
within sight of Garfield Farm Museum on Brundige Road and Route 38,
founded by Bronwyn Weaver and Robert Archibald, has demonstrated a
successful model of bringing the consumer in touch with the source of
their food. At the same time they have provided a market for other
local food producers to get their bounty to a public that seeks more
knowledge about their food. Garfield Farm Museum is pleased to give the
Heritage Prairie Farm an agricultural preservation award for its work.
Traditional methods should never be abandoned
just because of fashion or trends. It has taken years and often
centuries of discovery, learning, failures and successes to advance any
human endeavor. That accumulated knowledge is critical to advance
understanding. Abandonment of learning adding and subtracting just
because computers exist will retard further advancement as fundamentals
are the foundation of any field. Yet the allure of the modern, the most
technologically advance is impacting even our scientific fields.
Science is based on the simplest
but difficult concept to master: observation. Being able to look at
something repeatedly and then one day seeing it all in a new light made
Newton and his apple, Einstein and his trains geniuses by definition.
In an exciting era of genetic engineering, the most basic field of
biology, identifying living things around us, is plagued by a shortage
of future taxonomists. These are the individuals who have chosen to
study oft times the minutiae of life that requires great discipline and
patience. Yet observing the small and seemingly insignificant,
taxonomists are oft times the first to note that something is happening
to life. They may be the first to sound the alarm that a species is
declining that may in turn signal a broader threat to living things.
Professor Emeritus Paul D. Sorensen of Northern Illinois University is
such an example.
As a plant taxonomist, Sorensen's career
of identifying and observing plants could be one of comfortable
academic isolation. Yet he has been a key adviser to the Committee for
Wildlife Preservation, a student organization of NIU since its
beginning. He has also been involved in the Afton Prairie restoration
of the DeKalb Forest Preserve and is adjunct curator of the botany
exhibit at the Burpee Museum of Natural History in Rockford, IL. The
grass roots effort to restore prairie here in Illinois owes much to
such taxonomists both professional and skilled amateur because they
have guided, inspired and helped many budding prairie enthusiasts and
restorationists in the most basic but key skill, identifying plants.
The Environmental Preservation Award for Dr. Sorensen is to recognize
his contributions and highlight the need for students to become the
taxonomists of tomorrow.
Seattle-based Preservation Green Lab which
advances research that explores the value that older buildings bring to
their communities, has just released of The Greenest Building:
Quantifying the Environmental Value of Building Reuse. A key
point of the study reveals that building reuse typically yields fewer
environmental impacts than new construction when comparing buildings of
similar size, functionality and energy efficiency. For Ernie Mahaffey
and Sheila Penrose, they intuitively knew this before such a study when
they undertook the rehabilitation and retrofitting of a 1929 Tudor
style home at 405 S. First St. in Geneva, Illinois‚ historic
district.
The tradition of maintaining buildings
over time has declined in this country. The family home once so proudly
built by pioneering families to last for subsequent generations has
suffered with job mobility and agrarian decline of living in
relationship to the land. Only the current economic housing crisis
finds owners now considering retiring in homes they intended to sell
upon retirement or welcoming adult offspring back to economically safe
haven of the family home.
Thus maintaining a house for one's children's
future home has declined. Let the next owner deal with the roof or
foundation issues. Such was the state of this Tudor style house that
lack of timely maintenance of leaks, resulting in the necessity of
rebuilding the entire southern stone wall. Mahaffey and Penrose also
recognized today's market calls for energy efficiency and the house was
retrofitted from the interior walls to the traditional windows. Being
in a historic district, an appropriate addition was designed to meet
modern space expectations. Living just a few doors away, Mahaffey and
Penrose were concerned with maintaining the historic character of the
house but also in demonstrating how to improve a historic structure as
an example to others. For this unusual public demonstration of historic
preservation by private individuals, Garfield Farm Museum is proud to
present a Historic Preservation Award.
Over the 24 years of presenting these awards,
there have been a gratifying number of candidates through the years.
Not all years have a winner in each of the categories; some years there
are multiple winners. Compared to 35 years ago when these fields of
preservation were just becoming viable, there have been great strides
in each, albeit at different paces at different times. Garfield
Farm Museum's boards, Garfield Heritage Society and Campton Historic
Agricultural Lands, wish to encourage such efforts by bringing them to
the public's attention, demonstrating positive steps in an ever
challenging era of rapid change.
Garfield Farm Museum is a historically intact
370 acre former 1840s prairie farmstead and teamster inn being restored
as an 1840ws working farm museum. It has had support from over 3000
households from over 37 states. Over $8 million has been invested to
date with an anticipated $3 million needed to complete restoration and
preservation of the over 20 houses, barns and outbuildings,
reconstruction of the 1830/40s log house and construction of an
archives/collections building.
The dinner is $50 per person. Reservations are
required by calling 630 584-8485. To attend just the Awards Ceremony,
there is a $5 fee and space is limited.