A Brief History of Eener's Farm

I’m the fourth generation to live on our farm and my son, Forest is the fifth. Here is a brief history of the place:

My great grandparents, Fred and Ella Christianson, bought the farm from a couple by the name of Bert and Edith Lockwood in 1928. Before the Lockwoods owned it the land was property of the railroads.

Originally, Fred and Ella were from the Owatonna, MN area. They also farmed for awhile in North Dakota before moving to Connorsville where Fred was a blacksmith.

When they purchased the farm it included about 100 acres of woods and fields in rolling hills, a dwelling and a barn. We don’t know a lot about what the place looked like back then since Fred and Ella apparently didn’t have a camera. We do know that they tore the original house or cabin down since part of the foundation of our house shows this. We also know that the Lockwoods had built a barn on the property which is still standing and in use.

By the time Fred and Ella purchased the farm they had six children, one of which was my grandpa, Forest Christianson, he would have been about eight years old when his family moved here. Fred, along with his older sons built the small house my family and I live in and a second barn. They also milked cows and farmed with horses. They most likely had a garden and chickens.

In 1946 my grandpa Forest and my grandma Anne bought the place from Fred and Ella for about $4,000. Grandma and grandpa milked cows here until the early 1980’s. They raised Jersey and Guernsey milk cows and ran Allis Chalmers tractors. They had two daughters, my mom, Janet and my aunt, Joyce.

Sometime in the 1950’s grandma and grandpa bought a second farm a few miles down the road. They moved several buildings from that farm to this one. They also rented out the house and planted crops there.

After grandma passed away in 1992, grandpa split the farm between my mom and my aunt. Auntie Joyce got the part that was purchased in the 1950’s and mom ended up with the plot that Fred and Ella had originally purchased.

My parents live about three miles from here and so it was pretty convenient for them to utilize the farm for a portion of their beef cattle operation. Mom and dad started planting crops here and using the pastures and barns for shelter and food for part of their herd.

A couple of years ago my parents decided to split the farm and give it to my sister and me. Mom and dad still use some of the pastures, fields and part of a barn. My family and I run our own small farming projects here which currently include chickens, geese, goats, sheep and a C.S.A.