One Farm Family Sets Its Roots Deep Against Suburbia

In the southern reaches of Lake County, Ill., in the shadow of two-story tract homes and two-car garages, sit 80 acres of anomaly.

Sue Didier Brosio and her siblings intend to keep it that way.

Their lives are rooted in Didier Farm Inc., and their family stands as a curiosity amid the larger story of the American farms' disappearance before the advance of big-city development.

Several years back, Brosio had graduated from college and, like thousands, joined the urban work force. She became an elementary-school teacher in Waukegan.

But after three years of grading tests, parent-teacher conferences and taking gum away from first-graders, Brosio did what almost no one in her situation does.

She quit her job and went back to the farm. After their father's death, her brother, John Didier, also returned after 22 years in banking to manage the farm's finances.

Now Brosio's day begins at dawn, with a trip to the farmers markets to sell fresh squash, tomatoes, corn, broccoli, eggplant, green beans and cabbage.

With that comes the unforgiving arithmetic of keeping the 83-year-old farm alive, against national trends.

"There are only a handful of people who grow up in the farming community, leave it and come back to it," said Howard Sacks, sociology professor at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. He is studying farming communities in central Ohio. Of the 100 people he has interviewed, only one woman left a professional job to return to her family's farm.

"It's easy to wax romantic about this, to make family farms into some kind of a romantic myth. But there's another side to this, a lot of drudgery, a lot of work, unpredictable weather and difficulties that come with a very hard life," Sacks said.

Brosio, 31, shrugs off the labor. "I've lived here all my life. As a kid, this wasn't work; it was fun."

The cities crowd in

Of the nine children born on the farm, five are involved actively in the farm's operations and live within five miles of it. Two of the younger Didier sons never left.

Throughout the country, the number of farms has decreased markedly because of widespread urban growth, experts say.

Farms in Lake County have struggled in the face of increased development, a highly competitive market and soaring suburban land values that tempt farmers to sell out.

U.S. census figures show there were 660 farms and 186,200 acres of county farmland in 1969. According to 1992 statistics, the most recent figures available, Lake County has 375 farms, on 73,142 acres.

"When you move from working with symbols in your head to working with your hands, your whole life value is changed," said Ida Harper Simpson, professor of sociology at Duke University who studies farm families in North Carolina. "Professional work is considered more economically rewarding and more prestigious. Very few people would leave professional careers to return to hands-on farm work."

The struggle to keep the farm going involves dozens of gritty chores. The day before the vegetables are sold, they must be cleaned and prepared. As Brosio scrubbed dirt off the vegetables and looked them over for bruises, she was in constant motion.

From a cornfield near the barn, Brozio can see houses where other family-owned dairy and vegetable farms once thrived. Camaraderie among farmers was high; the community was like an extended family. Now that's gone, and the farm is alone in suburbia.

12 hours, half a day's work

Brosio returned to the farm, in part, because she missed the closeness of being with her family and being active in the community.

As she sorted vegetables in the barn, her brother, John, 46, stood nearby taking phone orders from local independent grocers.

John Didier left his banking job to go back to the farm after his father, Herb, died of a heart attack two years ago. Mary Sue Didier, Herb's widow, is the only one who actually lives on the farm. Most of her nine children live nearby.

"When Dad died, (the family) asked me to come back and help out on the financial end," John Didier said. "My brothers told me I'd have to work a half a day, but they didn't tell me 12 hours was considered a half day's work. And they didn't tell me that a full day's work was 24 hours."

Though life on the farm is difficult, he relishes the work. And, he hopes the farm will continue another 83 years. His 17-year-old son, Brian, helps sell the family's produce.

Mary Sue Didier hopes her grandchildren will carry on the tradition.

"I'd be very pleased to have them go into farming," she said. "That's the only life I wanted to have, be on a farm and see things grow. Farming is the lifeline for the world. Everybody has to eat."