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No Loafing Allowed: Getting Up Bright And Early With Ruthie Jerger
photo by Photo Provided Standing with family, Ruthie's smile explains her formula for a meaningful life. Work hard, love your family a ton and never stop appreciating the land, animals, people and the little things in life. |
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photo provided Married in March of 1963, Alfred and Ruthie Jerger loved the land, the animals and raising their two girls on Shell House Mountain Road. |
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photo by Photo Provided Serving his country in the Korean War, Alfred is seen here in uniform in 1956. |
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photo by Photo Provided Eight year old grandson Sawyer is part of what keeps Ruthie young. Spending time with him is one of her favorite parts of her busy week. |
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Tuesday March 17, 2015
By Cookie Steponaitis
Ruthie (Corey) Jerger‘s eyes pop open every morning around 4:30 a.m. and while just shy of her 80th birthday she admits to hitting the snooze button once in a while but has her feet firmly on the ground by 5 a.m. Ruthie is up and headed to work in the kitchen at VUHS making pizza and goodies for the kids. Old habits are still the best ones and the lessons of ‘early to rise and early to work’ she learned growing up on a farm and living her entire married life on a farm still are the best Ruthie was born in 1935 in Fairfax, Vermont and grew up with her twin sister in the middle of seven children on a family farm in Fairfield, Vermont. Ruthie was up every morning with her siblings, helped with milking the cows and then walked nearly two miles to catch the bus to school. Ruthie shared memories of loving bookkeeping and American History with Mrs. Darby who was her favorite teacher. She has always enjoyed friends and family and loved the square dances at the Hart’s Barn in Williston and the Milton Grange Hall. Ruthie lived in town with a couple of other girls and worked for the telephone company as one of the operators who plugged in every call to the local switchboard. “I made twenty-nine dollars a week,” grinned Ruthie. “I paid $9.00 a week rent and even after buying groceries and a winter coat, remember having a bit of money left.” It was at one of the dances that Ruthie met Alfred Jerger, who was born and raised in Ferrisburgh. Seven years her senior Alfred and Ruthie dated and danced for nine years before marrying on March 30, 1963. “It took a long time to get him,” shared Ruthie, “but it sure was worth it.” The couple returned to the farm that Alfred had grown on up and had two daughters Katrina (1968) and Sonnia (1972). Ruthie milked and hayed alongside Alfred and shared that the farm had about sixty milking cows on it and with the young stock probably held a little over 100 Holsteins. “All the while I was growing up I used to tell people I was a person who would never marry a farmer,” chuckled Ruthie. “Now I can look back and say I am sincerely glad it never was any different,” and with her own upbringing on a farm and thirty two years of farming with Alfred it is fair to say that for over three quarters of her life Ruthie has been involved with animals, nature and the ebb and flow of farm life. “Both my girls are glad they grew up on a farm,” explained Ruthie. “They were always up to something in 4-H and the Brownie troop.” Ruthie’s life follows an intense period of change in Vermont’s agricultural landscape and farm practices. As a child, Ruthie’s family had no big pieces of machinery on the farm. They milked by hand and cut hay and even cleaned the barn by hand every day. Her parents only went into town to buy flour and sugar. Ruthie spoke of her mom’s basement being a stockpile of vegetables, meats and canned foods. During the time Alfred, Ruthie and the girls lived on the farm the couple went from milking machines to a pipeline system. And like many small Vermont farmers, the Jerger’s weathered the many ups and downs of milk prices and costs and stayed in until Alfred became too ill to farm. The last couple of years Ruthie milked on her own and finally, with a heavy heart the family sold the cows in 1995 and the farm in 1996. “You know,” shared Ruthie. “When we sold the animals in 1995 we were getting the same price for milk that my father got on our farm up north in 1977.” Ruthie grew up during the World War II years and was nine years old and at her mom and dad’s friend’s home when she learned that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. While news was sporadic and often it was months before updates came through in Vermont, Ruthie knew that things were in fact changing. The one thing that has occurred in her lifetime that still stands out the most to Ruthie as a revolutionary change was the country’s efforts in space. “When I was a little girl Flash Gordon and cartoons were making us look up and dream. We really used to joke about the Old Man in the Moon and now I sit at my home and glance up there and realize that man walked on the moon.” Ruthie balances her time these days among three of her favorite pastimes, daughters Katrina and Sonnia, grandson Sawyer and the teens at VUHS. “Sawyer comes over twice a week and we spend time together,” expressed Ruthie. “We watch shows; do projects or just family time.” The family time is the key ingredient to the formula that has Ruthie at almost 80 still bouncy and young. Grounded in her family and the farming community, Ruthie is optimistic about the future of Vermont farming because at the heart of it is the small community closeness that keeps farmers together and farms running. “I will never forget,” concluded Ruthie, “It was when Alfred was really sick and we were burning wood. We didn’t have two sticks of wood left and Neil Husk stopped by. After visiting for a while he said he had to get going because he had some wood to cut. Not too long after he came back with a truck load of wood and carried and stacked it in our basement for us.” Helping neighbors and people in general is a rule that Ruthie Jerger lives by and the best advice she ever got came from that long ago landlord of her first apartment who told her to never go to bed mad and to always make amends to those who you are angry with because you may never get a second chance. Of course there was also her mom’s advice of not to loaf and keep working which are words to this day that keeps Ruthie active and celebrating life, family and living in the Champlain Valley.
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