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Tuesday March 31, 2015 Edition
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Meet Poet & Farmer Bernard Jerry

Farmer & Poet at 95, Bernard Jerry still has plenty of stories to tell and they all tie to life on the land and keeping close to family.
photo by Photo Provided
Farmer & Poet at 95, Bernard Jerry still has plenty of stories to tell and they all tie to life on the land and keeping close to family.
Sharing memories of times gone by, visiting with Bernard is a window into the world of Vermont agriculture spanning eight decades.
photo by Photos Provided
Sharing memories of times gone by, visiting with Bernard is a window into the world of Vermont agriculture spanning eight decades.

Tuesday March 31, 2015

By Cookie Steponaitis

Bernie Jerry was born on a crisp morning in 1919 in Roxbury, Vermont, and was seventh in a family of 12 children. With its number of siblings split, “a straight 50/50,” grinned Bernie, it was a pleasure to call Roxbury and his parent’s farm home, with six boys and six girls in the family. “Growing up in the Great Depression,” shared Bernie, “we had to live off the farm because even though Dad worked for 25 cents an hour laying cement, there was more than often not enough money left over for food.” Sleeping in a room he shared with two other brothers, Bernie’s chores in the barn started when he was six years old.  He was assigned two cows to milk by hand every morning and night and even though he was six he understood it was a family farm and the family worked it. While Bernie’s parents only ran about 20 cows on the property, the family was heavy into logging and maple syrup production. The 12 children helped sugar and the family tapped 1000 trees and each child carried buckets and help with boiling and production.
 “I have strong memories of my mother cooking the darker syrup down and turning it into sugar,” shared Bernie. “She used it for all of her cooking and made biscuits that you would dream of. We also raised wheat and that was ground at the mill and made into flour. From that she made bread, pasta or anything else we needed. In December we would butcher three hogs and put them in salt. What we ate came from the land we worked and we all pitched in. The older siblings took care of the younger. To this day, I think of older sister Beatrice as my second mother.”
Attending school with his siblings and others in the area in a one room school, Bernie walked a little more than a mile to school and simply loved it. “I guess I would have to say I loved geography and history the best,” remarked Bernie with a smile. “I loved reading about places all over the world and seeing how other people lived.” When asked if he wanted to travel and see the entire world, Bernie looked astonished and remarked,     “Why, when we have such a beautiful place here. It is home.”  While Christmas was the favorite holiday of Bernie’s youth it was not about gifts, but about time spent. Explaining that he grew up never receiving a store bought Christmas present and that the family made gifts and toys for each other, Bernie said that they were too busy being together and having fun to notice that the gifts were small.
     With a strong attraction to the land, Bernie’s fondest memories are of the gardening, flowers and parties of his youth in the Roxbury area. Meeting almost weekly, the children of the area would gather for sledding parties and skating parties on the old Mill Pond. “We even went there for lunch break,” explained Bernie. “The teacher sent us home for lunch and we would bring a sandwich and go to the Mill Pond and skate or play. We never needed a chaperone and weren’t supervised. We simply had fun and looked out for each other.”
     While working as a hired hand on a neighboring farm, Bernie met the lady who would hold the anchor position in his life for the past sixty-eight years, Kathyrn (Drown) Jerry. Bernie and Kathryn were married in the summer of 1947 and settled not far from the farms where they both grew up.  “Kathryn had the bluest eyes and auburn hair,” Bernie said, with a sparkle in his eye that has not dimmed after almost 68 years of marriage. Working in an asbestos and also a textile mill in the area, Bernie and Kathryn lived in the area until the couple moved to Ferrisburgh in 1965 and purchased a family farm. Joining them on the farm where children Marie, Christopher, Michael, Matthew and Nicolee. While the Jerry clan today can boast ten grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren, it is the years on the 200 acre farm in Ferrisburgh that define the stories Bernie chose to share with the Valley Voice readers.
     While the farm of Bernie’s adult life had 65 cows instead of the 20 cows growing up and milking by hand was replaced by a pipeline, the changes most important in agriculture and farming to Bernie are not reflected in technology, but in ideology.  “To me the way children are brought up today is so different because each generation wants their children not to have to struggle the way they did, so they go easier on them. I truly believe all farm children need to learn the farm from the ground up. Why things run? How things work? How animals are best cared for? All of these things can be learned from books, but it is best hands on. And I am very concerned about the idea of making Vermont farms bigger and bigger. When that happens, it is no longer a family farm, but an agricultural business. When you milk over 1000 animals and keep adding more cows, you are not living a way of life, but running a business.”
     While Bernie is cautious about the size of Vermont farms, he has no doubt that the Vermont spirit of the agricultural community is alive and well. Seeing neighbors and helping them out is still the backbone of this area and what he taught his children. While Bernie retired from farming in 1976 and took a position running the grader for the Town of Ferrisburgh for twelve years, his heart still belongs to his love of family and farm.  Even after retiring from the Town, he worked as a hired hand back on his old farm for several years before really retiring to mow his lawn and work in his beloved flower gardens.  He boasts deadheading over 4,000 daffodils one spring and having a local artist come to paint his flowers on several occasions. 
Currently residing in Helen Porter Healthcare & Rehabilitation, Bernie has also taken another love to the people by sharing a poem each month and photos from his farming and years’ operating the old Yellow Cat grader in Ferrisburgh. Just a couple of lines from this month read,  “ The roads are all drifted, the going gets tough. The road crews are plowing and that is a plus. But the wind is blowing it from the Northeast and it turns into an angry howling beast. I know how it feels and I’ve plowed snow as you can see. That big Caterpillar’s cab was like a home to me.”
     The Valley Voice salutes Bernard & Kathryn Jerry for their almost 68 years of marriage, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and lasting legacy of being grounded in time spent, and the celebration of family life. While Bernie is a man of that generation he has also embraced technology and can write his poetry, FaceTime Chat and accesses his children at the touch of a button on his Ipad. A man who at 95 knows how to keep up with the times and yet never let go of his roots and his family!


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