The Taber Farm
“On April 1, 1957, we deeded the farm to Friends Boarding School of Barnesville, Ohio, and as of the same date, transferred our portion of the herd of Jerseys to the School. We made three requests. First; that the property be kept intact, and known as the ‘Taber Farm’ as long as possible to do so. Second; that the maple tree in the front yard, planted by my two sisters, my brother and myself in the spring of 1893 in memory of our father, should not be disturbed while we live. Third; that the rhododendron trees should also be preserved, and we allowed to secure slips or cuttings. In the spring of 1892, our father had started these plants from a tree purchased in Holland by William Stanton. My brother and I replanted the young trees in the spring of 1893.
Both Edna and I feel that turning over the Taber Farm — the symbol of a lot of hard work by many people over many years — to the Boarding School was the proper thing to do when we consider the traditions of the past, the needs of the present, and the problems of the future.”
– Louis J. Taber
June 1, 1957
The Taber Farm
Nancy Hawkins (Olney class of 1961) painted this in 1987. My mom commissioned her to paint it for my dad as his retirement gift.
The Taber Farm
If you look at that road, it’s all sand. It’s pretty incredible. I couldn’t believe that picture when I saw it. It looks like you’d have trouble getting a wagon through that and it’s not even muddy. It looks like your wheels would sink six inches. It’s been paved my whole life. It wasn’t anywhere near as wide as it is now. We used to park right in front of the house all night long and not worry.
I don’t know if you can see, right in front of the house, there would have been two rhododendron trees on either side of the front porch. They were there when I was a kid but they were dying out then. When we would bring the cows across the road to put them in the pasture that runs out here to the tennis courts, the biggest cows would go right to that bush and walk under it and scrape the flies off of themselves, so that was kind of hard on them.
Cuttings were taken from the trees and moved over to the Rockwell orchard. They’ve got slips from them growing in their yard. Then there’s one up in the corner of the graveyard. You pass it when you walk down to the science center. From that, Richard Simon took slips and got them started and planted back over at the Taber Farm. So we’ve still got those same rhododendron genetics growing there.
The Taber Farm
This is a different angle you don’t see the farm from usually. That’s the back of the house and the original part of the barn. Once the school got it, we added another forty feet to the roof line. That made for more hay storage. We could store enough hay there to get through fall, winter, and spring. Then the silos were torn down at the same time, probably around 1961 when they did the remodeling. They were old wooden silos. I remember them being pulled down and drug away. There were a million nails, too. I remember Larry Mott with a great big magnet walking through, picking up all the nails because the nails would have been bad for the cows.
Louis J. Taber gave 93 acres of the Taber Farm to the school in 1957. At the same time, we acquired half of the jersey herd. The other half went with Sam and Florence Rockwell. Taber wrote fondly of Sam and Florence and their work on the then-Sunnyside Dairy Farm that year:
The other point that needs mentioning is that C. F. Rockwell and his wife, Florence, who operated the farm for several years, were great soil conservationists, and it was with real pride that the fram could be turned over, not only as ‘Sunnyside Farm’ but as ‘green acres,’ without gullies or scars in the land. The old English proverb, ‘The eye of the master fatteneth the cattle,’ and also that ‘lime, manure and good red clover, make the farm and farmer rich all over’ has been proven once again at Sunnyside Dairy Farm.
The first registered Jersey west of the Allegheny came to a farm across the valley from us. They were popular because of their high butter fat content. Belmont County used to be known as the home of the Jersey cow. Back in the 50s and 60s, everybody switched to Holsteins. They make a lot more milk, but there was a lot less butter fat and protein.
The young girl seen in the photo is Peggy Rockwell Roisman, class of 1963.
