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| Joan and Elmore Higby, May 1947, Romeo High School Senior Prom |
I
delivered my bee equipment to Mary Jo for her to relay to our bee-maker. We’d
pick up our installed hives when notified.
This season, after several years beekeeping with a son
in his back forty, Mary Jo’s going solo on the Hosler homestead where she
raised her four boys.
Change—a constant element in the skill of producing
honey and a healthy environment in our own backyard. It is good to control what
we can, for if yellow jackets don’t attack honeybees, verona mites may oblige
if you don’t apply the treatment at the precise time. Oh, and wax moths also prey
on the Apis mellifera.
Sound similar to the challenges of raising children? That’s
why I appreciate Mary Jo. We encourage one another, do our best and accept the
results of our efforts.
She gathered the hive she built from a kit and painted
the color lavender. Her husband, Bob, offered to transfer my gear to Mary Jo’s
van. Within minutes, I became acquainted with a man who’s passionate about
genealogy.
“We know so much about our families because of Bob’s
research,” Mary Jo said.
Bob lit up. “Nothing makes me happier.”
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| Elmore and Joann Higby, June 1950, Romeo United Methodist Church |
She smiled. “That’s Ingleside Farms where I grew up.
My dad Elmore had the vision seventy-two years ago as a young,
second-generation farmer. My sister Connie and her husband Rick Schapman now
operate the farm with their three boys.”
I imagined four generations observing seedtime and
harvest from their kitchen table. What a wonderful life.
“Mom lives in the next house down from us. She enjoys painting
watercolors, and she’s very good,” Mary Jo said.
We stood around a large, marble island—what seemed the
hub of family activities. The motion of Mary Jo’s projects at hand, growing
sunflowers for an outdoor wedding on the farm, and producing a tribute for her mother’s
ninetieth birthday, drew my eyes to an old black and white photo.
“This is my mother, Joann Higby, and father at his high school prom,” she said. “Mom’s a sophomore. Dad’s a senior. My grandmother
altered Mom’s dress from a hand-me-down formal.”
Mary Jo walked me to my car. “I’ll call with the time
and place to pick up our bees.”
Driving home, I remembered the diaspora of my family
from our Kentucky farm where my ancestors grew crops, raised livestock, and
kept bees. The words of Kentuckian Wendell Berry, farmer and prophet who penned
his Jefferson Lecture of 2012, came to mind.
Delivering our nation’s highest prize for
“distinguished intellectual achievement,” Berry titled his essay, “It All Turns
on Affection.”
As his mentor Wallace Stegner, Berry observed Americans
have divided into two kinds: “boomers” and “stickers.” “Boomers ‘pillage and
run,’ whereas stickers ‘settle and love the life they have made and the place
they have made it in.’”
Dear Reader, this settling and loving the life she has
is what I witnessed within the Hosler’s kitchen. Why Mary Jo and I carry in our
bones the affection for honeybees.
As she noted about four generations operating the
family farm, “I guess that’s a lot of sticking around.”
