Cross Country: Wisconsin Mennonite businesses are thriving (with photos)

John Oncken  —  7/03/2008 12:05 pm

Black and white cows grazing on green pastures. Women with flowing skirts riding bicycles weighed down by a box of groceries perched on the rear carrier. A black buggy pulled by a graceful horse trotting on the side of the road amidst car traffic. A hardware store where the women clerks wear long dresses and bonnets and the men wear black trousers and suspenders.

Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, perhaps?

No. Clark County, Wisconsin, where some 30 years ago, a few Mennonite farm families migrated from Pennsylvania. Today, that move by a very few to Thorp, Wis., has resulted in a thriving farming and business community of about 300 families.

The recent annual bicycle tour by an informal group called "Wright Riders" that had its start in the 1970s (I first joined in 1989 on a 580-mile trip from Alton, Ill., to Madison) allowed a close-up view of a way of life lived by "horse and buggy" Mennonites as they call themselves.

Henry Zeisit and his wife, Martha, brought a semi-trailer load of milking cows from Pennsylvania to Thorp in 1977. "Farmland prices had risen so high that it was impossible for us to buy land for a farm," Zeisit says. "A couple of families had made the move in 1974 and found Wisconsin to be an ideal place to farm."

And, the Zeisits found the move to be a good one.

A number of their children are now farming on their own and son Martin and his wife, Janette, recently moved on to the home farm and are milking the 70 cows in the tie-stall barn. Henry and Martha moved to a remodeled farmhouse nearby this past spring where he continues to help with the cropping on the 320 acres. He is also in the process of redoing the old barn on the property as a heifer facility.

Although Old Order Mennonites do not drive cars or trucks, they do use the most modern farm machinery and equipment. Their tractors do not have rubber tires, however; they run on steel wheels. Zeisit explains that their practice is that self-propelled machines should not run on rubber, although grain drills, balers, and other farm equipment that is pulled do have tires.

In the Mennonite community, if you aren't a farmer, chances are you work at a Mennonite-owned business, of which there are many.

The Central Wisconsin Produce Auction at Withee (toll free at 877-220-4838) is one such business. This Mennonite wholesale cooperative dates to 2000 and serves flower and produce growers in a 100-mile radius. Many dairy and crop farmers in the area have added greenhouses to expand their farming enterprises with the three-day a week auction offering a ready market for their product.

Each producers' products are sold individually at auction to retailers from the surrounding area.

One such longtime buyer is James Weaver, who operates Weaver's Country Store at Fall Creek on U.S. 12 near Eau Claire some 40 miles away. He purchased a flat of lilies' (for store decorations), several 25 pound boxes of tomatoes at $50 each and strawberries at $25 for an eight-quart box.

Weaver said that tomatoes had sold for $68 for a 25-pound box the week previously (a very high price) because consumers wanted locally grown Wisconsin tomatoes because of the salmonella scare.

The market operates three days a week from the last week in April through mid-September and twice a week through October and has proved to be successful for both producers and buyers.

Who would be brash enough to locate a sewing and furniture store on a country road a mile-and-a-half from two very small rural cities, Owen and Withee, and 40-plus miles from the bigger cities of Eau Claire, Wausau and Marshfield?

John Brubaker did and it has proved to be successful.

Brubaker came to the area from Pennsylvania to farm and milk cows. Like many of the Mennonite transplants, he had an entrepreneurial spirit that wouldn't be denied.

His mother was a Bernina sewing machine dealer in Pennsylvania, and Brubaker decided to establish his own dealership. (You can reach him at 715-229-2851.)

He started with a small room, grew to a bigger room, then a mobile home and finally the large building which now houses sewing machines, hundreds of bolts of fabric, an expanding furniture department, Bernina sewing machines and high-tech embroidery equipment.

The furniture is unusual in that it is made by local artisans. It's well-built. Brubaker, not a small man, stood in the drawer of a bedroom dresser and did no damage. The furniture is priced economically, and, although located on a rural road, customers from a long distance do manage to find the store . Oh yes, he also offers sewing lessons.

Although Brubaker doesn't milk cows anymore, he still raises corn, soybeans and hay on the farm.

Just west of Withee, Elvin Eberly makes and restores horse-drawn vehicles at his Eberly Coach Works (715-229-2222) .

As a 17-year-old, Eberly was pondering a future for himself. He concluded that because his Mennonite family and friends all used horses and buggies, that would be a good area to work in.

Seventeen-and-a-half years later, Eberly and his seven employees are building buggies and working on a 100-year-old funeral hearse wagon that will undergo a complete restoration. The Baldwin Wisconsin owner of the elaborate vehicle is encouraging Eberly to get the job done rapidly.

"He says he wants it done before he has to use it for himself, " Eberly says with a laugh. "He is planning to rent the hearse and a team of horses for other funerals."

Eberly learned on the job. "That's the best way to learn and to remember what you learn," he says. "And there is a lot to learn as most every buggy is almost a custom project what with two dozen options in colors and upholstery including 30 different wheel sizes. For sure, a young mans courting buggy is a lot different from a family transportation buggy."

The young entrepreneur is in the process of offering some products he uses to others on a wholesale basis as many buggy makers are small and are scattered across the country.

Then there is the Hardware Hank store at the junction of County X and Frenchtown Road west of Withee that is undergoing major remodeling. All the clerks wear modest clothing -- full dresses and head pieces for woman, dark trousers and suspenders for the men. Would you believe, the hardware store has a rather extensive bicycle shop?

It was a fascinating experience riding bicycles in northern Clark county, visiting Mennonite businesses and farms and learning much. One of the questions we pondered is; How do Mennonite farmers and business entrepreneurs create and own such innovative, complicated and rather high-tech enterprises without the benefit of computers, high school or college educations or outside consultants?

As one Mennonite friend explained, it's a combination of family, ambition, need and community. Whatever the ingredients for such success, it works.

While Clark County has long been Wisconsin's leading dairy county in terms of farm numbers and milk production, the Mennonite community that lives in the northern third of the county from Thorp to Abbotsford is building a diversified and thriving farm and business community.

Not a bad idea long term.

John Oncken is owner of Oncken Communications, a Madison-based agricultural information and consulting company. He can be reached at 222-0624 or e-mail jfodairy@chorus.net.

John Oncken  —  7/03/2008 12:05 pm