One small fruit farm continues to exist from the relatively recent past: Heyser Farms in Silver Spring, Maryland. Land once only rented by my Grandfather in 1946, purchased a few years later) has grown and prospered from one generation to the next in this family to the current day. David A. Heyser, whose real living was made by employment with the Department of Agriculture by day, would come home and work the rented land so he could, every weekend, sell his harvested fruits and vegetables at a make-shift roadside stand back in 1948.
In 1946 when my father, Carlton E. Heyser, Sr., returned from fighting in WWII, he was able to secure employment as an Appeals attorney with the Veteran's Administration. While having that job as a steady income, he, following in his father's footsteps, would work the land in Silver Spring (back then it was known as Salem's Lot, then Colesville, MD) in the evenings when he returned home from his job. I remember seeing my father, every evening, being dropped off at the end of our long driveway, in his business suit, looking as handsome as ever (I thought back then that he resembled the distinguished Humphrey Bogart). As soon as I saw him, and I'd be waiting ever so excitedly for my daddy to come home, I would run to him and jump into his arms. To this day I can still feel his tight hug and smell his after-shave which he had only in those tailored suits he'd wear).
Soon my father would be donning his farming clothes: his khaki pants, dirty work boots, either a short or long sleeved plaid shirt depending on the weather, his straw hat and the ever-present el Producto cigar he lit up to keep the ever-bothersome gnats away from his face while he worked in the six acres of precious farmland that surrounded our home. I wouldn't see him again until it was time for supper, for which he was always late - my mother would be forever furious at this fact for the rest of her life. Dad would go back out to the fields right after dinner and work until dark. He was the one to say goodnight to us three kids each and every night. First thing he'd do would be to come in with a balled-up fist to surprise me with 'fairy dust' that, he said, would help me sleep well and have good dreams; he'd open his hand and there would be this sparkly powdery substance in the middle of his palm, and he would let me taste it. To this day, I believe in that 'fairy dust'! And I always slept so well, listening to the crickets, frogs and other nightlife outside my window that was always opened (no air conditioning back then for us) to let the evening breezes flow through. The best memories: Climbing into a bed with freshly cleaned linens, Dad tucking me in, bringing me fairy dust, and falling asleep to the sounds and breezes of the night. I could have asked for nothing more as a child.
After all were tucked in, my father would return to the barn to finish up the day. This was his routine until the day he retired from his 'day job'. After that, he would be in the fields from dawn until way past dusk, just doing what he loved best: farming his father's land, which soon was to become his land, passed down to him from his father. In 2008, my Dad passed away at the age of 93. My brother has stepped up to farm the same land that's been in our family for quite some time. The farm is surviving, even though everything around it has become developed with urban sprawl. We have had to fight hard with the county to maintain this piece of precious farmland in the midst of what is termed 'progress' today. The 'rights of easement' over the years has taken a portion of our land to widen and add roads around us. I have to laugh (sarcastically) at the license plates of Maryland picturing farm land celebrating Maryland's agricultural heritage bearing the slogan "Our Farms, Our Future." There are very few farms left in Maryland these days and that is very sad. But our has survived and will for at least the next 50 years, with it being kept in the family and, hopefully, passed down to my two nephews. May this special small legacy continue, with God's blessings.
On Sep 4, 2013 Jennifer Heyser wrote :
One small fruit farm continues to exist from the relatively recent past: Heyser Farms in Silver Spring, Maryland. Land once only rented by my Grandfather in 1946, purchased a few years later) has grown and prospered from one generation to the next in this family to the current day. David A. Heyser, whose real living was made by employment with the Department of Agriculture by day, would come home and work the rented land so he could, every weekend, sell his harvested fruits and vegetables at a make-shift roadside stand back in 1948.
In 1946 when my father, Carlton E. Heyser, Sr., returned from fighting in WWII, he was able to secure employment as an Appeals attorney with the Veteran's Administration. While having that job as a steady income, he, following in his father's footsteps, would work the land in Silver Spring (back then it was known as Salem's Lot, then Colesville, MD) in the evenings when he returned home from his job. I remember seeing my father, every evening, being dropped off at the end of our long driveway, in his business suit, looking as handsome as ever (I thought back then that he resembled the distinguished Humphrey Bogart). As soon as I saw him, and I'd be waiting ever so excitedly for my daddy to come home, I would run to him and jump into his arms. To this day I can still feel his tight hug and smell his after-shave which he had only in those tailored suits he'd wear).
Soon my father would be donning his farming clothes: his khaki pants, dirty work boots, either a short or long sleeved plaid shirt depending on the weather, his straw hat and the ever-present el Producto cigar he lit up to keep the ever-bothersome gnats away from his face while he worked in the six acres of precious farmland that surrounded our home. I wouldn't see him again until it was time for supper, for which he was always late - my mother would be forever furious at this fact for the rest of her life. Dad would go back out to the fields right after dinner and work until dark. He was the one to say goodnight to us three kids each and every night. First thing he'd do would be to come in with a balled-up fist to surprise me with 'fairy dust' that, he said, would help me sleep well and have good dreams; he'd open his hand and there would be this sparkly powdery substance in the middle of his palm, and he would let me taste it. To this day, I believe in that 'fairy dust'! And I always slept so well, listening to the crickets, frogs and other nightlife outside my window that was always opened (no air conditioning back then for us) to let the evening breezes flow through. The best memories: Climbing into a bed with freshly cleaned linens, Dad tucking me in, bringing me fairy dust, and falling asleep to the sounds and breezes of the night. I could have asked for nothing more as a child.
After all were tucked in, my father would return to the barn to finish up the day. This was his routine until the day he retired from his 'day job'. After that, he would be in the fields from dawn until way past dusk, just doing what he loved best: farming his father's land, which soon was to become his land, passed down to him from his father. In 2008, my Dad passed away at the age of 93. My brother has stepped up to farm the same land that's been in our family for quite some time. The farm is surviving, even though everything around it has become developed with urban sprawl. We have had to fight hard with the county to maintain this piece of precious farmland in the midst of what is termed 'progress' today. The 'rights of easement' over the years has taken a portion of our land to widen and add roads around us. I have to laugh (sarcastically) at the license plates of Maryland picturing farm land celebrating Maryland's agricultural heritage bearing the slogan "Our Farms, Our Future." There are very few farms left in Maryland these days and that is very sad. But our has survived and will for at least the next 50 years, with it being kept in the family and, hopefully, passed down to my two nephews. May this special small legacy continue, with God's blessings.