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Family receives a 150-year certification for Illinois farm
 


By STEVE BINDER
Illinois Correspondent

DECATUR, Ill. — When Andreas Rehberger signed on the dotted line and paid $33 an acre for 54 acres of farmland in southeastern Illinois, the investment over the next 152 years turned into lifetimes of good memories for five generations of the Rehberger family.
And the sixth is waiting in the wings to build their own family farm memories, something Mary (Rehberger) Roberts said would put a smile on her grandfather’s face. It was her father’s request that the family farm, which grew over the years to nearly 370 acres located just south of Lebanon in St. Clair County, forever remain in Rehberger hands and be farmed by family members.
“My father (Omar) had four wishes for the farm,” Edwards said. “To be kept whole and never divided, to never be sold, to be kept in the Rehberger name and to actively farmed by a Rehberger.”
So far, mission accomplished – and earlier this year, thanks to Edwards’ time-consuming property record searches, the family received notification from the Illinois Department of Agriculture it had certified the property as a Sesquicentennial Farm.
Most of the family, including cousins, gathered over the Labor Day weekend to celebrate and begin to harvest, but the weather didn’t quite cooperate. It didn’t dampen the group’s feelings about the land on which many of them grew up.
“We really do have so many wonderful memories. My father would always say that farming wasn’t easy, but it certainly was gratifying. He loved to farm,” Edwards recalled.
Omar and Doris Rehberger had four daughters; Mary, Sue and Carol all chose different careers than farming. Rebecca essentially took over as family farm leader around the late 1990s, working the land with her father most of her life, and she continues to farm it today.
“Becky is the only daughter that can fulfill my father’s dream for carrying on the family farm tradition,” Mary told a local newspaper during the Labor Day celebration. “She loves this land as much as my father did, or maybe even more.”
She didn’t hesitate when asked to describe one of her favorite memories of growing up on the farm. At that time, she clung to the family’s fourth-generation leader, her grandfather Ralph.
“I was like his shadow around the farm. Wherever he went, I would follow,” she said. At the time in the early 1950s, the farm still raised a few horses; in the 1880s the family had started raising Thoroughbreds.
A horse named Gayboy left quite an impression on Mary. “My grandfather taught Gayboy how to kneel down, so that it made it easy for me to get on. He was like my personal version of Roy Rogers.”
Family members pored over old documents and walked the land and through many of the buildings on the farm, including the original 1862 horse barn. The original brick farmhouse also still stands, as does the family dairy building. Milking operations faded completely in 1976, and today, Rebecca oversees annual production of crops only. The farm no longer has livestock.
The Rehberger farm is one of 672 Sesquicentennial Farms in Illinois, and about 9,100 Centennial Farms, meaning the land has been continuously farmed and owned by the same family members continuously through those years. There are 15 Sesquicentennial Farms in St. Clair County.
In a 2001 interview with Farm World, Omar said he always knew he would want to farm his entire life, and he even turned down a college scholarship to stay home.
“Farming is a hard, but good life,” he said then. “There is nothing more gratifying than when the Lord blesses you with a good crop.”
12/17/2014