— The Geason Family
From the time Arnold began to plan, from the time the first board was laid, the first nail driven, you have served our farm and family. We thank you. For your strong walls that ever expanded to house more cattle and a growing farming enterprise we thank you. For your great mow that held safe the dried hay of the fields for winters fodder we give thanks. For your squared footprint upon the homestead we lay gratitude.
For your proud beauty, your clean and painted beauty, as a queen among the homestead, the centerpiece of the farm, of our lives, a landmark upon the countryside we thank you. For the uncountable generations of Holstein cattle you sheltered, for the generations of our family, six, counting from Michael, now a great-great-great-grandfather, to the youngest of us. Through his son Arnold, his son Richard, his sons John and Joe down into the living memory of our children’s children, you have stood.
You have been loyal, steadfast, as around you all shifted and changed. The cows gone left you bereft of purpose. The farming done you stood empty. But you remained to feel the weather upon your wide gambrel shoulders: to mark the Past and bow to the Now. To watch the sun rise and set from the vantage of this hill, a site that Arnold and Celia chose well for its panoramic beauty. You have marked the seasons and the time for milking by the rising and setting sun.
But change comes and you yielded to it, until change altered you beyond your ability to contain it. You stood for 100 years, but now your work was done. The farming chapter of this family finished. And, on Nov. 27, 2018, you yielded to the greatest change of all. Your form is gone from its place upon the land, but we continue to hold you in the snapshots of memory.
Blessings upon you and those who shaped you: Albert Youells, the neighborhood carpenter who shaped you with hammer and nail. Upon Arnold and Richard, who shaped you with vision and their work, upon my brothers John and Joe, who nurtured you through the years of your life. Blessing, too, upon the Geason families.
Throughout your 100 years you have stood telling us who we were and from where we have come. You taught many lessons to farmer and child alike. Now you offer your greatest lesson: to yield gracefully to change. Thank you from our hearts for your care and memories, and for the years. You will be missed.