A Story Worth Telling

Remember this?

It’s the Muench Farm.  I wrote about it here: The Final Harvest

At one time, the Muench Farm was part of our place, along with other ground.  The Muench Farm recently sold to a developer.

And if you’ve been paying attention (see The Times They Are A-Changin’), you may know we’ve also sold our place.

Shout out to Paul Weaver, our favorite plumber, son of Jim and Jane Weaver, a couple of our favorite friends.  Paul spent many hours helping me remodel our bathroom and update a few other plumbing items.  Paul hung in there and persevered.

Also a shout out to Sarah Powers who did great work for us as our real estate agent.  She understood what we were after with this place and the story we wanted to tell, and she got it done.  Not to mention the work she did in helping us get into our new place in Story City.

We accepted a non-contingent offer at 10 PM Friday March 9, 2018.  We came to agreement on how to handle things on the inspection report.  We think we've gotten through the appraisal.  They have financing.  All that's left is well and septic testing and inspection.  We don't anticipate any problems.

It's a little like announcing a pregnancy.  Most couples have learned to wait until they're X weeks along, just in case.

Sarah has put up the "Sale Pending" sign, which she has been waiting to do until i's are dotted and t's are crossed.  So I guess this is our big announcement: we've sold our place.

The family we hoped was out there and would find their way here, did just that.  We received a letter from them.

They wrote that when they walked onto our place they knew they had found home.  They’re moving here from Pittsburgh (yep, Pennsylvania) and were looking for a place exactly like ours to raise their growing family, giving their kids the experience of chores, livestock, and 4-H.  They plan to keep the henhouse and barn full of livestock.

Although we weren’t going to be too picky about selling to whoever showed us the money, we are very pleased about selling to this family, given their intentions for our place.

As it's turned out, there is nothing else that would've given us the same return on invested capital over the past 13 years as this place.  Interest rates are on the rise, so now is also the right time for the purchase of our new home.  We take credit for none of this.  Like we told Sarah, "We're very naive.  And we pray alot."

Part of a property sale is dusting off the Abstract.  Have you ever looked through an Abstract?  I’m betting, unless you’re an oddball like me, probably not.

I dig stuff like that.  I love stories.  Stories always involve people.  I love stories of people who came before.

The first transaction of land in our Abstract, from William Thompson to Craig Hunter, is dated June 19, 1856.

The Hunter family would own our place until 1963 when Pantenburg’s bought it.  The property was passed down, through the generations, from one Hunter to another, for 107 years.

The Jamison’s bought this place from the Pantenburg’s in 1988.  We bought it from the Jamison’s in 2005.  In the 100+ years our house has been standing, we’re only the 4^th family to live in it.  Seems pretty amazing to me.

Although our farmstead was sold out of the Hunter family in 1963, there was a parcel of the original farm that stayed in the Hunter family.  The Muench Farm.

According to the Abstract, those 40 acres were passed from Dorothy Hunter to her nephew Richard Muench, and his wife Kathleen, on June 11, 1970.  Even though the last name on the deed changed, Richard Muench was still a member of the Hunter Family.

It was late last year when Kathleen Muench, the widow of Richard Muench, sold the Muench Farm to a developer.  This marked the first interruption in ownership of this land in 161 years.

From 1856 until 2017, this land belonged to a member of the Hunter family.  Did I mention that’s 161 years?  That's 161 years.  How is that even possible?

161 years.

That's five years before the start of the American Civil War.

That's 11 years before Canada became a country.

That's only 80 years after the American Declaration of Independence.

James Buchanan was the US President.  Abraham Lincoln wouldn't be elected for another four years.

There were only 31 states in the Union.

Iowa was populated by a mere 200,000 people, and it's capital was Iowa City.

There will be at least one more family on the Hunter/Pantenburg/Jamison/Johnston farmstead.  We expect their experience to be all they hope it will be for their family.  This place will always be home to our kids.  It eases the difficulty of our move knowing that there’s another family who will continue the legacy.

The Muench Farm?  After 161 years as productive farmland, it’s about to undergo change that will make it unrecognizable.  From 161 years of ownership by a single family, to dozens upon dozens (and hundreds) of occupiers, in the blink of an eye.

And that’s all I have to say.  We’ve got another chapter of life to get into.  And that developer has a lot of work to do.  We won’t be in his way.