By FRED KRONER
fred@mahometnews.com
This is one of a continuing series the Mahomet Daily will publish about ordinary men and women from the community who have done or accomplished extraordinary things in their lifetimes. We encourage readers to submit nominations for other deserving individuals who warrant consideration. We are delighted to tell the stories of these people who have contributed so much, often without the recognition they were due.
Harold and Bev Schroeder are a part of the story about family farming in Central Illinois.
They are not at the beginning, nor are they at the end.
Currently, they are right in the middle; the third of five generations of the family to make a living by tilling the ground.
The family operation now covers parts of three centuries and has gradually expanded to the east, mostly in McLean County.
The original farmstead was located along Rt. 9, in what was then rural Bloomington, but where the Central Illinois Regional Airport is now located.
The family currently farms north of Mansfield – in rural Bellflower – just south of Rt. 136.
Don’t ask Harold Schroeder, 94, when he stopped working.
“I didn’t retire,” he said. “I just don’t go out there any more.”
Many folks will be at the Schroeder Farm – situated at 1097 N 4000 E, Bellflower – on Saturday for the 20th Mahomet Area Youth Club auction. It will be the fifth fundraiser hosted by members of the Schroeder family.
The site of the farm is not all that has changed for the family. Two-row planters are a thing of the past.
So are the yields of yesteryear when Harold Schroeder would be delighted at corn making 100 bushels an acre. Some farmers are now producing at a rate of 300 bushels per acre.
The tractors are different, too, bigger and more powerful than the ones which required a crank to start. In lieu of the traditional wheel and tire, some tractors are being manufactured with the continuous track system.
“A couple years ago, (son) Doug said, ‘Get on the tractor,’ and I couldn’t start it,” Harold Schroeder said.
Many farmers have GPS systems to help navigate the fields. That doesn’t eliminate all human interaction.
“Even with a GPS, you’ve got to know when to turn,” Harold Schroeder said.
***
Harold Schroeder attended a one-room elementary school.
In his grade, he said, “there were five of us.”
It was located in Bloomington’s far east side, on Oakland Ave.
“P.U. No. 88,” Schroeder said.
The initials weren’t a reflection of the smells associated with the rural area.
“Prairie Union,” Schroeder elaborated.
Earlier this week, he attended the funeral for one of his former school mates. He is now the lone survivor from his elementary school.
Bev Schroeder grew up in western Illinois, west of Princeton.
Her hometown of Manlius was small.
“We got two (Chicago) radio stations,” Bev Schroeder said, “WGN and WLS.”
For decades, WGN was the flagship station of Chicago Cubs baseball.
She did more than listen to the ball games.
“We took the Tribune (newspaper) and they had pictures,” she said. “I got to know what they looked like.”
Bev Schroeder made her way to Normal for college.
She got her first teaching job, at Oakland School when it was first opened, and taught sixth-grade. A friend suggested that she attend a Rural Youths meeting.
“That’s when you’re too old for 4-H,” Bev Schroeder said. “I said, ‘No. That’s a lonely hearts club.’ “
Teaching was an all-encompassing position.
“You taught your own music and your own P.E.,” Bev Schroeder said, “but the district had a specialist who would help you.”
A year later, she relented and accepted an invitation to the Rural Youths meeting. That’s when she met the president of the local club, Harold Schroeder.
“We square-danced,” she said.
Sixty seven years ago, in 1952, they got married.
***
Harold Schroeder never gave thought to doing anything except farming for a livelihood.
“I worked all the time,” he said. “I didn’t know any different.”
Farming, he said, “is part of you. It’s imbedded in you.
“I wasn’t told I didn’t like it. I just did it, and it grew on you.”
He followed in the farming footsteps of his father, Walter Schroeder, and his grandfather, Fred Schroeder.
In 1954, Walter Schroeder purchased farmland southeast of Bellflower.
“I’d never heard of Bellflower,” Bev Schroeder said.
Harold Schroeder took over operating the more than 300-acre tract.
Together, the Schroeders raised crops and children.
After four years of teaching at Oakland School, Bev Schroeder left to become a full-time farm wife.
That entailed gardening, canning and multiple other tasks.
“The Schroeder ethic,” she said, “is work, work, work.”
In the years that followed their move to rural Bellflower, Richard, Jim, Doug and Susan were born.
“I never went to college, but all four of our kids graduated from the U of I,” Harold Schroeder said.
“They all graduated in four years,” Bev Schroeder added.
Jim works as a farm manager at Hickory Point Bank, in Decatur.
Doug works the family farm, alongside his son, Bob, and son-in-law, Matt Turner, who lives in the home (with his wife Samantha) that has housed a Schroeder or a Schroeder namesake for 65 years.
In the mid-1980s, Harold and Bev Schroeder moved to Mahomet.
“The only people in Mahomet we knew were Alice and Jack Dollahon,” Bev Schroeder said.
***
The Schroeder children didn’t all take after their parents.
Though Bev and Harold rarely miss a televised Cubs game, Bev Schroeder said, “I have two boys (Jim and Doug) that are Cardinals’ fans.”
Twenty years ago, many of the family gathered to help Bev celebrate her 70th birthday.
“A trolley came to pick up about 40 of us (in west Chicago),” Doug Schroeder’s wife, Stacy, said.
“It was a hot day (“a record high temperature for that day,” Bev Schroeder recalled) and they ran out of water.
“They put her name and picture on the JumboTron. It was the perfect thing for Bev.”
Perfect, except for one detail that is etched in her memory.
“The Cubs lost that day (in 1999),” Bev Schroeder said.
Harold Schroeder still won’t confirm that after all these years he is a Cubs’ fan.
“I put up with them,” he said.
***
The MAYC auction, coming up on Saturday (June 8) at the Schroeder farmstead, is the organization’s biggest annual fundraiser.
Doors open at 5:30 p.m. The live auction will start at 7 o’clock, following dinner.
Fifteen live auction items are up for bid, including a trip to the Philippines, tickets to a Bears’ home football game, a hot air balloon ride and a tree house resort trip.
Fifty silent auction items are up for grabs and bids can be made, starting at 5:30.
MAYC executive director Sara Baogoyen said MAYC’s reach continues to expand.
“Our need is growing,” Baogoyen said. “We have more registered summer campers by about 25 percent.”
Participation this summer has reached 125 youth.
Tickets for the auction are available for purchase through Saturday morning by going to Mahometyouth.org.
