Schumacher Farm Park
The 40-acre Schumacher Farm Park sits on land donated to Dane County in 1978 by Marcella Schumacher Pendall, the only child of Henry and Eveline Schumacher. Marcella was born in 1910 and lived on the farm until her death at the age of 83. As a teacher for many years in Waunakee, Marcella wanted to leave an educational legacy by turning her farm into a living history museum depicting rural life in early 20th Century Wisconsin. Marcella also created the nonprofit Friends of Schumacher Farm, and created a trust to provide for the basic needs of the home after her death. Thanks to Marcella’s vision, and the work of many staff and volunteers, Schumacher Farm Park is a vibrant, and growing, cultural institution.
Heirloom Garden
Gardening was much more than a hobby in the early 1900s when farm families grew much of the food that the family consumed throughout the year. Marcella recalled that: “Every farmer grew his own potatoes and vegetables, raised his own meat, milk, and eggs, and made his own butter.” The Schumacher family planted a generous garden every year, and cared for it diligently. The family drew water from a hand pump and carried it in a pail or a sprinkling can to water the garden. The family had a variety of ways to preserve the vegetables they grew. They stored potatoes in the basement, which was cool and dry, an excellent space to preserve food before refrigeration. They stored root vegetables such as carrots, beets and rutabagas, in boxes with dried leaves and sand, while cabbage they wrapped in paper. The family used sugar, salt, and vinegar to preserve fruit in open crocks. Later, after glass jars became available, the family canned much of the fruit and vegetables they grew in the summertime. Today, a handful of volunteers takes care of this heirloom garden, planting, weeding and watering, and maintaining fencing to keep rabbits, chickens and other hungry herbivores from feeding upon the plants. The plants in the heirloom garden are representative of those grown on family farms in the 1920s and 30s. The garden features a strawberry patch, grape vines, rhubarb, asparagus, raspberry and currant bushes. Volunteers also plant annual vegetables, including bush beans, kale, and zucchini, and maintain an herb garden. No herbicides or pesticides are used on any of these plants.
Windmill
Windmills had many jobs on the farm. Windmills used the power of the wind to pump water to a large concrete tank from which animals could drink. The Schumacher family also used the windmill to pump water for drinking, cooking, and other household uses. Getting the water depended on the wind blowing to turn the fan at the top of the windmill, so when there was not enough wind to turn the fan, the water had to be pumped by hand. Farmers also used wind power to saw wood, operate drill presses, and a host of other uses.The first windmill on the Schumacher farm had a wooden tower and metal blades and gears, which was common on farms in the early 1900s. Eventually the Schumachers replaced this with an all-metal windmill and tower. “The windmill was easily accessible to the house and to the barnyard,” Marcella later wrote. This was important because the windmill was, according to Marcella, “the primary indicator of storms, and warmer and cooler weather.” The windmill would show farmers the direction of the wind, and observant farmers would note changes in wind speed and direction.The windmill standing here today is a Monitor K-Style, a style manufactured by the Baker Manufacturing Company of Evansville, Wisconsin between 1910 and 1930. This windmill was purchased from a farm in Adams County, Wisconsin and restored before being installed here in the fall of 2017. It stands near the same spot where the original windmill stood.
Schumacher Farmhouse
Henry Schumacher owned this property for fifteen years before he decided to make this a working farm. In 1906, he hired a local carpenter named Frank Schwenn to design and build this farmhouse, one of only two original buildings still standing. In 1908, Henry got married and settled down to build a life on these forty acres. Schwenn built the two-story farmhouse in a cruciform shape with four rooms on each level. The first floor held the kitchen, dining room, parlor and a bedroom. The second floor held four bedrooms. The windows, trim and other details were simple and functional. The total cost to build the house was $5,000. According to Marcella, the lawn surrounding the farmhouse consisted of: “blue grass sprinkled with weeds and mowed only by grazing cattle, horses, or sheep.” To protect the soft lawn from the damaging hooves of the farm animals, the Schumachers erected a fence around the house. They also placed a fence along the road to spare their yard from damage caused by animals being driven to market in Waunakee along what is now Highway 19.Marcella Schumacher Pendall lived in this house until her death in 1993. Since then, the Friends of Schumacher Farm Park have worked to restore and maintain the farmhouse as it may have looked like in the 1920s. Many of the items inside the house are original to Schumacher farm.
Outhouse/Indoor Plumbing
The Schumacher family, like many in rural Wisconsin in the early 1900s, did not have an indoor toilet. Instead, they used an outhouse like this one. Although this building is not original to the farm, it stands in the same place where the Schumacher outhouse was once located. The flush toilet was first created in the 1500s, but in 1940, almost half of the homes in the United States still lacked an indoor toilet. Plumbing in rural houses in America tended to be very basic in the early 1900s. The Schumacher family had simple plumbing in the house when it was built. A cistern under the kitchen floor collected rainwater gathered from the gutters and runoff around the house. A hand pump in the kitchen drew this water into wash basins, one of which the family used to wash dishes, and the other for washing their hands. When the family needed to dispose of this water, they dumped it into the sink, and a drain pipe carried the waste water to a small cesspool a few feet from the house. In the winter, Henry Schumacher had to build a box around the drain to keep it from freezing and sometimes would have to place a kerosene lamp under the pipe to thaw the frozen water. This outhouse was moved here from the Ferdinand Pape house in Springfield Corners in 2004 and was restored in 2022.
Horseshoes/Leisure
Life on the farm wasn’t always work. There was time to spend playing outdoor games, going to dances in nearby Waunakee or Westport, or reading novels. For three years, the Schumacher family played host to Frank Rosa, a young Serbian man who learned how to farm from Henry Schumacher, and who delighted the family and neighbors with his accordion music. Even Marcella’s father Henry, a serious man not prone to fun, enjoyed playing horseshoes and croquet, as well as playing card games. The game of horseshoes evolved from a game called quoits in which players threw rings made of metal, rope, or rubber, trying to get as near to a stake as possible. Pitching mule shoes was a popular sport among soldiers in the American Civil War. After the war players in America and England began to observe standardized rules governing scoring and acceptable horseshoe weight, as well as the height and distance between the spikes. Today, although there are formal rules and a governing body over the game of horseshoes, there are still plenty of variations. This is especially appropriate on Marcella’s farm, where children made up many of the games they played at home and school. As Marcella later wrote: “We generated our own good time.”
Chicken Coop
Marcella loved animals, especially her chickens. As a girl she was often photographed with birds from her flock. The Schumacher family usually had about fifty Plymouth Rock chickens on the farm, and grew corn, oats, and barley to feed them and their other animals. The chickens that Marcella and her family raised roamed free around the farm during the day, and went into the chicken coop at night to be safe from predators. Marcella recalled that her chickens were “just plain independent.” When there was no food in sight, neither were the chickens in sight. Marcella and her mother would gather the eggs in the evening, but often a hen laid eggs in the weeds and would emerge three weeks later with a small family of chicks. In 2010, park staff moved this chicken coop to Schumacher Farm from another farm in Dane County, and placed it near the location of the original chicken coop. Today in the summer, a small flock of chickens makes its home at the park. Volunteers care for the birds every day, cleaning the coop, collecting eggs, and giving the chickens fresh water and food. Visitors to the park are often treated to the sight of chickens roaming free in the farmyard, eating insects and greens, much like they did when Marcella was a young girl caring for her beloved flock.
Granary
The granary was a place to store food for the animals on the farm. Farmers stored grains like oats and hay on the second floor of the building and sent these grains through chutes to the first floor when it was feeding time for the cattle and horses.Marcella recalled that: “Today, a farmer presses a button and the feed automatically moves from its storage area into the troughs… Not so in the early days.” Henry Schumacher had to shovel oats and hay down the chutes for the cows and horses, and every morning he had to hand-feed the animals by scooping grains into their troughs. In the springtime, after feeding the animals and milking the cows, Henry had breakfast before setting out to the fields to plant oats and barley to grow more feed for his animals. In the fall, with the help of the animals, Henry harvested the grains and hay, and stored them in his granary. This granary is not original to Schumacher Farm, but was donated to the park in 1999. It was moved to its present location that year, and restored to its present condition. Three rooms of the granary currently hold displays of various implements and artifacts that were commonly used on Wisconsin farms in the 1920s and 30s. Feed chutes are still visible inside the granary.
Schumacher Barn
This barn and the farmhouse are the only two buildings that remain from the original Schumacher farmstead of the early 1900s. In 1908, Henry Schumacher married Eveline Busby and built a house for her, after which he had this barn built. The barn was finished in 1909. A barn was one of the most important buildings on the farm, and often it was the first building to go up on a new farmstead. The barn sheltered the cows and horses that were the backbone of the farm, and hay for the animals was stored in the mow on the second floor. Henry Schumacher hired a local carpenter named Henry Adler to build the barn, and the lumber for the barn was purchased from Koltes and Riphahn’s store in Waunakee. Schumacher’s neighbors provided labor during the barn raising. The total cost of construction was $1,200. The Schumachers painted the barn red, which was a longstanding tradition when farmers would treat their barns with a mixture of linseed oil and ferrous oxide, or rust, to protect the wood and discourage mold growth. Several updates have been made to this barn, including adding a cement floor and electricity to the building. Sliding doors were also added and the original window and frame were restored. This barn is available to rent in the summer months. The first floor is commonly used as exhibition space and for performances during a variety of events like the annual Heritage Fest and Music Fest celebrations.
Corn Crib and Hog House
After building his house and barn, Henry Schumacher began acquiring animals, including Poland China hogs. Pigs are not native to North America, but were brought here by European settlers, and have long been an important source of meat. Although these two buildings are not original to the Schumacher Farm, Henry Schumacher did have a corn crib and a hog house for his pigs in the early 1900s. The hog house provided shelter and safety for the animals, and also had small doors low to the ground so the pigs could enter and leave their house as they wished. Food for the pigs was stored in the corn crib nearby. The corn crib’s slanted walls helped keep most rainwater from getting the corn wet. The slots in the walls encouraged the airflow that dried the corn and helped preserve it by discouraging mold and rot. Henry used a hand-operated machine called a sheller that removed the kernels from the cob. When it was time to feed the pigs, “Father carried the corn from the crib in a metal bushel basket and dumped it on the ground,” Marcella recalled. Both the corn crib and hog house came from a farm near Sun Prairie and was donated to Schumacher Farm Park in 2000. The buildings were moved to this site then restored to their present condition.
Prairie
Marcella Schumacher Pendall hoped that the prairie on Schumacher Farm Park would become: “a laboratory for children and adults to learn firsthand about the beauty of nature, the operation of the eco system, and the necessity for preserving it.” Throughout her life, Marcella carried with her warm memories of playing in the prairies around the farm, recalling the hill “purple with pasque flowers and violets,” which later turned into “a waving sheet of white shooting stars.” Prairies used to cover millions of acres in southern Wisconsin, but as European settlement spread across the state in the early 1800s the prairie was eventually replaced by cities, villages, and farm fields. Today over 99% of the original Wisconsin prairie has been destroyed or significantly altered. Beginning in the 1980s, Marcella worked with a Dane County naturalist to begin restoring the prairie around the farm. These efforts continue to this day, with staff and volunteers regularly burning and seeding the prairie to encourage growth of the grasses and flowers that traditionally grew here. It was Marcella’s earnest hope that through Schumacher Farm Park, visitors would: “develop a love and appreciation of the beauty and warmth of nature and absorb its very essence into their souls.” There are few better places to do that than here on the prairie.
Orchard
When Henry Schumacher bought this farm in 1892, its previous owner had already planted fruit trees, berry bushes, and grape vines. Local food cultivation and preservation have long been important parts of rural life, especially given transportation costs and spoilage in the days before refrigeration. Most farms in the Midwest had an apple orchard due to the fruit’s versatility, nutrient content, and relative ease of cultivation and harvest. By 1900, Americans grew more than 14,000 different kinds of apples. Today, only about 90 varieties of apples are commonly grown and sold in the U.S. Over the years, the Schumacher family planted their own orchard between the farmhouse and the chicken coop. That orchard, which no longer exists, included apple, cherry, plum, and pear trees. The current orchard was planted in 2000, and includes several types of heirloom apples and pears that were commonly found on American farms in the early 1900s. These fruits, such as Kiefer pears, Whitney Crab apples, and pipestone plums, are often irregularly shaped and are not easily harvested by machine. They also have unique flavors not found in more commercial varieties of fruit. While apples were a favorite autumn snack right off the tree for many farmers, as they provided a refreshing blast of juice and sugar, they can easily be turned into delicious pies and baked into cakes. Apples could also be preserved as applesauce, canned, dried or sealed in jars, or turned into cider.
Center for Rural History
The Center for Rural History serves as the visitor center for the park and houses an office for park staff, restrooms for park visitors, and meeting space that is available to rent for private events and educational programs. This barn took fifteen years, many volunteers, and a lot of persistence to see to completion. In 2004, a local family donated their barn to Schumacher Farm Park. The barn was hoisted up and moved to this location, sitting on pilings while a foundation was prepared. One week before the barn was scheduled to be placed on the foundation, a wind storm blew it over and destroyed it. Soon afterwards, planning and fundraising began to create a new barn. A local construction company was hired, and the barn was built using traditional techniques, and based the design on the destroyed barn. Since opening in 2019, the Center has been an important part of Schumacher Farm Park’s mission to preserve and share Wisconsin’s agricultural history.