14 CapitalPress.com
March 9, 2018
Hentze family takes farm another step
By ALIYA HALL
For the Capital Press
JUNCTION CITY, Ore.
— Hentze Family Farm has
been in the Junction City area
for 116 years and four genera-
tions. Brother and sister Gor-
don Hentze and Karen McEl-
downey-Hay grew up on the
farm and now work together
to manage it.
Neither of them anticipat-
ed keeping the farm going,
and their parents initially dis-
couraged them from taking it
over because it is a smaller
farm and harder to make a liv-
ing from it.
“I lived here all my life,”
Hentze said. “Mom and Dad
didn’t push us to participate in
a way that was saying, ‘This
is what you’re going to be do-
ing.’ I never believed I’d end
up on the farm, but here I am
almost 64. I had to get into a
mindset of it’s a lot of work.
I put a lot of work into this
farm; everybody in the family
has.”
McEldowney-Hay said she
believed her father was sur-
prised that Hentze wanted to
come back to the farm. She
added that “until you actual-
ly do it, you don’t know how
much work it is.”
As one of the four siblings,
McEldowney-Hay lived in
Aliya Hall/For the Capital Press
Brother and sister Gordon Hentze and Karen McEldowney-Hay
grew up on the Hentze Family Farm and now work together to
manage it. They sell fruits, berries, vegetables and nuts and host a
variety of gatherings on the 116-year-old farm.
nearby Springfield working as
a dental hygienist — she has
worked in the same office for
48 years. In 2008, she came
back to the farm to help her
ailing parents and realized
how much her brother was
taking on.
“I watched Gordon work
like a fool,” she said. “He has a
full-time job and is working on
the farm. I thought, ‘This isn’t
fair. He needs help.’ I can’t
claim to be much of a farmer,
but I try to be helpful.”
One landmark is the barn,
which was already on the
property when their great
grandparents moved onto the
farm in 1902. It went through a
25-year phase as a dairy barn,
and for the last 35 years it’s
been the produce barn. A sec-
tion has been renovated into a
small work area for snipping
beans, pitting cherries and
cracking walnuts.
The farm sells berries and
other fruits, vegetables and
nuts throughout the year, and
Hentze’s wife sells chicken
eggs in Eugene, Ore. Hentze
and McEldowney-Hay have
also resurrected a tradition
from their grandparents: host-
ing gatherings.
McEldowney-Hay and her
husband added a cookhouse
to make events easier. They
will have live music, and in the
fall an Oktoberfest festival and
pumpkin patch rides.
“It’s our passion now,”
Hentze said. “We all have
worked off the farm to make
ends meet, but we put just as
much in the farm as our actual
jobs.”
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