by Mike Orso
In 1867, the United States purchased Alaska from Russia, the U.S. Patent Office issued its first one for barbed wire, and the Simons family began farming near Marengo.
Today, Curt Simons, 60, and Wade Secor, 33, who share primary responsibilities of the operation, represent the fifth and sixth generations of the same family that created the western McHenry County farm two years after the end of the U.S. Civil War.
“It started in 1867 when my great-great-grandfather settled here,” said Curt’s father and Wade’s grandfather, Cliff Simons, 82. “They bought 12 acres from the fellow and wife that settled here in 1842. They paid – for 80 acres – a dollar and thirty-seven-and-a-half cents per acre, and that went to the school district.”
Cliff’s father, George Simons, quit school after the 8th grade to help on the family farm, which consisted of crops and a herd of dairy cattle. George’s father and Cliff’s grandfather, Alfred Simons, died when George was 17, so he and Cliff’s grandmother, Ida Weiske Simons, kept the farm going.
“I farmed with my dad (George) after I got out of high school,” said the family’s patriarch. “After WWII and the beginning of the 1950s, he was able to purchase two, 80-acre chunks of ground. He really kind of got the ball rolling here for farming, anyway.”
Dairy cows have been a mainstay of the farm and the family continues to milk 40 head twice each day. In addition to the cows, Curt Simons and Wade Secor, son of Curt’s sister Julie (Simons) Secor, farm approximately 1,300 acres, growing alfalfa, corn, oats, soybeans and wheat.
“Pretty much day to day, it’s myself and Wade,” said Curt. “Julie is here at night and helps us milk. My son Brett (Simons) will come after work when he is available. Leah (Secor Resenbeck), Julie’s daughter, she’ll help and her husband (Christian Resenbeck), whenever they are available.”
The continued involvement of multiple family members has generated some of the warmest family recollections of the farm and homestead that is still located on Carmack Rd.
“I would remember coming out during milking carrying my pail of milk and probably spilling more on myself than getting it where it needed to be,” said Julie. “Going out to get the cows in the pasture, riding on the tractor, fond memories of baling hay and playing with the cats.”
For her brother Curt, mechanization and motoring spark his favorite reminiscences.
“I love driving tractors, driving a truck before I was 16, that’s for sure,” said Curt. “Really, driving tractors is what I love doing, and fixing machinery.”
While this McHenry County farm reached its 100-year mark in 1967, it received official certification of its first century in 1972 as part of the Illinois Department of Agriculture’s (IDOA) Heritage Farms (HF) program. To qualify, a farm must be owned by the same family of lineal or collateral descendants for 100, 150 or 200 years. IDOA notes that a lineal descendent is a person in the direct line of descent, such as a child or grandchild. A collateral descendant is not a direct descendent, but is otherwise closely related, such as a brother, sister, uncle, aunt, nephew, niece or cousin. State records show 33 different farms in McHenry County have received the IDOA centennial or sesquicentennial HF designation.
“We do it because we want to honor the history of farming in Illinois and to show that most farms in Illinois are still family-owned,” said IDOA’s Rachel Hettrick, who manages the state agency’s HF program. “It is just very important to us to show that family farming is still alive and well in Illinois. It’s just not a thing of the past.”
The IDOA official said filings for the farm designations coincide with what’s happening out in the countryside each year.
“When harvest season ends is when I start getting applications,” she said. “It will be absolutely dead during harvest season because nobody has time to do their forms. They are all out working.”
That applies to the Simons family, who eventually plan to submit an application to IDOA for their sesquicentennial farm designation and replace the now fading, aging centennial farm sign when time allows.
“It is one of those things that you think of and then it gets busy and you forget about it,” said Susan Diedrick Simons, 59, a “town girl” who met Curt playing volleyball, but got to know him more competing in a bowling tournament sponsored by the Farm Bureau decades ago. “Then it’s, ‘Look, we need to do that.’”
Susan’s mother-in-law, Marcia Simons, 82, agrees that the farm remains a very busy, all-in-the-family affair.
“Farming is in our blood and they are hard workers,” said the family’s matriarch. “I don’t think many people realize how long the days are for today’s farmer, especially a dairy farmer and grain farmer. They do well.”
Members of the Simons family stand in front of the family barn built in the 1870s with square nails and pegs. The family still uses the barn to milk cows and store hay on the western McHenry County farm.
The great-grandchildren, grandchildren and children of Marcia and Cliff Simons (center) surround them in front of the barn on Carmack Rd. in rural Marengo. Marcia and Cliff live in the renovated former schoolhouse not far from the homestead. Susan (Diedrick) and Curt Simons (daughter-in-law and son) live in the original farmhouse, and Julie (Simons) and Dave Secor (daughter and son-in-law) live in a home close by.
Curt Simons and his family continue to milk 40 cows in the McHenry County barn built by family ancestors 155 years ago. Photo by: Danielle (Simons) Rudsinski
Multiple generations of the Simons and Secor families work full or part-time on the farm that reached its sesquicentennial mark in 2017. They include (from left), Wade Secor, Christian Resenbeck, Brooks Rudsinski, Leah Secor Resenbeck, Brett Simons, Braelynn Rudsinski, Danielle (Simons) Rudsinski.