Old Order Mennonite Memoirs

My dad was 35 years old when he built the first greenhouse for Mom. He also sawed and split wood to heat the small house of glass panels that leaned against the south side of his shop. Although the homemade wood stove demanded day and night vigilance, Mom didn't seem to mind. The pleasure of working with growing plants exceeded any such care.

From that humble beginning in 1977, my parents could not have foreseen the future. Responding to the demand for bedding plants, Dad kept on building more and bigger greenhouses. Like mushrooms of air, they appeared quickly at the foot of the ridge whe...