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With Helping Hands, Va. Widow Keeps Her Farm
By Ed Bruske
Washington Post Staff Writer
WOODSTOCK, Va .- Local
farmers had seen the arrival of
starry-eyed urbanites before-
bringing their Volvos, their fancy.
Jeeps and their brash plans to
work the land for fun and profit. .
As sure as the Shenandoah Riv-
er twists through the rock-
studded valley, the dreams of city
farmers seemed always to wither,
leaving great expectations and
another failed farm behind.
Bob and Pat Wichser hoped to
be an exception to that rule.
Both high-level congressional
aides, the Wichsers quit their jobs
on Capitol Hill in the spring of
1985 to raise sheep in the Shen-
andoah foothills 85 miles south-
west of Washington.
---
At first, their plan struck locals
as sheer nonsense. And when Bob.
Wichser, 42, was swept to his
death by a flood-swollen river just
six months after he and his wife
moved here, it seemed to confirm
the community's
worst fears
about well-intentioned transplants
who try to carve a living from this
unforgiving landscape.
Tragedy has not turned Pat
Wichser away. She is still on the
land, stubbornly trying to reas-
semble the pieces of the couple's
shattered dream. And she is not
alone. Originally skeptical, local
farmers have adopted the Wich-
sers' vision as their own.
1Y MEMORY OF
JOD WICHSER
PHOTOS BY MARGARET THOMAS-THE WASHINGTON POST
Pat Wichser has won neighbors' support with her determination to carry on with Shenandoah Valley sheep farm.
See WICHSER, A8, Col. 1
Right, on bridge to the farm, a plaque memorializes her husband Bob, who died trying to save sheep in 1985 flood.
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A8 MONDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 1986
Couple Brought Naivete,
Perseverance to Va. Farm
WICHSER, From A1
Fired by the sheer will the Wich-
sers brought to their improbable
enterprise, and by 40-year-old Pat
Wichser's determination to remain,
old hands have formed a bond with
the newcomer and have helped her
breathe life into her crippled sheep
farm.
: "People enjoyed watching them,
the enthusiasm they had for the
-work," said Doug French, a dairy
farmer and a U.S. Farmers Home
Administration area official. "They
were showing everybody how to do
it."
" The Shenandoah Valley's panora-
mas of thick mountain forests and
rolling farm lands captivated the
Wichsers years ago . when they:
gazed out their car window from
Skyline Drive. Their weekend es-
capes to the hills took firmer root
when, in 1975, they bought their
first 40-acre plot along the river
just outside Woodstock-the first
installment on their dream of leav-
ing the city for good.
`. Whenever they could break away
· from the business of Congress, the
Wichsers took up hammer and saw
to build a small cabin on their iso-
lated property. It was not long be-
fore they fell into the company of
landowners such as French, who ing off his land. Never having
lent an occasional hand.
- On the Hill, where each was a top
aide to a Republican House mem-
ber, the Wichsers were almost in-
`separable. And despite conserva-
tive, midwestern upbringings-he
`the son of a cereal company exec-
'utive and she the product of a Pres-
byterian women's college near. St.
Louis-they seemed always eager
for new adventures.
"We had the longest love affair
going," Pat Wichser said last week,.
shortly after the anniversary of her
husband's death. "Bob and I were
willing to go for broke."
:
They grew more attached to the
'country over the years, Still, there
was no mistaking where they had
come from, and the tales of their
misadventures on weekend outings
became legend among friends in the
Woodstock area.
Some thought it odd, for instance,
that, Pat Wichser occasionally tilled
her garden in her nightgown. But
that was nothing compared with the
afternoon Bob Wichser came home
beaming after bagging .what he
thought were two wild turkeys.
A: skeptical French invited Bob
Wichser to bring some of the feath-
ers to the French family's Thanks-
giving dinner, and in front of 60
relatives he had Bob Wichser dis-
play what everyone else recognized
as the remains of a neighbor's two
pet roosters.
.
The Wichsers were unfazed by
such minor setbacks, though. And
when- they learned that a larger
farm was for sale at one of the
bends in the river, they jumped into
their pickup to take a tour.
The Wichsers needed only one
look at the 297-acre farm, then
overgrown and falling apart, to
know they wanted it. They cashed-
Pat Wichser's retirement fund to
make the first payment, and, over a
glass of wine one night in May
1980, toasted a secret pact to quit
their jobs and move permanently to
the farm in five years.
Nearly every weekend, the Wich-
sers worked feverishly to clear
weeds and trash .. They strung
fences,
began building
a
6,000 square-foot barn and re-
stored an old wash house into a tidy
home, sometimes trudging a quar-
ter mile through waist-deep snow
when drifts blocked their truck.
Bob Wichser insisted on doing
the most difficult work himself.
"Remember when President Rea-
gan's inauguration was called off
because it was too cold?" said Rob-
ert Pangle, a real estate broker
whose house overlooks the Wich-
sers' from across the river. "Bob
was out there stringing fence."
Bob Wichser believed in surviv-
hunted before, he shot woodchucks,
muskrats and other rodents for the
dinner table.
"Whatever he got, we ate," Pat
Wichser said.
Farm friends found some of these
exploits quaint, but they shuddered
with apprehension at the couple's
naivete. Once, while loading 18-foot
poplar trunks on the 12-foot bed of
their dump truck, Bob Wichser
nearly tipped the truck over.
"Bob wasn't a big guy, and some-
times watching what he was doing
around the farm, I worried about
his health," said friend Gary Mad-
son, an aide to Rep. Cooper Evans
(R-Iowa) who grew up on a farm in
Spring Valley, Wis. "He didn't know
the dangers involved. He didn't
. know that you could overpower a
machine and it would tip over and
kill you."
.Madson and other friends, here
and in Washington, thought the
Wichsers were joking in the spring
of 1985 when they made their pact
public and announced they were
quitting the Hill to raise sheep.
"I told them, You better go back
to Washington and make some mon-
ey at a good job,' " said William A.
Truban, a local veterinarian and
Republican minority leader in the
Virginia state Senate.
In fact, few landowners in the
valley farm full time. Most have
See WICHSER, A9, Col. 1
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onenandoah Community Rates To Keep Shattered Dream Alive
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WICSHER, From A8
jobs in local factories or businesses.
But the Wichsers plowed ahead.
"We knew that the odds were
against us," Pat Wichser said. "But
that made it. exciting."
Ned Conklin, the local agricultur-
al extension service agent, steered
the couple toward sheep farming,
and the Wichsers traveled as far as
Canada to build up a herd of pure-
bred Finnish Landrace that put
them on the cutting edge of Virgin-
ia's budding sheep industry.
It was Nov. 4 last year, when Bob
Wichser and his father were install-
ing the roof on the farm's new sheep
barn, that steady rains washed out of
the mountains and the Shenandoah
began to swell. It would become the
worst flood since 1942.
That afternoon, water spilled over
the river bank and stranded the
Wichsers' sheep in a lower pasture.
Unable to drive them out, the couple
fetched their plastic canoe and began
ferrying the sheep to safety.
It was well into the night when
Pat Wichser grabbed the last sheep,
but it was too late. The rising wa-
ters suddenly turned into a torrent
that swept the canoe downstream.
Pat Wichser remembers her hus-
band shouting, "Let the sheep go!
Let everything go!" The canoe cap-
sized, spilling them into the raging
waters.
Pat Wichser, who managed to
grab a tree and was later rescued
by her father-in-law, watched help-
lessly as her husband floated by in
the dark. His body was found four
days later, 18 miles downstream.
, Local farmers reacted with sym-
pathy and disbelief. "He didn't know
his animal and he didn't know the
river," said Marion Artz, 72, who
owns 100 sheep upstream.
"I kick myself to this day for not
calling them and telling them to
"- BY MARGARET THOMAS -THE WASHINGTON POST
Pat Wichser talks with Doug French, one of many in Shenandoah Valley who have aided her since her husband's death.
birth to twins, and the rest were ex-
pected to deliver in the next two
months.
Pat Wichser was in a panic. Her
husband had made most of the de-
cisions on the farm, and she hardly
knew how to get fuel into the trac-
tor and other machinery.
"I was scared. I didn't know how
much help I was going to have," Pat
Wichser said. "I couldn't handle
lambing alone. I thought [. would
buy myself time to figure what to
do." And so she sold all but 13 ewes
and three rams from the flock.
The French family helped to fin-
ish building a shed for the small
flock just before the deliveries be-
gan. By February, Pat Wichser was
up every four hours tending the
lambs that came in quick succes-
sion: 12 in all, with four sets of
twins and one group of triplets.
It was not until spring that the
full weight of her husband's death
came crashing in. "I didn't think life
was worth it without Bob," Pat
Wichser said. So she briefly left the
farm behind and visited relatives.
Shortly after she returned, things
took a dramatic turn for the better
as help arrived in a flurry.
"In the Shenandoah Valley, nobody
goes to bed cold or hungry if they're
willing to tell a neighbor," said vet-
erinarian Truban, "Somebody's
watching out all the time. This
neighborly goodness is still here."
But there was more to the com-
munity's outpouring than simple
kindness. It was as if the Wichsers'
determination to farm full time had
stirred ancient feelings of kinship
with the land, feelings that many
here believe are slowly being lost to
the developer's shovel.
Doug French and his sons arrived
to string 1,200 feet of wire fence. A
Methodist men's group chopped
firewood.
Farmer Newell Irwin fenced off a
new sheep corral, and neighbor
Buck Headley brought his backhoe
and laid new water and electrical
lines.
"It was the most fantastic thing,"
Headley said. "It was something
beyond anybody's belief that [the
Wichsers] could come down here
and make this farm work. One of
my great disappointments was not
to find out how [Bob] would have
done it."
Paul Miley, once just another
stranger from downstream, came in
with the meat manager from the lo-
cal Safeway, finished nailing the sid-
ing on the sheep barn and then of-
fered to help manage the farm.
"I think if any other woman had
gone through what she'd gone
through, she'd probably have sold
the place, thrown her hands up and
gone back to the city," Miley said.
But Pat Wichser, now rarely
alone, said she never considered ,
leaving. She turned down her. par -.
ents' invitation to return to her
childhood home in Quincy, Ill., and
instead took a course in lambing.
Miley- taught her how to pump.
diesel fuel, and together they har-
vested a barn full of hay this fall,
with Pat 'Wichser at the wheel of
the tractor. In fact, Wichser was
one of the few farmers in the area
with feed enough to sell after this
year's drought. She bought several
more sheep, bringing the number in
her herd to 45.
Each morning now she rises be-
fore dawn, pulls on her parka and
rubber boots and hauls bales of hay
and alfalfa out to her bleating
sheep. The cold bite of approaching
winter leaves a layer of ice over the
water troughs, and Wichser knocks
them clear to pour. a refill.
Again this winter she expects to
spend her nights bottle-feeding
20
MILES
WEST
VIRGINIA
Front-
Royal
.(66)
Woodstock
VIRGINIA
Luray
Enlarged [
area
Richmond
VIRGINIA
BY LARRY FOGEL -THE WASHINGTON POST
newborn lambs. She hopes to build
the flock up to 100 next year, and
Miley is pushing to add cattle.
Even with her newly found help,
Wichser faces odds greater than
those she fought with her husband.
But her taste for the land has not
turned bitter.
"My husband was a very upbeat
person," Wichser said, "He would
have said, 'Okay, kiddo. My father
saved your life. Now don't screw
up.' I couldn't lose him and all he'd
been working for all at one time.
"The last thing I would want to
do is end up hating the river.
That's what made us come out
here, what made us want to live in
the country," she said. "What killed
my husband is not the river you
see now. The river that took him
came from the outside. It came in
the night."
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Winchester