GOSHEN – Some 60 years of farm stand history came tumbling down April 19, as the Wheeler family demolished its fruit and vegetable stand on Route 47, in Goshen.
According to Sue Wheeler, who operated the stand with her husband and three daughters, the family sold corn, tomatoes and other vegetables grown across the street, on 107 acres of land they owned.
Wheeler’s brother-in-law would travel to Philadelphia to buy fruit, which they also sold at the stand. During the fall, u-pick pumpkins were grown, with wagon rides through the pumpkin patch.
“It’s good memories. A good piece of the past,” Wheeler said.
After her husband’s sudden death, at 43, in 1999, Wheeler said she and her family tried to continue the business for two years, but it was too much.
“My dad taught each of his girls one piece of how to run the farm,” Wheeler’s daughter, Jill Nichols, recalled, “so after he died, we all had to put our brains together to run the farm. Mom ran the market, my sisters and I learned irrigation, planting and plowing. It became too hard for us to keep it going, though.
“I remember Dad running the corn picker and filling a couple of wagons full of corn every day, and I would sit there and bag it,” she added. “Thirteen ears for $1.”
After the farm stand closed, the building was used by an oyster farmer, but never reopened to the public.
“It was becoming an eyesore,” Wheeler admitted. “It was sad to see the emptiness. Now, on to new beginnings.”
