DUMMERSTON-"I called her the Gilly Filly of Vermont," says Bill Schmidt, who is speaking about his wife Mary Lou and their farm, Elysian Hills. And with good reason.
Mary Lou Schmidt died in 2021 at the age of 94. She and Bill spent 40 years together at the farm, which produced thousands of Christmas memories for the hundreds of folks who purchased their trees.
The Schmidts also were responsible for the revitalization of the Gilfeather turnip, named the Vermont state vegetable in 2016, among their other important agricultural landmarks.
On Sunday, Oct. 20, from 2 to 4 p.m., at the Dummerston Historical Society's schoolhouse museum in Dummerston Center, Bill Schmidt will present a love story - one full of resilience and showmanship, and one that chronicles what happens when two creative people unleash their energy on building a meaningful farm experience for many.
Elysian Hills, on Knapp Road, was founded in 1818 (according to one archival news account) at a time when 150 or more hill farms dotted the small town.
It was known as the Knapp Farm until 1959, when Mary Lou and her then-husband Leigh purchased it and transformed it into the Tamarlei Morgan horse farm, complete with Vermont's first indoor riding arena, an expansive tack shop, and an expanded barn that housed 34 horses at its peak.
The farm's name was later changed to Elysian Hills, in reference to Greek mythology meaning "heaven" or "paradise."
When Mary Lou Morrell married Bill Schmidt in 1975, Elysian Hills Farm reinvented itself many times over.
She grew up on a dairy farm in Pennsylvania and "drove her first tractor when she was only 11 years old," says Schmidt, a big smile spanning his face.
When the two married, they spent some time figuring out what they would like to do with the farm. Answers came quickly.
Scotch pines - 1,500 of them a year
"Mary Lou and I got married by Justice of the Peace Clifford Emery, who served as town road commissioner at the time," remembers Schmidt. "He gave us a thimbleful of Gilfeather turnip seed. But I'm getting ahead of my story."
Mary Lou had planted Scotch pine trees as a wind break. By 1979, they were tall enough to sell.
"They weren't very nice looking trees, as they weren't sheared or shaved, but we put them on the fence and had a number of friends who bought them," says Schmidt.
This inspired the pair to plant more.
"It takes a tree 10 to 12 years to grow to be salable. By the mid-'80s, we had planted Scotch pine, balsam pine, blue spruce, and white pine. They were beautiful trees. Some folks drove all the way from Rutland just to buy our white pine," remembers Schmidt.
Trees were sold in many different ways. In October, the couple invited the public to come tag their tree.
"Tag days were a lot of fun," says Schmidt. "We had llamas, clowns, made hot apple cider, and always had doughnuts and pretzels to enjoy. I gave wagon rides, which I loved doing with all the families who joined us. I would drive around the field and stop to tell stories about how the trees needed to be shaped to make them look natural.
"When I got to the top of the hill with a great view, I'd tell the crowd about land conservation. You can see all the way to the Thurber Farm in West Brattleboro from the top of the hill. They are land conservators, too."
Come December, Schmidt would cut each tree and place it out behind the barn on the weekend chosen by each family, ordering the trees alphabetically. Trees were also sold wholesale to other vendors and delivered by mail order across the country. Some of the trees were also sold as fundraisers for local schools and churches.
"A Balsam compresses nicely and, for about $75, could be shipped to Florida in a 7-foot-square box," says Schmidt. "If they had bought a real tree in Florida, it would have been much more expensive and likely a very dry tree. Ours shipped fresh and arrived within days."
The couple also made about 400 feet of garland each year, and countless wreaths and greenery that they also sold locally. At the peak of their success, the farm sold around 1,500 trees per year.
Mary Lou, "a beautiful and strong person in many ways," Bill says, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1978, just three years after we were married."
The disease progressed slowly, but it did progress. "By the 1990s, she was also diagnosed with scoliosis. She used a walker for the last 27 years of her life, and the last three in a wheelchair," says Schmidt with sadness, "but that didn't stop her from enjoying the farm all those years."
She mowed the tree lots until the age of 87.
"We have a lot of friends who helped us with the trees for which they earned a tree of their own or a wreath of their choice," remembers Schmidt.
'But the flavor!'
But what about those turnip seeds?
John Gilfeather, who lived in Wardsboro, grew his eponymous turnip, and he was very protective of the seed, how he grew it, and where it came from.
Each fall, he would bring deliveries of the vegetable by wagon to Brattleboro, Bill Schmidt says. "His was such a secret, he would cut off the leaves and the bottom of the turnip so that no one could seed it," he notes.
Gilfeather, who died in 1944, transferred seeds to only a few people. Schmidt recalls how Cliff Emery "happened upon some seed and we planted it."
Not turnip lovers at that time, the Schmidts didn't plant the gifted seeds in their own garden until 1976.
"It's kind of a knobby, homely vegetable. But the flavor! Once you cook it, or even eat it raw with dip in strips, it's sweet, kind of delicate tasting. It's a great turnip to eat," says Schmidt.
The Gilfeather turnip is a biennial, which means the seed comes the second year. Once the Schmidts started collecting seed, they began to wonder how many people knew about the regionally obscure root vegetable. They put some seeds in little brown envelopes and brought them to Agway.
"In a wee moment, they were gone," said Schmidt, who realized the potential of raising the turnips.
Local gardener Gordon Hayward, a stringer for Horticulture magazine, which had at the time more than 100,000 subscribers, wrote an article for the magazine after playing detective to discover the turnip's backstory. The article appeared in the November 1981 issue.
"He had a photographer come and take some magnificent photos, and the article came out," Schmidt recalls, "and in came 2,000 orders for seed from every state in the country, except South Dakota!"
By 1980, the couple brought the tuber to a researcher at the University of Vermont who discovered that genetically "it is a turnip with rutabaga characteristics."
The U.S. Department of Agriculture agreed that it is a turnip and sent some of the seeds to their national center for genetic preservation in Fort Collins, Colorado. A few years later, the Vermont State Legislature passed an heirloom law protecting the Gilfeather turnip.
"There were articles about it in Vermont Life, The Boston Globe, The Christian Science Monitor, and in garden club's newsletters, Agway magazine - so many places," says an astonished Schmidt.
"We trademarked the name Gilfeather and gave it a Vermont identity. That name can only apply to the Gilfeather itself," he added.
As they grew older, the couple bowed out of the turnip business and sold the rights to Paul and Wendy Dutton of Dutton Berry Farm in Brookline.
"They were the perfect couple to buy it. We returned the Gilfeather to its West River Valley roots," says Schmidt, who notes that the Duttons "grow it, sell it, and also continue to sell the seed."
The town of Wardsboro continues to celebrate the turnip's namesake at the Gilfeather Turnip Festival, held every year in October.
In 2015, the schoolchildren of Wardsboro testified to the House Committee on Agriculture and Forest Products in favor of a bill, co-sponsored by Rep. Laura Sibilia, I-Dover, to name the Gilfeather turnip the state vegetable.
On May 24, 2016, Schmidt recalls, "former Gov. Peter Shumlin invited the schoolkids, Mary Lou, and me to come for the signing ceremony in Montpelier. After some words, he took up two pens after he signed the bill into law. One pen went to the schoolkids, and one pen went to Mary Lou and me."
"That's when I nicknamed her the 'Gilly Filly of Vermont,'" Schmidt says, laughing.
There's more to this love story of farming, a joyous marriage, and the way a Vermont farm adapts to its owners. And Schmidt is looking forward to showing his photographs and telling more tales of wholesome farm living at his talk.
"When I put together this presentation, what became very clear to me was the extent to which Mary Lou and I working together really did provide the glue and the love in our relationship," he says.
"Working that closely together for 40 years really created a foundation for our relationship," Schmidt observes. "We had a beautiful second act."
This News item by Fran Lynggaard Hansen was written for The Commons.