Down on the Farm: One American Family’s Dream brings the mid-1960s back to life as Sue Glasco tells the story of their young family striving to establish itself as “dirt farmers” in mid-America.

Sue married Gerald Glasco, a Southern Illinois University agriculture graduate, whose dream of farming matched her own. The Glascos wanted to believe that dreams could come true in America through hard work and determination. The family set out to prove it, and Sue wrote about it in a weekly newspaper column begun under the title “Just a Housewife” in central Illinois and changing to “A Widening Circle” when she began part-time employment as a speech teacher at Marion High School.

Adults who were reared in the 1960s and the parents who reared them will enjoy this book’s trip down memory lane to the way life was. Today’s young families will be fascinated by the changes in culture and child rearing practices in forty years. However, the adventures, mischief, and innocent humor of young children will, nevertheless, allow them to relate to this farm family.

Down on the Farm, a compilation of columns from 1962-66, will bring not only lumps in the throat but also laughter. The family struggles against the odds that caused naysayers to counsel them that young families couldn’t successfully farm unless they inherited farm land from parents.  They had good times as well as bad while they struggled and proved the naysayers wrong.  Yet they were glad they had been warned how difficult it might be. 

The couple bought a hog farm in Williamson County in partnership with Gerald’s brother and wife Keith and Barbara Glasco. Both families first moved into farm houses without indoor bathrooms, and they experienced not just the inconveniences of such rural housing and tight budgets, but also the fears brought on by droughts, too much rain, hog diseases, corn blight and other such agricultural disasters. Readers will become a part of the family’s effort to see if they can make their dreams come true.

Divided into short segments, the book makes for quick pick up and read-it-on-the-run while waiting in the car for the kids to finish piano lessons or soccer practice,

Published by PublishAmerica, the book can be purchased on their website or at Amazon.com or other online book services.

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