The Farm

     With only a mud road connecting his supply source at the Wabash Railroad station in Okolona to his 100 acres of forest and field, Johann Wilhelm Baden had all he needed to clear his wooded property into an arable farm.

     From the log cabin which he built, the sound of the nocturnal howls of prowling wolves gradually diminished as the woods of his lands receded more and more with his daily labors.  What had been Indian land only decades before now became a new farm and a new start for this young German immigrant.

     As this new life unfolded, the future of his family took shape.  Much later, with Johann's three older sons all having moved on to their own "new starts", it fell to his youngest son, Carl, to take charge of the farm upon 75-year-old Johann's death in 1916.

     This home opened the way for Carl to marry Erna Bostelman just two months later.  Over the next eleven years they would have five children: Donald, Harlin, Renetta, Lawrence, and Velma.

     Carl and Erna lived on the farm as late as 1970, ten years after Carl's retirement.  When the time came for the two to move into a Defiance rest home, the farm had been sold after having been family property for approximately a century.

     Carl's descendents retain special memories of this prosperous farm.  From his children, who grew up here, to his grandchildren, who visited here many times--playing in the old house at Christmastime or taking summertime strolls back by Barnes Creek--many will remember this farm as the place of their youth.