Still Growing at 91 ? Windsor Teacher Celebrates 65 Years of Organic Farming

By Sue Publicover

Photo: Margret Michniewicz

Farming is a physically demanding job for even the hardiest individual, and organic farming imposes additional demands. For Marguerite Tewksbury, a 91-year-old farmer in Windsor, organic farming is still her life’s work, even though she rides a golf cart to the garden now.

“I think it’s my Irish peasant background,” says Marguerite, who was raised by her father and grandmother on a farm in Barnard. Her mother died of an infection when Marguerite was just three weeks old.

Marguerite has been farming an eight-acre plot of land in Windsor on the banks of the Connecticut River for 65 years. Although she has trouble walking, and her doctor says she has “worn out” her back, she is still committed to growing vegetables organically. She believes food is healthier and tastier without chemicals — and her long life is a testament to this belief. Her small farm stand has a loyal following, even though she has cut back her production. She still does most of the crop-tending herself, and leases several acres along the river to people who share her passion for organic gardening.

Marguerite has lived alone in the farmhouse since her husband, Olin, died 12 years ago. Her eldest daughter, Mary, lives up the road and comes by every day, “to read my newspaper,” says Marguerite.

“It wouldn’t do for us to live in the same house,” says Mary, a sentiment that her staunchly independent mother echoes. Mary, who retired from nursing in 1993 at the age of 62, is herself a great-grandmother.

Marguerite’s son, Ned, is a retired pilot living in Connecticut. Her youngest daughter, Pat, earned a master’s degree in math from Harvard University, which she attended on a scholarship. Pat died on St. Patrick’s Day in 2005, and the lingering pain of the loss is evident in Marguerite’s voice when she speaks of her.

Born and raised on a farm, Marguerite attended the one-room school next door. Her teacher for grades four through eight boarded at the farm.

“Much of what I know from books I learned in first through eighth grade,” says Marguerite, who went on to Castleton State College (CSC), then a two-year college for aspiring teachers. She graduated in 1934. She did not go into teaching; she married Olin Tewksbury soon after graduation. They purchased the house where she still resides, and gradually acquired the acreage surrounding the house.

“My husband made this place. When we came here, it wasn’t like this at all,” she says, referring to the farmland around the house. The beautifully cultivated fields were vacant land that housed government workers during World War II. “The government built houses, just thrown together. Fifty-four kids lived in that square at one time. After the war, the housing subsidy was cut back. When the government’s lease on the land ran out, they tore down the buildings and carted it all away.”

The Tewksburys nurtured the growth of the farm and a family. Marguerite had many visitors — “summer people from across the river, well-to-do, you know” — who spoke of organic gardening and the benefits of chemical-free produce. Sometime in the mid-1950’s, Marguerite was visited by Claire Salinger, the wife of reclusive author J.D. Salinger, who lived in nearby Cornish, New Hampshire.

“She told me, ‘My husband said I should make myself known to you’,” recalls Marguerite, adding that Salinger was a frequent visitor who enjoyed sitting on the porch and chatting with her husband for hours. “Their philosophies were the same, kind of negative, although their vocabularies were very different. My husband’s language was a shop worker’s, if you know what I mean.”

Claire told Marguerite about the benefits of organic farming, explaining that it was healthier and that the produce would taste better. Before long, Marguerite began receiving a subscription to an organic gardening magazine.

“I suspected it was from Claire,” she says. “I started reading it and we started practicing. It was a tough sell back then. People didn’t really believe in it. Now I probably sell about a ton of organic fertilizer every year.”

She has her soil tested and doesn’t use chemical fertilizers. She says this is one reason more farmers don’t choose the organic alternative. “It’s cheaper not to be organic. Organic fertilizer is more expensive and labor intensive because you can’t spray,” she explains. Marguerite still picks potato bugs off her plants by hand.

As her children grew, Marguerite revived her dream of teaching. She took a job as a substitute teacher in the Windsor school and continued her education, taking classes at her alma mater in Castleton at nights and during summers while also tending the farm. It took five years, but she earned her bachelor’s degree and graduated from CSC once again in 1964, 30 years after her first commencement.

“Going back to school to be a teacher was very important to me. Teaching school was the most gratifying experience for me. I love it when one of my former students comes up to me and says, ‘Remember when I won the flower contest?’” recalls Marguerite, who retired from teaching fourth grade in 1984 after 20 years in the same elementary school.

As Olin grew incapacitated by bipolar disorder, Marguerite juggled farm chores, teaching, and caring for her ailing husband, noting that she overlooked a lot of the mood swings and tempers. “I just did it one day at a time,” she says, but after 15 years, she had to move him to a nursing home.

The Tewksburys’ longtime friend, “Jerry” Salinger still lives just across the river and visits occasionally, although his health is failing, and, she says “He’s so deaf you have to yell.” Marguerite is an avid reader and a longtime library volunteer. As tempting as it might be to chat with Salinger about his books, she says it’s a taboo subject, but adds that when she studied The Catcher in the Rye in college, “That darn professor could see things in the book that I don’t think Salinger ever saw.”

In the 1990’s, Salinger’s son, Matt, from California, was vacationing in Quechee with his two young sons. One of the boys wanted to pick corn from the fields he saw, but Matt told him, “You can’t just pick someone’s corn.” Recalling his childhood visits to the Tewksbury Farm, he took his sons there to let them experience farming first hand with someone who shared the family’s respect for organic practices.

Customers still flock to Tewksbury’s Organic Farm on Bridge Street in Windsor. Marguerite will let you pick your own produce, though she is spry enough to help you, if you wish. She has slowed down a bit, she admits, but she still goes out to her garden every morning, before the sun gets too hot.

“My spirit hasn’t given up, but sometimes it’s an uphill fight,” quips Marguerite, who will turn 92 in May.

Sue Publicover is a writer and marketing consultant for Tree Frog Studio in Castleton.