Donmoyer family receives Century Farm award for 129-year-old operation

Since at least the 1890s, the Donmoyer farm along Old Route 22 (Jonestown Road) and near (new) U.S. Route 22 in Harpers has witnessed many changes. 

But one thing that’s been constant is the spirit of family that prevails on the property now owned by John Donmoyer. LebTown visited the recently recognized Century Farm and several generations of the Donmoyer family to discuss the farm’s legacy. 

The Century Farm award was presented by the Lebanon Valley Chamber of Commerce at its morning breakfast meeting during this year’s Lebanon Area Fair.

Mildred Donmoyer, John’s grandmother, said work and family were always a hallmark of life on the farm over the years. 

“The only thing you did then was do the farm work, and on Sunday morning got ready and went to church and back home again,” Mildred said. “There wasn’t a lot going on besides families would get together and we’d have picnics practically every Sunday, we’d be together on a picnic.”

Fred Donmoyer, John’s grandfather, remembers his brother Dick Donmoyer’s wedding to Evelyn K. Kreiser – John’s uncle and aunt – being held on the farm with some special guests in attendance. Now deceased, Dick’s obituary says he retired from the dairy business that he operated on the Century Farm in 1989.

“I know the cows came to the wedding. They got married right here in the middle of the yard and they brought two cows up,” Fred said about the wedding.

Then there’s the legacy of the farm itself and its familial ties between the Donmoyers and the Emrichs, who are related through marriage. That’s an interesting development because pre-1900 paperwork reveals some data about the two farms that are adjacent to each other in East Hanover Township.  

Megan Donmoyer, John’s wife, said Dolly Martin brought over paperwork dated 1890. Curtis Martin said his wife loves to do archival research and found paperwork that revealed some interesting information about those two farm establishments. The research is conducted on behalf of the chamber’s Farm/City Committee, which is charged with recognizing farms that have been in the same family for at least 100 years. 

“A lady brought over some interesting documents that were from like a farm sale from like 1890, and this was the original farmhouse. They call this farm one. And then the Emich’s farm was actually farm two. So they said they call this the old homestead,” said Megan. “I’m guessing that these were all one (farm) at one time.”

The Emrich farm sits next to John’s farm along old Jonestown Road, just off of Route 934 near Harper’s Tavern. While Fred never lived on the Century Farm, he does have fond family memories of time spent there with his brother John D. and John, the current owner. John’s father is Barry Donmoyer, who was the son of Fred and Mildred Donmoyer.

“When we put hay away, it was that hot. We took the thermometer along to the top of the barn and we went in and ate dinner. When we came out, we blew the thermometer up. It was that hot,” Fred said. “I mean, that’s something I’ll never forget.”

John said his farm has 116.3 acres, of which 85 are tillable. He grows a variety of crops on that property, as well as on other land that he rents. 

He also runs a custom combine operation from his farm and owns a tractor trailer to haul his equipment and what he called other agricultural commodities. He estimates that he harvests annually around 2,000 acres of his own land and through his custom cropping operation.

“With the custom combining, I needed a truck to haul the grain away,” John said. “And I had to put it on the (Department of Transportation) side so I was legal.”

He currently rents his farm buildings for a milking operation owned by his cousins. On the farm are about 200 milking and 150 replacement Holstein and Lineback cows. Prior to that, an uncle and aunt used to run the milking business prior to her death.

“I don’t like milking cows,” John says, matter-of-factly. “Well, I used to rent it to my Uncle Bob and my Aunt Sherry, but she died from COVID.  She would have been my dad’s sister. Uncle Bob got remarried and moved to western PA. And then my cousin took over. Now she milks the cows. Well, all my cousins, they’re all here doing it pretty much.”

While John dislikes milking cattle, he does like running farm machinery, which he learned to operate at a young age.

“I remember when I was starting to drive a tractor and a skid loader. I remember when I first drove the skid loader, we had calf hutches and you got to bring a skid loader and fork the calf hutches out into the bucket and then you dumped it in the spreader,” John, a 2007 Northern Lebanon High School graduate, said.

Megan has lived on the farm since 2018. She has her own memories of the farm over the years. 

“Milking with John’s dad, and you know, that’s just a good memory of his place,” Megan said. “I did not know anything about it (milking), no.”

If the farm could speak, it would tell of changes that occurred to it over the years. The most obvious are the multiple highway infrastructure construction projects that were made over the years.

“A lot of roads went through it. This here was the main road (old Route 22 or Jonestown Road) at one time,” said John, pointing to a patch of grass right in front of the house. “And then they … put new 22 in.” 

Today, Jonestown Road sits further away from the farmhouse, so it would have been moved after being first constructed literally in the farm’s front yard. Mildred said she believes it was 1942 or 1943 when the newer four-lane Route 22 was built in that area. An internet search reveals that highway construction began in 1926.

“It was in 1942 or ’43. I would have gone to first grade that year,” said Mildred, who grew up near the current Donmoyer residence. “And my mother said she remembers when they built this 22 down here.”

Another change to the farm that will occur by December is the farm’s entry into the Army Compatible Use Buffer (ACUB) preservation program. The farm is only a few miles from Fort Indiantown Gap, and ACUB provides preservation funding to prevent housing developments and other tall buildings from cropping up near installations where military planes are flown for training purposes.

Read More: Turbine project near Fort Indiantown Gap grounded by ACUB

John and Megan are happy to be preserving their farm so that the land remains in agriculture in perpetuity. A potential bonus is if their daughters Ida and Hazel were to decide to become farmers themselves when they are older.

“It’s a good feeling to have. You know it’s going to stay in farming, and you know your kids have the opportunity to farm it,” John said. “You can keep it passing on to the next generation, and know that it’s going to be farmed.”

As far as the two daughters, Ida already has an interest in dairy production. She entered a Brown Swiss cow in the Lebanon Area Fair this year and won a Junior Champion award. Hazel said she’s still undecided if she’ll join 4-H when she turns 8.

“I like milking,” said Ida, who is 9 now but competed in her first year in the county’s 4-H program as an 8-year-old. “I’ve only been to that one place (to milk), but it’s fun.”

With the farm being preserved soon and family interest in continuing the 129-year-old legacy, the Century Farm is well on its way to celebrating its bicentennial birthday.