As the city came closer, Buckwalters left Pennsylvania for Minnesota

Dick and Marty Buckwalter grew up in the Lancaster, Pennsylvania area. They met when they were in fourth grade as they were in the same 4-H club but they attended different schools. Dick grew up with three sisters and Marty with two brothers.
The original Buckwalter homestead was chartered in 1803 and he still has a cousin on the farm who is the eighth generation of his family to live there. The farm Dick’s father owned was 60 acres so they would raise beef and hogs, plus his father also worked in town.
Richard Buckwalter and Martha Fisher were married in October,1969. Dick laughed when he mentioned he made a great choice to marry an “older woman,” as Marty is a month older than he is.
They farmed his parents farm for seven years on a crop share basis. Because their area was being encroached on by the city, they started looking to move to the Midwest, especially considering Iowa but also southeast Minnesota since they knew several families that had moved to these areas. In 1977 this young couple was ready to take a big “leap of faith” and purchased two farms northeast of Mantorville with 310 acres.
They hired a semi to move their machinery, bringing his 100 HP tractor, a plow and some tillage equipment. They had the same semi driver return to bring their household items and so the family with their two sons, ages five and three, came to Minnesota.
They said the folks they bought their farms from, plus the neighbors, were very helpful in pointing out where the best places would be for purchasing machinery and supplies plus places to repair equipment that needed to be fixed such as the Wilkes Repair shop in Kasson.
One of the early visitors to the farm was Pastor Curtis Johnson, long time minister at St John’s Lutheran Church in Kasson, who invited them to come to the church and they now have been long time members.
When their boys started attending the KM schools, they started to meet people at school activities which also helped them become part of the community.
Since they had a history of livestock production, the Buckwalter’s marketed 500 hogs and 300 cattle yearly during the 1980’s and 90’s. They phased out of livestock as the buildings were getting old and they did not want to replace them.
Their son Andy joined the farming operation in 1994 after college at South Dakota State and Pat worked other jobs after college but returned in 2001. In 2006 their operation became Buckwalter Farms with Dick, Andy and Pat as the owners.
They now operate about 2,300 acres of owned and rented land growing corn and beans. Dick said they have three people help them during the busy harvest season and their daughters-in-law also help when they can fit in time with their full time jobs.
Dick was on the board of Farm Credit Services (which has become Compeer Financial) for 12 years plus has been on the Corn Growers Association board. Both Dick and Marty were 4-H club leaders and Dick enjoyed working with the Dodge County 4-H General Livestock Judging team.
He was very involved with livestock judging when he was a member of successful judging teams during his 4-H club days in Pennsylvania. Marty was on the Dodge County Extension Committee for several years and has been involved with the women’s group activities at St. John’s church for many years.
Since St. John’s Lutheran has held its annual Lutefisk supper for the last 60 years (except for 2020) when Marty received the committee letter for the first time asking them to bring six dozen Norwegian baked items for the supper she had no idea what that would be. She asked others what to make so she tried making rosettes (they are tough to make).  Since the supper falls during the busy harvest time Marty later said, “how about I just make a money contribution instead.” 
Dick said they are always busy harvesting when the October Lutefisk supper is held but he thought since he liked fish he should really try it sometime. They went to a restaurant in Rochester that was serving Lutefisk and Dick finished eating the fish but it was certainly not his favorite dining experience and Marty stayed with the meatballs!
When asked some of the differences they noticed when they moved to Minnesota, Dick said their first Thanksgiving living here in 1977, the temperature was eight below with eight inches of snow on the ground. Even though they had their crops harvested by that time, they thought “is this going to be the way it is each year?”
They also notice that the winters in Pennsylvania are milder and also had more time with the season changes in the spring but Minnesota winter can set in quickly in the fall.
In 2001 Marty flew to her home area in Pennsylvania as her father became very ill and was in hospice for eight days and died on Sept. 4. Dick, with their sons and spouses, drove out for the funeral on Sept. 7 and then returned back to Minnesota while Marty said she needed to stay to wrap things up on Sept. 10 but would return on Sept 11.
Her flight left from the Harrisburg, PA airport on Sept. 11, but while they were in the air the plane was ordered to go to the closest airport, because of terrorist activities, so it landed in Canton, Ohio. They had no idea what was going on, she said, until they saw the news coverage on TV in the terminal with the Twin Towers in New York coming down.
She did not have a cell phone but was finally able to contact Dick to tell him that she was OK and where she was located. He offered to drive to Canton but since the airlines did not know when they might be able to fly again, Marty said she had better stay. She was able to find a room at a nearby hotel staying with another lady. She said the airlines were very helpful taking care of the passengers such as getting them things they needed such as medications, etc.
Some passengers were able to catch rides with truckers heading to locations in the area they were planning to go. Even though car rentals were in short supply, the woman she was staying with at the hotel was finally able to rent a car, after being there three days. She was traveling to Colorado so Marty was able to ride along to Iowa City. She contacted Dick to tell him the location where she was going to be dropped off so Dick drove there to pick Marty up to return home!
Dick and Marty built a new house and moved to Kasson in 2015. This was a change for Dick but he has become more accustomed to the move especially since he has turned most of the farming operation over to their sons.
Dick said he really enjoys deer and turkey hunting plus fishing. They used to go fishing to Canada for a week each year but now enjoys going to their cabin in Wisconsin and claims there is a big fish in a nearby lake that has his name on it.
He said he thought he would never consider going ice fishing, but now enjoys that winter activity when he gets the chance. Both Dick and Marty are also avid readers.
Marty loves to garden, is a bird watcher plus enjoys going for walks on the trails and streets in the neighborhood. She makes an effort to reach out to meet and talk with others in our community especially those that may be feeling alone.
Marty is really busy making meals during the spring planting season and also for six weeks during the fall harvest season for her guys when they are busy in the field. She said she tries to make “healthy food choices” and makes a hot meal at noon for them and packs lunches for eating later so they do not need to take off a lot of time to eat.
It’s much easier for her to find what fields they are working on now connecting with cell phones as she used to have to drive around trying to find them using a radio communication system which sometimes turned into the “old telephone party line” with the neighbors.
The Buckwalter’s said each New Year they eat a meal of pork and sauerkraut plus mashed potatoes as this is a German tradition of a “lucky meal” that is enjoyed with Andy and Patrick, their spouses and their their grandsons. The meal is to bring good luck to the family during the coming year.
This tradition, along with plenty of hard work, has worked well for the Buckwalter family and the Kasson Mantorville community has also been very fortunate when they made the choice to move to the area.