Oct. 22--An outing for residents of a Bartlett assisted living center was a special one for retired farmer Grace Heinrich, who for many years raised tomatoes and other vegetables on a 40-acre farm along Shoe Factory Road in Elgin.
The 91-year-old Heinrich, who uses a wheelchair, was helped aboard a tractor Wednesday at a small horse farm in Winfield. She surveyed her surroundings alongside family and friends on an unseasonably warm day, and smiled.
"John Deere was our tractor of choice," said Heinrich, who turns 92 on Halloween.
The outing was arranged for Heinrich, who has dementia and Parkinson's disease, as a wish granted by Victory Centre.
Heinrich's room at the Bartlett facility is decorated with pictures of John Deere tractors.
Nancy DiMenza noticed the pictures when she visited Victory Centre with her Newfoundland cart dogs during an animal therapy session with residents. DiMenza owns the horse farm with her husband, Winfield Fire Protection District Chief Philip DiMenza.
"Mom was always just as busy as dad. She was always right there with him working," said her daughter, Donna Piper, 62, of Elgin.
The buildings of the family farm remain, but the fields have been developed as townhomes, Piper said.
Heinrich's husband, Elmer, died in 2012. Their two daughters, Piper and Sue DeVries, 58, of Elmhurst, spent their early years on the farm and helped with chores.
"We drove the tractor, cut cabbage, hand-picked vegetables, helped with the planting," DeVries said. "On Saturdays Donna would clean house and I'd mow the lawn."
The girls would sell vegetables from a roadside stand in front of the farm. Tomatoes the family raised were sold to the Campbell Soup Company and delivered by truck to a processing center in Chicago.
"We worked on the farm as much as they did," Piper said of her parents. "We never got an allowance but if we wanted to go somewhere they'd give us money to go."
Farming was her father's passion, she said, and while her mother worked alongside her husband she had a passion for something other than farming.
"Mom liked to shop," Piper said. "She'd wait for a rainy day and then take us to the mall."
The Heinrich family lived on the Shoe Factory Road farm for several years but they didn't own the land, Piper said. The family later lived "in town" in Elgin for many years but continued to work the land where they previously lived, she said.
Julia Perez, 48, of South Elgin, also lived for a time on the Shoe Factory Road farm with her parents and three siblings. Her father, Pete, worked with Heinrich's late husband, Elmer. She remembers how Heinrich would meet her when she got off the school bus and walk her to her door.
"I would take lunch and cold water to Elmer and my dad working in the fields during summer vacation," she said.
Heinrich's daughters attribute her longevity to a healthy diet and exercise and "no drinking or smoking," Piper said. Perez agreed.
"They'd eat food right out of the field," Perez said. "Working out meant working in the field. There was no gym."
Freelance reporter Gary Gibula contributed.
Ted Slowik is a freelance reporter.
