CHARLOTTESVILLE — For true farmers, agriculture is fundamental to their character, according to Doug Addison.
“To really farm, it’s in your blood,” he said.
It’s been in his family on the same Hancock County farm for more than 110 years now, garnering a Centennial Hoosier Homestead Award.
The 155-acre corn and soybean farm is about a mile west of Charlottesville and about a mile north of U.S. 40.
In its former days, like most farms, it grew other crops like wheat, oats and hay, Addison said, adding it also raised milk cows, beef cattle and hogs.
His grandfather, Walter Daniel Addison, bought the farm in 1906 at around age 25 and lived there from then on.
Walter was part of a family history of using the initials “WD” in naming descendants, as his son and Doug’s father was William David and Doug’s oldest brother is Wayne Dwight.
When it came time for Doug to name his children, he did not carry on the tradition, but it wasn’t on purpose.
“I just didn’t think about it when my kids were little,” he said with a laugh.
It was but a brief pause. Doug’s son, Jeff, continued the line of WDs twofold by naming his children Willow Dean and Walker Douglas.
Doug worked the family farm from about 1974 to about 1985 and then rented out the ground before Jeff came of age and took it over. Jeff also married into a farming family, growing his agricultural responsibilities.
Jeff marks at least the fourth generation to farm the Addison family’s ground, and Doug helps him out in his spare time.
“I get the joys of farming without the aggravations,” Doug said. “I just get to run equipment and enjoy it.”
Doug said he was proud when his son took over the family farm.
“And we know his grandpa would’ve been very, very proud, because my son and my dad — his grandpa — were really close.”
Doug remembers the challenges of running a family farm well.
“Unless you farm a whole lot of ground, you have to have another job,” he said. “You just can’t survive being a small farmer anymore. I wish it was so, but it’s not.”
When his grandfather farmed, his 160 acres along with the nearby 50-acre farm his wife inherited was considered quite a spread.
“In his day, he was a pretty good-sized farmer,” Doug said.
Doug said he was proud to receive the Indiana State Department of Agriculture’s recognition of his family’s century of farming.
“And we know that our dad would’ve been very, very proud,” he added.
He recalled how his father would often remind him of the importance of farmland.
“’This is all there is and they’re not making any more of it,’” he remembered his father telling him.
It still rings true today, Doug said.
“I see it going away all the time, and it kills me,” he said.
He’s hopeful for his family farm’s future.
“I like to think that our family corporation will stay together and my son will keep farming and maybe down the road, maybe his son will farm too,” Doug said. “But I don’t know; those are things we don’t know.”
The Addisons joined the Troys as the two Hancock County families to recently receive Centennial Hoosier Homestead awards from the state’s department of agriculture. (The Troy family farm was featured last week in a story in the Daily Reporter.)
The state presented 96 Hoosier Homestead Awards earlier this month, setting a new record in the program’s 40-year history, according to an news release.
A farm has to be kept in a family “for at least 100 consecutive years and consist of more than 20 acres or produce more than $1,000 in agricultural products per year” to be named a Hoosier Homestead, the release states.
Families can receive Centennial Awards for 100 years, Sesquicentennial Awards for 150 years or Bicentennial Awards for 200 years of ownership.
