John and Doris Cole, pictured in 1964, sit atop a tractor with their five children at their Hancock County farm. The children — Janet Sparks, Sharon Hunt, Judy Moore, Marcia Coley and Ron Cole — recently established an endowment and scholarship fund through the Community Foundaiton of Hancock County to honor thier parents’ farming legacy.
HANCOCK COUNTY — The faded snapshot of her siblings sitting and standing atop her dad’s tractor in 1964 still makes Sharon Hunt smile.
Four girls and one boy are gathered around their father, John Cole, grinning alongside his children and his wife, Doris, standing in the back of the brood.
Last month, the five siblings put the finishing touches on establishing two scholarship funds in their parents’ names through the Community Foundation of Hancock County.
The John & Doris Cole 4-H Scholarship and the John & Doris Cole Memorial Greenfield-Central Scholarship will now be lasting legacies in the community the couple called home.
Last spring, the siblings started discussing the possibility of starting an endowment to honor their parents’ legacy, which includes building a 1,400-acre grain and livestock farm from the ground up.
“We thought since we have some extra funds why let them sit there, and everyone was on board,” said Hunt, the second oldest of the family.
“All these years we had been putting the money back into the farm. That’s kind of what farmers do,” she said. “But since us siblings are now reaping the benefits of our parents’ hard work and we don’t have to have it, we figured why not (create an endowment fund), because our parents worked really really hard all those years to provide for us. It just felt like the right thing to do.”
Establishing the fund was a labor of love for the community foundation’s president, Mary Gibble, who has her own deep roots in the Hancock County farming community.
“This was an extra special opportunity for me because John and Doris Cole were the best of friends with my grandparents, Bob and Doris Scott, who were also a local farming family, and they too have been memorialized through a scholarship fund that my dad and his brothers set up,” she said.
Working with the Cole family “was really neat because my dad and his brothers grew up with (the Cole siblings), so we got to exchange a lot of really stories about our parents and how special they were and the contributions they made to the community, particularly through agriculture,” said Gibble.
Humble beginnings
John Cole grew up one of 19 siblings. He dropped out of school to start sharecropping at a young age, and married Doris in 1944.
Nine years later, he would acquire his first piece of land, which he would grow into a sprawling farm where he and his wife would raise their five kids.
Hunt said it was an idyllic childhood for her and her siblings, who all pitched in on the farm.
“It was a family affair with lots of good times,” said Hunt, who recalls many fun evenings playing with her sisters and brother in a pole barn while the adults played cards.
Since then, none of the siblings have strayed far from home. Marcia Coley lives in Cicero and Judy Moore lives in Shelbyville, while Hunt, Ron Cole and Janet Sparks live in Hancock County.
Hunt recalls her dad having a shrewd business sense despite not finishing high school.
“When ground became available he’d buy it for $150 an acre, and wherever anything new came available he’d buy it to increase the acreage we had,” she said.
Over time, he would help his two younger brothers — Ralph and Donald — get their start farming on parts of his land.
Cole was not only a respected farmer in Hancock County but a member of the Greenfield-Central School Board from 1964 to 1974 when his children were in school.
“It was very important to him that we all got an education because he did not finish school. He dropped out to farm,” recalled Hunt. As a board member “he was able to sign all our diplomas for each of us kids. That was special to him,” she said.
That’s why his children opted to create a scholarship fund dedicated to students at the Greenfield-Central schools in addition to one dedicated to local children involved with 4-H.
While none of the Coles’ children were in 4-H, all of their grandchildren were. Hunt recalled her dad would frequently help out neighboring kids with their 4-H electrical projects on the farm.
The Cole family looked forward to attending the Hancock County 4-H Fair each year. “It was a social gathering. You’d go meet the farmers and all that stuff,” Hunt said.
Lasting legacy
After John died in 1992 — followed by Doris in 2011 — their children worked together to maintain their family farm, which stretches over parts of Center and Jackson townships. Ron Cole took over as the primary operator for nearly three decades, but rented the land out to a younger farmer two years ago.
Hunt thinks her parents would be proud of their children for establishing a fund which ensures that their farming legacy lives on, benefiting local young people for generations to come.
“They did very well for themselves and left us with 1,400 acres, which is quite a feat after starting with nothing,” said Hunt. “I think they’d be proud of us for sharing what we inherited.”
She and her siblings learned the habit of helping others through their parents’ example.
“They were always willing to help their neighbor,” said Hunt, who recalls her dad sometimes postponing his farm work to help others with theirs, including the time another farmer got his hand stuck in a corn picker.
“Several people came out to help get the rest of (the injured farmer’s) crop in. It was a great time, when people generally cared and took care of each other,” said Hunt, who has lived on her own Greenfield farm with her husband, Philip, for the past 53 years.
She hopes her own children and grandchildren can learn from her parents’ example, to take pride in their work and in the agricultural community, and to always be willing to help a neighbor in need.
Hunt also hopes that they, like others in the community, consider investing funds through an organization like the community foundation whenever the time is right.
“I think it’s something that everyone ought to consider,” said Hunt, who drove a school bus for Greenfield-Central schools for 34 years. “It can do so much good for the community.”
Gibble commended the Cole family for taking the time and initiative to invest part of their parents’ legacy to benefit future generations in Hancock County.
“I think that just kind of exemplifies how special it is that a local community foundation is here to work with their friends and neighbors to create things like (these scholarship funds),” she said, “which make such an impact in the lives of others.”
For information on how to establish a fund through the Community Foundation of Hancock County, call 317-462-8870 or email [email protected].
