An era comes to a close in Alstead
By Steve Gilbert, The Keene Sentinel, N.H. | |
McClatchy-Tribune Information Services |
The greenhouses are dormant this spring, devoid of the sweet-smelling pansies, petunias and pies -- plus a host of other organic goods -- that attracted customers far and near.
Instead, the garden hoses and extension cords are coiled, tossed on thigh-high shelves where hundreds of plants used to grow. Empty plant pots, in all shapes and sizes, are stacked nearby. The warm greenhouses that once sprouted a kaleidoscope of colors and aromas now more closely resemble deserted warehouses.
Still, the calls come. Still, the cars stop.
"Just yesterday I had somebody calling for plants," the congenial Breshears says. "That's happened a lot. They're surprised to learn we're no longer in business."
Breshears, 80, doesn't mind the calls. And he likes company. He keeps music on all the time in his house across the street to counter the silence. It's been more than a year since his wife died.
It's all for sale -- house, land, greenhouses -- and Breshears is leaning toward moving to
He has a strong family support system and recently returned from a trip to his home state of
The farm stand on
Socializing was as much fun as selling, whether it was kibitzing with a neighbor down the road or an out-of-town visitor they met for the first time.
Every morning Ginny would cram her two ovens with fried doughnuts and homemade pies, while Truman rose with the sun and tended the plants. Every evening closing time was determined not by a clock, but when the last customer departed, and even then they'd open the front door if a straggler showed up.
Customers raved.
"Virginia's personality is so warm and giving and her husband is also hard-working. I met her when they first opened the farm stand, which at the time was just a little teeny thing. We get along like a house afire."
Neighbor
He picked cotton in
"I knew how to garden outside, but in the greenhouse it's different," he says. "How much water, how much fertilizer to use, it's not the same. You eventually learn some plants like a lot of water, some like a little, and you just learn as you go. I don't know what we did right, but we grew very healthy plants."
Truman and Ginny fell in love as teenagers in the
They married a year later, still teenagers. They lived in his hometown of
Everything changed in
"It's changed all of our lives, that's for sure," Truman says.
He opened the greenhouses last year, but his heart wasn't in it without Ginny.
By the end of the season he put up a "help yourself" sign and trusted customers to pay through the honor system. He tears up talking about her, watching out the kitchen window at the cardinals and hummingbirds that gather around the birdfeeders, another interest they shared.
"It was just a tough time for me," he says.
Breshears has had to bounce back throughout life. His mother died when he was 4 years old, and an 8-year-old grandson, Skylar, was killed in a tractor accident.
And money was always an issue.
He grew up on a cotton farm in
"He kept screaming at us, 'I have never seen such a crummy bunch of guys come into the service in all my life!' " Breshears says, smiling. "Pretty scary for a young kid from
His next stop was the polar opposite of
After the service, the couple moved back and forth between South and North a few times, and Breshears tried on a variety of jobs. He jokes he didn't know a nut from a bolt, but got hired in the parts department of an auto dealership and stayed in the business for 24 years, working his way up.
They lived in
While the greenhouses were the main profit arm of the farm, the couple dabbled in all sorts of homestyle products, from Ginny's famous homemade doughnuts and pies to selling fresh eggs and even honey supplied by a nearby beekeeper. In December, they sold Christmas trees.
They got lucky in 2005. The farm stand closed for the season
While they lost two greenhouses, some potting soil and oil tanks, the water only got into the basement of the house; it could have been much worse.
Now that Ginny is gone, Breshears hopes the property sells soon. A young couple is interested, he says, and he hopes it works out because he'd love to see the business reinvigorated. Meanwhile, he carries on as best as he can.
"It'll never be the same, of course," he says. "But you have to keep moving forward, and that's what I try to do."
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(c)2014 The Keene Sentinel (Keene, N.H.)
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