Longtime Five Mile Gardener Bidding Farewell Gladys White Will Leave Her Garden, Chickens And Her Home Of 55 Years And Move In With A Son In Michigan

First the peas go in, then the beets, Swiss chard, carrots and maybe a row or so of early potatoes.

Each year as the snow melts and the ground warms, Gladys White begins planting her garden - just as she has for a half-century on Five Mile Prairie.

“Oh, look! I raise weeds, too!” says the 86-year-old gardener, bending down quickly to yank the invader.

“Ugh, pigweed,” she says holding up the fat, pink root.

In May, White adds corn, beans, onions and some more potatoes to the garden.

The produce is plentiful. Ears of corn with sweet, even kernels are thick on the stalks. The chard threatens to take over an entire corner.

White, on her hands and knees, digs her fingers into the sandy soil around the roots of a leafy plant and quickly comes up with five red potatoes.

She stores some in her cellar, sells more to her neighbors and donates the rest to community groups.

“I raise this garden so somebody gets some use out of it,” she says. White seldom waters the plants, yet they grow thick and lush.

“Dry land farming,” she explains. “I just cultivate and keep it mulched.”

The only crops that receive an occasional watering are a small patch of tomatoes, raspberries and cucumbers.

Neighbors watch in wonder at the slender grandma riding her small tractor each day, tilling the soil between the rows of vegetables.

They watch with amazement, and a little concern, when they see her scurrying up and down the ladder to the loft above her chicken barn.

She pooh-poohs their fears.

“I’ve been climbing on things ever since I was a little girl,” she says, leaping lightly from the last rung of the ladder.

She has about 60 chickens to feed and care for. White uses the chicken manure to fertilize her garden. She collects the fresh brown eggs each day.

Neighbor Levonia Watkins strolls over from her new house in a subdivision across from White’s place. She holds out a handful of change and asks for two-dozen eggs.

White scurries into a shed and returns with two filled cartons.

Watkins loves the exchange.

“I chose my house because of the view of the chicken barn,” she says. “The scariest thing is watching Gladys going up and down that ladder to the loft.

But Watkins can’t help being impressed by the energetic gardener.

“She is such a strong and beautiful person,” she says.

White tells about a mean heifer she raised years ago that used to roam the pasture where Watkins’ house now stands.

The prairie has changed but White and her garden are a constant.

An old green cap covers a cloud of curled white hair, shielding her face from the late-afternoon sun.

White moved to the prairie with her husband in 1942, leasing the tiny 1890 house on 11 acres for $15 a month.

She remembers the birth of her daughter in June 1946.

“It was the same time the peas were ready. I couldn’t get them canned,” she says, recalling the busy summer.

The couple had four children - three boys and a girl.

Her husband worked at Kaiser Aluminum, among the hot fires and melted metal. White was an elementary school teacher before she had children, and after they were grown.

Five Mile Prairie was an island of farms and ranches. Houses were spaced far from their neighbors. The McKelveys were their nearest neighbors.

Her son Cleon, his white-blond hair flying, would dash across the fields to play with his pal Jimmy McKelvey next door.

When White strolled down to Five Mile Road to collect her mail from the box, her children would tag along, stopping to look and giggle at the pigs kept by a nearby farmer.

The family moved away for 13 years, then returned to the same house.

They added on to the cozy home, making room for the growing family. Her husband Ben did most of the work himself.

White points to the rows of rustic kitchen cabinets.

“He built those for me,” she says, then smiles. “He wasn’t a finish carpenter, but he built solid.”

This fall, when the last crops are harvested, White will leave the prairie. She’ll go live with “the white-haired boy,” her 56-year-old son in Michigan.

Cleon visits his mom and the prairie where he grew up three or four times a year.

“Growing up on that farm was a good teacher for me,” he says.

“He’s been begging and begging me to come live with him,” says White. Finally she’s giving in.

Her son is thrilled but also a little worried.

“It scares me a little, wondering what in the heck I’m going to do to keep her busy,” he says.

Her house and the last few acres are for sale.

The surrounding landscape has changed since White first came to the prairie. Houses have sprouted where cows once grazed.

“I don’t like it; it’s like living in town,” she says, then adds that she enjoys the neighbors. “The people are nice enough.”

As her visitors leave, they thank her.

“You’re as welcome as flowers in May,” she answers gently.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo