-Farm News photo by Lori Berglund
Dave and Linda Pruisman stand in front of the barn at their northeast Hamilton County farm.

BLAIRSBURG — There’s no place that Dave and Linda Pruisman would rather call home than this historic farmstead set upon gently rolling hills in northeast Hamilton County.

Married in 2004, they are one of at least five couples who were either married onsite or hosted their receptions here after a church wedding.

Either way, it seems to be a farmstead where family is celebrated, and Linda Pruisman wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I would love to make this a wedding venue,” she said with a sheepish smile. “My husband doesn’t share the same passion.”

But they are definitely on the same page when it comes to preserving the historic nature of the farm’s centerpiece, the towering barn built in 1892 by Royal LeRoy and Anna Caroline Doolittle, the great-great-great-grandparents of Linda’s children, Anne Garvey, Joseph Doolittle, Kirsten Williams and Susie Smith. (No guarantees on the correct number of “greats” in that generational count.)

The farm was settled in 1883, less than 20 years after the Civil War. The barn, now more than 130 years old, looks remarkably well for its age. As a couple, Dave and Linda Pruisman combine her creative skills with his construction experience to preserve it for future generations.

“I told Dave, ‘We either have to do something or it was going to fall down,'” Linda recalled. “I didn’t want it to fall down.”

Linda moved on to the farm with her first husband, Royal Doolittle, in 1974. At that time, his parents, the late Don and Opal Doolittle, had already replaced the aging wooden roof with a metal one. Metal roofs, once shunned by historic preservationists, are now proving to be cost-effective ways to preserve barns for the future. Only in much more recent years have metal roofs become eligible for barn restoration grants.

Don and Opal Doolittle, who also raised their family here, are remembered fondly in the community for the work they did here and the farming tradition they instilled.

“They used the barn for cattle, hogs, and there was an elevator they used to load square bales into the haymow,” Pruisman recalled.

More recently, Dave and Linda Pruisman chose to renovate the exterior walls with new red siding.

“My goal this summer was to get it all cleaned out and have a big barn party in it,” Pruisman said. “That just didn’t happen.”

But that clean-up is still on the to-do list. Over the years, the barn has been home to an abundance of livestock. It is now largely empty, save for a few old bicycles, and lots of treasured memories.

The Pruismans opted to hire out the work of placing new metal siding on the barn’s large exterior. While she didn’t have the exact dimensions, she said the barn is longer and taller than many of its era.

“We had API Services in Webster City put the steel on for us,” Pruisman said. “They came in and did it one week — and they said it was the biggest barn they had ever done. They did a wonderful job.”

But why spend money on a building that would be difficult to cash-flow in today’s agriculture?

“You don’t see barns anymore,” Pruisman noted. “People tear them (down) or they fall down. … I just think this one is unique to the farm.”

To the Pruismans, the investment in preserving the integrity of the farmstead was well worth it.

“It has a lot of history for me because my kids grew up playing in that barn,” Pruisman said. “There’s a ladder that goes straight up to the haymow, and they would go up there and play. They would actually open the doors, hang out the windows, and holler ‘Hi Mom!'”

Those were the days when kids played outside rather than on a screen.

“We didn’t worry,” she recalled. “They would skin their knees, and they had a lot of fun. They just loved being out on the farm.”

For Pruisman, who grew up in Chicago until moving to Webster City as a second-grader, farm life was the greatest culture shock she ever experienced.

“I grew up in Webster City, across from the high school,” she said. “We moved there in 1960. It was more of a culture shock going from Webster City to the farm, than it was from Chicago to Webster City. In town, whether it was Chicago or Webster City, we could run to the grocery store anytime we needed to. Out here, you have to drive 15 miles to get groceries, so I had to realize that I had to get organized and buy everything I needed at once.”

Culture shock or not, it was a good move. Both Dave and Linda Pruisman continue to be very active in their northeast Hamilton community, volunteering with the Blairsburg Fire Department and William EMS units.

Neither seems ready to retire yet, and that goal of creating a wedding venue may or may not come to fruition. Although, for family and friends, it’s already been a place of celebration and, with the restoration work they continue to carry out, this farm will long be a place of honoring family.