-Farm News photo by Deanna Meyer
Suzzanne and Clayton Rye stand next to the Rye Farms sign with their Heritage and Century Farm awards on the family farm near Hanlontown.

Editor’s note: Clayton Rye has been a freelance writer for Farm News since 1995 and has written many Century and Heritage Farm stories during his career. Since he is a farmer first and foremost, we at Farm News thought it would only be fitting to feature Rye’s family farm, which achieved Heritage Farm status during the 2025 Iowa State Fair, in this issue. Here is his family farm’s story.

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HANLONTOWN — The legacy of Rye Farms in Worth County begins in the 1800s with Ole and Kjersti.

At age 5, Ole Rye sailed with his family from Norway to America, making their way to Wisconsin before settling in Iowa.

Meanwhile, 18-year-old Kjersti Methus sailed on a separate vessel from Norway to America, where she met and married Ole Rye in 1867. On April 25, 1875, the couple bought 160 acres of land in Iowa.

-Submitted photo
On Feb. 17, 2004, when the Hanlontown POET ethanol plant received its first load of corn, the Ryes had the honor of being load number one on the scale.

“When they came here, this was just good ol’ prairie,” said Clayton Rye, of his great-grandparents’ journey. “It was grass and swamp.”

The nearest town to get supplies from was the then-young Fertile, Iowa, with likely no more than trails for roads.

The Ryes lived together on the farm for about 10 years before tragedy struck. In 1886, Ole caught tuberculosis and died at age 42. A barn that had been a dream of Ole’s was built four years after he passed, and still stands today.

He left behind his wife and six children to run the farm — which they did until 1901. By then three other children had died either through sickness or tragedy.

The three remaining children — Torvald, or “Tommie” as he was more commonly known, and brothers Arne and Clarence — became instrumental in the formation of the nearby town of Hanlontown, which sprang up due to the railroad line passing through the area. While they were busy running a general store, post office and bank, the family farm was rented out.

-Submitted photo
Richard Rye is shown planting corn in the spring of 2021 and is the fifth generation to live on the Heritage Farm.

But in 1913, Tommie Rye, Clayton Rye’s grandfather, decided to return to the farm, along with his wife Christena.

“He farmed with a vengeance,” said Rye. “He was great at buying and selling land.”

The couple had eight children, and around 1910, they built a two-story five-bedroom house that had electricity, running water and other modern-for-the-time amenities.

But times got tough in the 1930s.

Rye’s father once shared that the reason their family survived the depression was having sons as a source of labor; those who didn’t often didn’t fare as well. One winter, his father recalled, all they had to eat was sauerkraut; later in life, he asked to have sauerkraut for his birthday as a way to remember those hard times.

-Submitted photo
This aerial photo shows the Rye Heritage Farm around 1980.

At one time, Iowa State College used Tommie Rye’s land to learn how best to grow potatoes on Iowa soil, a crop he continued to grow through the years.

When he died in 1944, “that was the end of the potato business,” said Rye.

The three sons who farmed — Claire, Orville and Norman — were done with potatoes.

“To do potato weeding,” said Rye, “you either had to stoop or crawl, and they didn’t like either.”

Rye’s parents, Claire and Viola, married in 1946, living on a nearby farm; his uncles, Orville and Norman, never married, but farmed together.

“Orville and Norman worked seven days a week,” said Rye, mainly raising corn and cattle.

When Orville died in 1974, Norman was left to farm alone.

Around this same time, Clayton Rye was a young man, figuring out what he wanted to do with his life. After graduating from high school in 1965, then from Iowa State in 1969, he went to work for International Harvester, and later a Cedar Falls car dealership. His experiences made him realize the corporate world wasn’t for him.

“It took 10 years to figure out, I want to farm,” said Rye.

So he inquired if his Uncle Norman, now in his early 60s, might like some help on the farm; he did. This began a working relationship that spanned nearly 25 years. His uncle even built him a house on the farm, which has since been moved to the west end of the farm, where Rye and his wife, Suzzanne, live today.

“When I got here on that farm in 1975, I said, ‘This is where I’m going to be the rest of my life,'” said Rye.

He described Noman as a quiet man who mostly kept to himself, working on the farm, taking care of machinery, doing chores, feeding cattle, and even pigs for a while.

“There was corn to plant, silage to chop and a bin to fill with corn,” he said. “It was good for him, and it was good for me.”

But they were complete opposites in personality.

“I had a wife and family then,” said Rye. “He was alone with his dog, and he was happy.”

He and Norman fed cattle until 1992, typically 300 at a time.

One of their best years in the cattle business was 1979. That year, Uncle Norman bought two loads of cattle — about 248-head each — a month apart at about 30 cents a pound. After 30 days, the first lighter load of cattle weighed about the same as the second heavier load he’d bought.

“My dad (Claire) said, ‘What will you do if it’s a bad market?'” Rye recalled.

But the market was kind. Norman sold the cattle at 60 cents per pound, doubling his investment.

“This would’ve been like winning the lottery. So we did what farmers do. We got a pile of money and we went out and spent it,” Rye said, ending up with two four-wheel drive tractors and a couple of wagons.

As Norman Rye aged, Clayton Rye began taking on more of the farming duties.

“I was doing more planting, running the combine. He would sit in his pickup and watch me farm from the road,” Rye chuckled. “He was waiting for me to break down so he could help out.”

Before Norman Rye died in 1998, he put his land into a sub-chapter S corporation called “Norman H. Rye and Associates.” Following his death, Rye and his wife were able to buy the shares of the sub-chapter S corporation from the other heirs.

Married in 1993, their blended family includes Clayton’s son and two daughters, and Suzzanne’s daughter and two sons.

All the years Rye’s dad and uncle farmed — from the 1950s until the late ’90s, they raised continuous corn, which was either used to feed the beef cattle or sold as grain. But one year, Rye planted soybeans.

“Whoa, did we grow soybeans!” said Rye.

After years of only corn, he raised a bumper crop of soybeans, yielding 68.21 bushels per acre with DEKALB CX232, which Rye described as “a good basic soybean.” His seed dealer entered him in the Iowa DEKALB Iowa Master Local Contest, and Rye Farms won first place.

“This was at a time if you got over 50 (bushels per acre), you were doing good,” he said.

After that, he continued to rotate corn and soybeans.

Today, Rye is mostly retired from farming. His son Richard farms the land and lives in the house Rye’s father and uncles grew up in, along with his wife Shelly and their children. Father and son still market the grain together.

“Richard is what keeps Rye Farms going for the last 20 years,” said Suzzanne Rye.

“The guy’s wanted to farm since his first breath,” Clayton Rye added. “He just can’t imagine doing anything else.”

He still uses a 1994 combine, which was bought used in 2000.

“I say the biggest money-maker we’ve got on the farm is that combine from 1994,” Rye said. “It’s been rebuilt three times. It works cheap and does a beautiful job of harvesting.”

It’s also “red,” he smiled.

In August 2025, the Rye family gathered at the Iowa State Fair to receive their Heritage Farm Award, marking 150 years of continuous ownership in the same family. The large gathering included both of their sons and daughters, grandchildren, Rye’s sister and a nephew.

“It was such a good day to sit there all together and celebrate,” Suzzanne Rye said.

“Suzzanne has contributed as much to this farm as anybody,” Clayton Rye added, noting that her off-farm job supplied health insurance and a regular paycheck through the ups and downs of farming.

Having a Heritage Farm that survived the pioneering days, the Great Depression and more means a lot to the Ryes.

“I’m so grateful to people I’ve never met and known,” said Rye, “starting with Ole and Tommie, and they kept it going, and there was Orville and Norman, and now it’s our turn.”

Both father and son are vested in the farm.

Looking to the future, he said, “We’re going to do everything we can to see that it moves on to Richard.”