Country View: Kinder Farm Park – Millersville, MA
The Friends of Kinder Farm Park created a working farm museum.
Radio interview source: Diane Rausch, Volunteerk, Kinder Farm Park
Back in the late 1800s, the Kinder family emigrated from Germany to Millersville, Maryland, and farmed until the late 1970s. At that time, the family was ready to sell the property. The county bought 288 of those acres with the desire to restore them as a 1930s depression-era farm and public park.
Diane Rausch is a Friends of Kinder Farm Park volunteer. She says they spent years raising funds to assist the county in setting up and maintaining park facilities. For example, several barns and fields are being used by local 4-H clubs.
"They have cattle, chickens, goats, pigs, different things different years that they raise and of course that's a very popular attraction," she says. "We also have a sawmill, and there's an active sawmill club. We have a blacksmith club, a quilter's club, so we have a lot of different farm-related activities going on."
Diane has been in charge of researching the history of the farm and the Kinder family. With her knowledge and the help of many volunteers, the group is now restoring the old farm house.
"We've taken walls down, re-insulated, put up new walls, removed bathrooms, and we're going to renovate the kitchen," says Rausch. "We've acquired a large number of donations from people in the community of items that we are using to furnish the house. We'd like to open it at least once-a-month for the community to walk through. The park is very heavily used, so we hope to have it as a living farm museum."
The goal of Kinder Farm Park is to help the 21st century urban society learn how early farmers became independent and self-sustaining.
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