PART III – The Winchell Family Farmers
While Dave and Polly have played an integral part in Winchell Family Farm operations for decades, the house remained occupied by Dave’s parents until 2018, when Roger passed away at the age of 91. Dave and Polly are now the seventh owners of this farm.
It has gone by several names over the years, including Jobeta Farm — which stood for John, Bev and Dave — Roger and Virginia’s three Winchell children. John passed away in 1988. Bev (Sorrick) lives on an adjacent property along Hankee Road. She and her first husband used to maintain their own milk cow herd on the Winchell Family Farm.
Along with dairying, the family used to maintain a roadside stand to sell sweet corn in the summer, and mums, pumpkins and Indian corn in the fall. They also participated in Portage County Farm Tours, and showed dairy cows at the regional, state and national levels.
Dave and Polly’s daughter enjoyed farm life as a girl. As soon as she could walk, she would toddle to the dairy barn with her daddy, greeting each cow by name. As she grew, she was involved in 4-H and was even named Portage County Dairy Princess, just as her aunt Bev had. Now an adult, she has chosen a career in fraud protection. While Dave and Polly’s daughter and her cousins are no longer farming, the third generation remains involved with the Winchell Family Farm Trust.
Over the years, the old farmhouse fell into disrepair. Dave and Polly, who have been living in another home across the road from the farm, wrestled with whether to demolish the structure and build something new on the site, or renovate the original.
Their love of history and heritage won that argument, bolstered by the fact that engineers determined the frame of the structure was just one quarter-inch off plumb. After general contractor Seven Sons Construction winched the house back into alignment, demo expert Jeff Blunk and the crew carefully stripped the structure back to the studs, exposing the hand-hewn 8-by-8-inch, 32-foot poplar beams, a hidden door to nowhere, scorched beams from previous house fires, and other interesting finds. In fact, they plan to repurpose old roofing slate as their kitchen backsplash, utilize saved posts and beams, and otherwise reintroduce original architectural elements to the renovated house.
Speaking of interesting finds, one of Dave’s favorite pastimes is scanning the acreage with his metal detector. He has found lots of old horseshoes, metal signs from previous owners, old horse hitching posts, obsolete farm implements (including handheld corn husking pegs and hay hooks) and other collectibles he has displayed in the barn as an ad hoc farm museum. He and Polly plan to move their antiques into a more formal exhibit in the granary.
With each new find of an old treasure, Dave is reminded of his father. “Rog is still watching us, leading us, and giving us little signs,” he says. “A year after he died, I found his old wooden cane in the field that had fallen off his tractor before he passed. He keeps popping up in unexpected ways. But we feel he is pleased with our efforts to preserve this place.”
A 1945 graduate of Mantua Center High School and WWII Army veteran, Roger married Virginia Spaeth (1927-2011) of Mantua Township in 1946. Roger drove school bus for Hiram Village, was a milk tester for and board member of several ag agencies, and served on the James A. Garfield school board. (Anecdotally, when he was president of the board in the early 1960s, Rog was instrumental in hiring teacher Iva Walker, the daughter of another Ohio dairy farmer.) Virginia is remembered as a 4-H advisor and an excellent crafter and baker, known as the Pie Lady in the community (especially at Cal’s). She also judged baked goods at the county fair and was a dedicated organist at St. Ambrose Catholic Church for decades.
Polly grew up in Garrettsville on a ‘gentleman’s farm’ where her family raised horses, ducks, chickens and geese on 10 acres carved from her grandmother’s 140-acre plot.
“I love the farm life, the animals and the values of this lifestyle,” she enthuses. “It’s not an easy life, but I wouldn’t give it up for anything.”
Dave adds, “Farming is hard work, but we want to do it as long as we can. You can’t hire it all out. It’s gotta be who you are. To be a farmer, you’ve got to be hands-on, expect to get dirty, to be outside in all kinds of weather, to work long days… and love it anyway!”
The Winchells hope to move into their renovated farmhouse by March 2026. Meanwhile, the late afternoon sun is wrapping the rolling fields in a golden glow. Dave and Polly head to the barn before the light fades; there are animals to feed and chores to do. The rhythm of farm life continues.
