Area women receive Iowa Master Farm Homemaker awards

Rosemary Pacha of Brighton and Sandy Nelson of Fairfield were both recipients of the 2019 Iowa Master Farm Homemaker awards.

Pacha and her late husband, Gerald, raised their two children, Jeff and Jennifer, on the Pacha Century Farm just a mile from Brighton in Jefferson County. She kept records for their grain and livestock operation and helped make marketing and financial decisions and was part of making decisions to build ponds and terraces, plant trees and use conservation practices.

The Pachas also helped design, construct, paint and install many of the more than 110 barn quilts in Washington County to encourage tourism. Rosemary Pacha also campaigned to have a section of Highways 1 and 78 named 'The Ding Darling Highway.”

Pacha was a teacher in the Washington schools for more than 40 years, retiring in 2004. She was recognized in 1994 as Iowa Teacher of the Year by the Iowa Home Economics Association.

Pacha is involved in almost every Brighton community project, including securing a grant to establish Washington County's Freedom Rock. She is a member of the Brighton Chamber of Commerce.

Nelson and her husband, Jerry, farm near Fairfield in Jefferson County. There isn't much Nelson hasn't done on her family's Century Farm. A pork producer for years, she helped start the first sow co-op in Jefferson County and was one of the women who started the county Porkettes. She's trying to cut back on the field work now, but she's still the go-to person who runs for parts and gets meals to the field.

Despite all the farm work and family time with her children and grandchildren, Nelson still finds time to serve her community. She has helped coordinate the Open Class entries and present Ag in the Classroom activities at the Jefferson County Fair. She has taught Sunday school and vacation Bible school, and she's helped raise funds to give Bethesda Methodist Church a makeover.

Each year Wallaces Farmer magazine honors four outstanding farm women by presenting them the Iowa Master Farm Homemaker Award.

The Iowa Master Farm Homemakers Guild was initiated in 1928 with the selection of five Iowa women for the Master Farm Homemaker Award. The award was established by F.W. Beckman (editor) and Bess Rowe (women's editor) of The Farmer's Wife, a magazine published for farm women by the Webb Publishing Company of St. Paul, Minnesota. According to a 1970 History published by the Guild, the purpose of the program was to give recognition to the contribution that farm women were making to the nation as homemakers and as voluntary community leaders. The women receiving recognitions were to be symbols of the highest values in rural life.