Telling Their Stories
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Wendy Gaylord Interviews Lillian Horst
This is Wendy Gaylord, and I'm talking to Lillian Horst. Today is October 13th, 2023, and we are at the Howe House in Phelps.
I am interested in having you tell us about how you came to be on your farm in Phelps. And how the Mennonite community has grown here.
Lillian Horst:***Right, in 1976, the first Mennonites came to New York from Lancaster, Lebanon County, Southern Pennsylvania. They started out with no church, no. They had church in their homes.
Wendy Gaylord:***And they weren't in Phelps.
Lillian Horst:***They were not in Phelps. They were in Wayne County and Seneca County. This is Ontario County, so it was Wayne County and Seneca County. The first church was built - I don't know which year, but it's still there, it's just outside of South Butler, which is Wayne County, then the second church was Seneca County.
Wendy Gaylord:***Oh, OK. I thought Yates County had more.
Lillian Horst:***Well, Yates County is another group of Mennonites, the horse and buggy Mennonites. They were probably up here before we were. I'm not sure on that.
Wendy Gaylord:***That's a different group. Oh, OK. So you're a different group.
Lillian Horst:***Yeah, it's two different. It's horse and buggy Mennonites and... And so Yates County is even a larger settlement than we, and may have started some years before.
Wendy Gaylord:***So your group came in ‘76 and then how did you get here in Phelps?
Horst dairy farm in Phelps 1990
Lillian Horst:***Well, 1990, we were looking for a farm. We lived in Cumberland County at the time. We were dairy farming for three years on a rented farm and we wanted to buy a farm. Farms in Pennsylvania were too expensive, and I had an aunt and uncle in New York. Over in Seneca County. So we came up to look and we looked at different farms. Came to the Donald Minns farm in Phelps. Which was sort of out of the area, but not that far. So that's where we bought; the Minns’, Janet and Donald Minns farm in 1990.
Wendy Gaylord:***In ‘90. And then you raised your family here.
Lillian Horst:***Yes, we had the two children when we moved up, they were one and four. A little boy and a little girl.
Other Mennonite families in Phelps
Wendy Gaylord:***And then how did you develop your farm? And then, how did other Mennonites come to be in Phelps?
Lillian Horst:***Well, the community from Seneca County and Wayne County has spread. It has spread. Even to yeah, Ontario County. Keuka, is there a Keuka county? Even some in Yates County, it has spread and there's 400 to 500 families now.
Wendy Gaylord:***And so how many would you say are in Phelps? I know on our road there’s quite a few.
Lillian Horst:***Right, right. And there's some at Newark. Or Newark isn't really Phelps, though. You mean just in the Phelps area? Well, there was a new family. I don't know, maybe 10. There may be 10 families in Phelps.
Wendy Gaylord:***So there's you and then your children.
Lillian Horst:***Our son and daughter now.
And my cousin is just down the road at the greenhouse. That's my cousin. Willow Creek, Willow Creek and across the road from us it is David Zimmermann's, the wood shop.
Wendy Gaylord:***And your son is taking over your dairy farm?
Lillian Horst:***He has taken over. He has bought the farm three years ago.
Wendy Gaylord:***And then your daughter has moved down on the corner here.
Lillian Horst:***Route 96 at the produce stand. Bought the Calvin Vanderlite(?) Farm.
Wendy Gaylord:***OK. And now your daughter has children. Who are growing up, I see.
Lillian Horst:***Yes, they are. There are six, and the oldest is 14.
Wendy Gaylord:***I was so surprised when I saw them at the farm stand this summer after a year of not seeing them.
Lillian Horst:***And the son on the dairy farm, his oldest is 15. There are seven.
Wendy Gaylord:***OK. And I think. David Zimmerman has six or seven.
Lillian Horst:***Or eight, eight. That is Dalton's brother. Did you know, he’s my son-in-law's brother?
Wendy Gaylord:***OK. And then are there other families around here?
Lillian Horst:***Well, there's one on Townline Rd. I don't know if that would be Phelps?
Wendy Gaylord:***I think so.
Lillian Horst:***Going over 96, Townline Rd. That's my niece.
Wendy Gaylord:***OK.
Lillian Horst:***Who else would be Phelps?
Wendy Gaylord:***Do you have any brothers and sisters that moved up here as well?
Lillian Horst:***Yes, I have. Oh yes, my sister is just down the road from us, from the farm there. The house that sets back, beside the big brick house.
Wendy Gaylord:***Oh, OK. Oh, right. That little white.
Lillian Horst:***That's my sister. The tan one, modular.
Wendy Gaylord:***Tan. Yeah. Is that the one? She sells flowers in the front?
Lillian Horst:***Yes, that's my sister. And I have a sister at Clyde.
Wendy Gaylord:***OK.
Lillian Horst:***So yeah, that would be another family for Phelps.
Area Churches for Phelps Mennonites
Wendy Gaylord:***And then did you start your own church or do you go to the Wayne County one?
Lillian Horst:***We went to Seneca County for years until they built the third church, just between Alloway and Lyons. On Reed Road. That's where we went until they built the church up on County Road 6 at Lyons. Then that is a little closer.
Wendy Gaylord:***So that's where you go now. And how about the school for children?
Mennonite schools in the area
Lillian Horst:***Our children went to Clyde school all their years.
Wendy Gaylord:***Wow, that's far.
Lillian Horst:***Yes, it was. Until this one was built at Lyons.
So now Lyons is where the local ones go. No, actually, our grandchildren go to Nine Foot Road; the new school behind the [Outlet] mall.
Lillian Horst:***Off 318.
Wendy Gaylord:***Oh, right. There's a school there?
Lillian Horst:***At the mall. At the. Yeah, there's a school back on Nine Foot Road. They go there. It's a larger school with five rooms instead of two, or split up classrooms.
Wendy Gaylord:***And how about the teachers? Are the teachers local?
Lillian Horst:***Teachers are all within our community.
Wendy Gaylord:***I was a teacher, so I'm always interested in how the teachers…
Lillian Horst:***Yeah, right. The 8th and 9th grade teacher is also principal. So they have a young man in there for the older students; the rest are young girls.
Wendy Gaylord:***And do they stop after they get married?
Lillian Horst:***Yeah, they do. They do. We are always losing teachers, but yeah. They're usually aged 18 to 25.
Horst dairy farm
Wendy Gaylord:***And you had a farm stand. And you sold eggs. So how did that start? At the same time as the dairy?
Lillian Horst:***When we moved to the dairy, we found out the former owner, Donald Minns, sold some sweet corn, his extra sweet corn, beside the road. So we grew a little extra sweet corn and we put a pile beside the road under the tree. Then we built a little stand and that sort of progressed, more sweet corn, more vegetables. People wanted more.
Wendy Gaylord:***Your corn is wonderful.
Lillian Horst:***That was our main thing. So as the children got older and could help more we grew more vegetables and added on to the stand.
Wendy Gaylord:***And then the chickens were also your project. You had eggs.
Lillian Horst:***Yeah, but not when we first moved up. We only did that a few years before we moved off the farm.
Wendy Gaylord:***OK.
Lillian Horst:***And before that, I never had chickens, but it was our son-in-law that built the chicken house and he was going to take it on his farm out back and let them run. Well, he soon found out that coyotes will pick them out of the field right in the middle of the day. And he didn't want to be bothered with fences. You can't raise chickens without fences.
Wendy Gaylord:***Right. So, he left them for you.
Lillian Horst:***So, yep, he said he's done. I said OK.
Wendy Gaylord:***And then how many cows? How did you grow your herd?
Lillian Horst:***We started with 80 cows and then we built a barn on in 19…. Well, around 2000, I guess it was.
Wendy Gaylord:***OK.
Lillian Horst:***We built on and almost doubled the size. I think he's doing 140 now, which isn't quite double of what it was original but…
More acreage he would have bought. He would have bought more land.
Wendy Gaylord:***You'd have to to increase your herd, right?
Lillian Horst:***Yes, but I don't know whose exactly that land all would have been.
Horst cattle farm
Wendy Gaylord:***And then you moved down the road.
(Minute 10:00)
Lillian Horst:***Into Tim and Emmy Corteleyou’s house in 2020.
It's easy to keep those years straight, 1990 and 2020; thirty years on the farm.
Wendy Gaylord:***So 30 years on a farm and now you're still on a farm!
Lillian Horst:***Yes. It's 100 acres. We fenced it all in and raise beef cows; cows and calves. There's 100. There's about 100 cows and calves.
Wendy Gaylord:***Do you sell them off regularly?
Lillian Horst:***Well, when the calves get to half a year old, when they're ready to wean. They actually go to my son-in-law here and he raises them to beef.
Lillian Horst:***He raises the beef cows, beef cattle, not calves. These are the offspring.
Then he sells them to for beef.
Wendy Gaylord:***Right at the auction here or wherever?
Lillian Horst:***I think he has a buyer. I think he has a buyer that comes in.
Wendy Gaylord:***Now we can see them from our house, so we always wonder. You have so many. And they never seem to get fewer. But now I see you are the breeder.
Lillian Horst:***There's more, right? He [her husband] said he thinks every one now has had a calf. One just had a baby last week.
Lillian Horst:***He enjoys his cattle, but we don't have to milk cows twice a day!
Wendy Gaylord:***I was just going to say it doesn't seem like you've downsized much from your farm.
Lillian Horst:***Yeah, it's a lot more freedom, though, than milking cows is. And he [her son] has the help. So that's why we got off. He has help. And we don't. His children.
Wendy Gaylord:***And that's six of them?
Lillian Horst:***Seven.
Wendy Gaylord:***But there's not many boys?
Lillian Horst:***Two boys, nine and 12.
Zimmerman vegetable farmstand
Wendy Gaylord:***But they all can help, and so [your daughter and son-in-law] they're raising the beef cattle and doing the vegetable stand. And then once they had turkeys, I thought.
Lillian Horst:***Yeah, he does. They did just. They had 22 turkeys this year, but that was for their own use, really. Maybe a few they sold, but Dalton also does the Finger Lakes fireplace in the winter.
Wendy Gaylord:***Oh, OK.
Lillian Horst:***Finger Lakes Fireplace. Installing gas fireplaces.
Wendy Gaylord:***Gas fireplaces. Does he clean chimneys? If they're gas, I guess you don't have to.
Lillian Horst:***If they're gas, he doesn't get into a whole lot of other furnaces. He had started out with repairing furnaces and things too, but he decided not to. He'll install fireplaces and repair fireplaces, the gas fireplaces. Otherwise he doesn't like to get into just any dirty work.
Wendy Gaylord:***Yeah, but your your daughter grew up on the farm and likes the vegetable part of it. She seems to be always there.
Lillian Horst:***Yeah, she does real well. We started with the vegetables when she was just six years old or something, and she grew up with it. And now hers are growing up with it.
Other Mennonite family businesses
Wendy Gaylord:***What other areas are the local Mennonites involved in around Phelps, particularly Phelps?
Lillian Horst:***Of what they are doing? Well, there is Delmar Martin, Willow Creek Greenhouse.
Wendy Gaylord:***OK, right. We buy a lot of flowers from them.
Lillian Horst:***The greenhouse, and then David Zimmerman has the wood shop, but he also bought a farm down close to Geneva.
On Preemption between North St. and 5 and 20. Did you ever see that?
Wendy Gaylord:***Oh, those big fields?
Lillian Horst:***Back in, they want to build a new house back there sometime, so they will be Geneva instead of Phelps, right?
Wendy Gaylord:***Technically, right, but he's still related to your son-in-law. So he makes wood like kitchen…
Lillian Horst:***Cabinets. It's kitchen cabinets, custom kitchen cabinets and office cabinets. It's too.
Wendy Gaylord:***I remember he moved just after we built our house and we'd been looking for someone to make cabinets and they all said, you know, oh, we're booking a year away. And we were building a new house and we needed cabinets. So that's too bad.
Lillian Horst:***Yeah, I'm not sure if he's going to get out of that or not. He bought that farm and it's. A lot of work.
Wendy Gaylord:***Land. Yeah, so you'd have to take care of it. You mean instead of doing cabinets?
Lillian Horst:***So they will be moving down. They'd be moving down there. There's no cabinet shop there, so he'd either have to build a new shop or discontinue that work?
Wendy Gaylord:***Or keep this one up here and…
Lillian Horst:***I'm not sure. You'd probably sell that place up here.
Wendy Gaylord:***Probably, yeah.
Lillian Horst:***They probably would sell.
Wendy Gaylord:***Unless he had kids who were old enough to farm and you could keep doing that.
Lillian Horst:***Yeah, I don't know what he's going to do yet.
Lillian Horst:***My niece's husband on Townline Rd. He is a truck driver. For EB Martin Roofing at Penn Yan.
So he takes roofing supplies, building supplies far and wide. And they have a little hobby farm there where they are right now doing duck eggs.
Wendy Gaylord:***Duck eggs.
Lillian Horst:***Duck eggs. It's supposed to be so much better for you.
Wendy Gaylord:***There's a place that makes duck egg custard, like ice cream down in Penn Yan.
Lillian Horst:***Oh really?
Wendy Gaylord:***I forget what it's called.
Lillian Horst:***I know where you mean on 54. And it has a different name. For the place too.
Wendy Gaylord:***Yeah, it's got an interesting name I forgot.
Lillian Horst:***I forget what it is. The so and so duck, the second name. The Spotted Duck!
Wendy Gaylord:***Spotted Duck, right!
Lillian Horst:***So that's why it's called that you think they use duck eggs.
Wendy Gaylord:***I think so. That's what I understand.
Wendy Gaylord:***They're supposed to be better, but I couldn't tell the difference. I'm not very expert.
Lillian Horst:***I wouldn't. I don't know; I never tried it.
Wendy Gaylord:***Then in terms of your kids, they went to school through what grade?
Lillian Horst:***Till they were 15, they do 8th grade and then ninth grade is sort of a vocational class till they're 15.
Wendy Gaylord:***Then they are considered to be done.
Lillian Horst:***They're done, right. Graduated. And usually our 8th grade class is more of a 10th grade level. They could pass the 10th grade tests.
Wendy Gaylord:***Right. Do they have to follow the New York State curriculum or do you have your own?
Lillian Horst:***We have our own. It's CLE. Is Christian Light Education. CLE curriculum is what our grandchildren use.
Wendy Gaylord:***OK. So they don't have to take the Regents tests or any of that?
Lillian Horst:***Well, they have to, at the end of the term, they have to do the. There is a test that everyone needs to do. What do you call it?
Wendy Gaylord:***The Regents? Maybe the Regents.
Lillian Horst:***Yeah, because they have a special day where they do their so and so test that is a professional test.
Wendy Gaylord:***And is that the same education you got? Same, 8th grade and then vocational?
Lillian Horst:***Right.
Wendy Gaylord:***I thought we had to go to school till 16. But I think that you're allowed to do a vocational part of it.
Wendy Gaylord:***I'm not from New York, so maybe it's different here.
Lillian Horst:***Yeah, they are usually ready for whatever job they choose once they're 16. They usually work at home until they're 16. Then, carpentry. Some are dairy, on farms. Then they have worked for them longer. But carpenters. There's quite a few carpenters in our communities, carpentry and stores. Sauders store - a lot work there. That's one of our ministers that started that store.
Wendy Gaylord:***And it was like the only grocery store around, right?
Lillian Horst:***He was one of the first people that moved up in 1976. John Sauder, and they had a little room in their house with a few groceries. For the community, for the local people. Were you ever in there now?
Wendy Gaylord:***I go there all the time. We used to go when it was smaller and then it was so big. We still go there but. It's much bigger.
Lillian Horst:***Yeah, his son took that over. Yeah, Johnny. Yeah.
Wendy Gaylord:***Well, it seems like it was the only grocery store for a while. Now, there's a Tops or something nearby.
Lillian Horst:***Oh, I well remember when Wegmans was built, Walmart was built. There was no grocery stores in this area. What I went to was either to Sauders little, little store or to P&C in Phelps across from Agway.
Wendy Gaylord:***Ohh that building. I know the building.
Lillian Horst:***Across from Agway. That was a PNC, and that was the closest grocery store.
Wendy Gaylord:***See, I moved here in 2004, so the Wegmans was already there.
Lillian Horst:***That was there. Well, it wasn't when we came - Wegmans, Walmart.
Wendy Gaylord:***And then. There's a store up on 96, has a big shoe in the front of it.
Lillian Horst:***That is my nephew.
Wendy Gaylord:***That's your nephew.
Lillian Horst:***That is my nephew, that would be Waterloo, though not Phelps.
Wendy Gaylord:***No, but it it's a Mennonite store. I love to go there.
Lillian Horst:***Yes, it is. That's my nephew. That's my sister at Clyde. That's their son.
Lillian Horst:***Yeah, he has that about full.
Wendy Gaylord:***It's a great store. It has everything. It's my favorite store to go to.
Lillian Horst:***A lot of things. You better have time and not too many children in tow, because it's pretty full in there.
Wendy Gaylord:***You know, I took my grandchildren there when they were here from Indiana. They wanted stickers. They wanted to get some stickers, so I said you can get whatever you want. You can get stickers, but then you can also pick one other thing because I know they have a lot of toys, little small toys that are not too expensive and you know, so they each picked out some small thing.
Lillian Horst:***Yeah. Timothy Hoover.
Lillian Horst:***Timothy and Rachel Hoover. They just had their third child here a while back, months ago.
Wendy Gaylord:***So they're still young, yeah.
Lillian Horst:***Older when they married, she's 40.
Speaker
Oh, OK.
Lillian Horst:***She had the third child. He's 40 and he's 30. He's 10 years younger than she is.
Wendy Gaylord:***Is that common? Oh, how interesting.
Lillian Horst:***Yeah, it is. It's hardly ever. No, they usually marry more in twentys.
Wendy Gaylord:***Did they just happen to meet and?
Lillian Horst:***Oh, I don't know. They knew each other. Yeah, longer before that. But she was so much older.
Wendy Gaylord:***I'm surprised, yeah.
Lillian Horst:***I don't know. Somehow they got things together. She had a little store. She had a little store in her parents’ house just off of Route 414 north of Fayette. And then when he married her, he said, OK, we're building a new store. We're going to put it along 96. They bought that house.
Wendy Gaylord:***That's a great location.
Lillian Horst:***I think, too, it's really central for our people, North and South. Yeah. There's another one down at Penn Yan
Wendy Gaylord:***Oh, Oak Hill. No, that's groceries. That's like Sauders.
Lillian Horst:***This is on Volk Road. Edgewood Country Store, Edgewood.
Wendy Gaylord:***Oh yes. It's similar right? I don't go there as often, but when I go down, I go off and go down to the quilt shop, the Golden Lane quilt store and stop off.
Lillian Horst:***Oh yes. That's another store down there with some clothing and shoes.
Wendy Gaylord:***Now, what about at that store on 96? There's also the sheds you know, and buildings. Is that local? Are those made by locals?
Lillian Horst:***They are made, I think, in Yates County by either Amish or one of the horse and buggy Mennonites. And there's a company down there anyways, that makes them.
Wendy Gaylord:***And then they just distribute.
Lillian Horst:***They do different spots you see in different places. So Timothy, the owner of the store, that’s sort of his project, delivering these sheds.
Wendy Gaylord:***Do you have there any any interesting stories about like coming here or your farm, did you have any problems? During your farming, any bad times, any good times?
Lillian Horst:***Right. I don't know, the ‘93 Blizzard. We all remember that. You weren't here for the ‘93 Blizzard.
Wendy Gaylord:***Oh my. I wasn't.
Lillian Horst:***We couldn't even get from our house to the barn to milk. We had to shovel our way out through and it was Sunday morning. We had to shovel to get anywhere, and then my husband spent the forenoon. There was no church. Everyone else was home too. He used the bulldozer to open the driveway so he could get from the house to the barn, and so the milk truck… No, he did not come that day, he came Saturday, so we were so glad the milk truck didn't have to come until Monday. They used the bulldozer, and I remember Sunday morning, about 10:00. Here comes a vee plough down the road. Not a regular snow plow. A vee plough. First he made a path down the middle, cause it was … But we didn't have to dump milk like some people did. Had to let the milk run as they couldn't get there.
So I don't know, then April, there was April, but I don't know which year it was that we had the ice storm that brought some trees and branches down.
Wendy Gaylord:***Yeah, all of our apples got frosted this year in May. We didn't have apples this year. Just a couple you know.
Lillian Horst:***We didn't really have anything too exciting happening. I guess the normal work, work, work.
Wendy Gaylord:***Well, that's good. Is your dairy farm part of a coop?
Lillian Horst:***Right now it is Organic Valley. It's organic. We started that organic a few years before we moved off. It took three years till everything was certified organic three or five years.
Lillian Horst:***Three years, I guess.
Growing without chemicals. So Organic Valley is where the milk goes now. We were Byrne Dairy for quite a number of years when we lived there. So it's organic and it's rotational grazing. So he[their son] does a lot like we do. At our farm.
Wendy Gaylord:***Moves them from field to field.
Lillian Horst:***Every day.
Wendy Gaylord:***Interesting.
Lillian Horst:***Cows do a lot of walking, going to the pastures. And back again. But we found that it's a healthy way to raise cattle and food.
Wendy Gaylord:***It's a lot of work for you though.
Lillian Horst:***Farming is work, but we’d never trade it for raising the family.
(Minute 27:11)
Wendy Gaylord:***And do you would you encourage, I mean, do you talk to new people as they come in? Do you encourage people? Is there land here still?
Lillian Horst:***There isn't a whole lot of farms available anymore. So that we don't have a lot of people moving up from Pennsylvania now.
Wendy Gaylord:***Yeah, you won't be growing as much if there's not as much.
Lillian Horst:***The community is growing within itself without having people come up.
Wendy Gaylord:***And isn't that what happened in Pennsylvania too?
Lillian Horst:***That's what happened in Pennsylvania, and they came up here. Now they’re quicker going to Kentucky. We started a new settlement in Kentucky. So there's some going to Kentucky. There's some going to Missouri, which is another large settlement.
Wendy Gaylord:***How about Indiana?
Lillian Horst:***And Indiana and Ohio, there's some; I don't know them. It's a different group. I don't know anyone there, but I do know people in Missouri. I have relatives in Missouri that moved out there before we moved up here. Iowa has some, too.
Wendy Gaylord:***So do you have a national conference of all Mennonites or just your own group?
Lillian Horst:***Now there is a conference. They get together twice a year. The ministry gets together twice a year and that's Pennsylvania.
Wendy Gaylord:***Of your Mennonite group?
Lillian Horst:***Yes. New York, Pennsylvania , New York, Missouri, Iowa and Wisconsin. Wisconsin also has a large settlement; started about the same time we started in New York. Maybe a little later.
Wendy Gaylord:***Good dairy.
Lillian Horst:***Dairy farmers, dairy country, yes, dairy country.
Wendy Gaylord:***Well, that's interesting.
Lillian Horst:***Missouri is maybe not quite so much dairy. A little more cattle farms, cattle ranches.
Wendy Gaylord:***Right. I've only been to the city so I don't even know Missouri.
Lillian Horst:***This is northern Missouri. But a little more of the grazing cattle.
Wendy Gaylord:***Have you been out to visit?
Lillian Horst:***Missouri. Oh yes.
Wendy Gaylord:***Yes, don't you have a sister?
Lillian Horst:***And aunts and uncles and cousins in Missouri, yes, we've been out.
Probably five times in my life, but not for 10 years now. Yeah, it's time to go.
Wendy Gaylord:***Time to go!
(Minute 29:30
Lillian Horst:***We're off the dairy farm, but we're not off the farm. You have still have cattle, still have cattle and chickens.
Wendy Gaylord:***It's difficult. And then how about your parents? Are your parents or your husband's parents still in Pennsylvania?
Lillian Horst:***My husband, only his dad is living, and he is in Richland at a elderly old people's home. We have a few of our own Homes down there.
Wendy Gaylord:***Oh, really?
Lillian Horst:***Or its Mennonite homes from different churches, different communities, the Amish and Mennonites.
Wendy Gaylord:***But it's the place that respects you.
Lillian Horst:***Your religion. So he is in the home in Richland, he's not doing real well. My mother isn't living anymore, either. She passed away of cancer at a very young age. I didn't think it was young at the time, but now I'm only a year away from that. Now it doesn't seem very…I know she was young. So Dad remarried and they are living still in the same neighborhood as where I grew up. Schaefferstown, Pennsylvania.
Wendy Gaylord:***So do you get to go down there periodically?
Lillian Horst:***We go down about four times a year. Weddings. I mean, a lot of my relatives and his relatives are down there. Yeah, four or five times a year. That's just a 5 hour drive. Easy drive.
Wendy Gaylord:***Right. So you can just do an overnight and come back.
Lillian Horst:***Mm-hmm. Usually one night. Yeah. Two days. One night. Sometimes just in one day. It's a long day. It is.
We don't need to do that anymore if we don't have cows to milk, but we used to, sometimes, we'd have someone doing the milking for one day. And just go to a wedding or whatever.
Wendy Gaylord:***You still have a big house. Even though your children have their own, do you have a lot of family gatherings?
Lillian Horst:***I have guests, overnight guests. You know, they come up. So many come up from Pennsylvania. I have room to have them overnight.
Wendy Gaylord:***Oh that's great.
Lillian Horst:***As far as having a lot in the house, it's a lot of little rooms so it’s not like one big open room. I have plenty of room for our own family.
Larger gatherings. My family is coming, all coming, for Thanksgiving.
Wendy Gaylord:***Oh, nice.
Lillian Horst:***120 to 150 people, not to our place.
Wendy Gaylord:***Oh where they going?
Lillian Horst:***For that we will use, along 414 in Seneca Falls. The Finger Lakes Fellowship Center.
Wendy Gaylord:***OK.
Lillian Horst:***Just South of Seneca Falls.
Wendy Gaylord:***Is that a Mennonite center ?
Lillian Horst:***That's where we have our weddings and like Christmas dinners and Thanksgiving when you have over 100 people.
Wendy Gaylord:***So is it attached to a church?
Lillian Horst:***It is not a church; it's a fellowship Center for weddings. And gatherings and the youth group.
Wendy Gaylord:***And then people will stay with different families.
Lillian Horst:***If they stay up, it's Thanksgiving Day. A lot of them will just come for the day because it's not a Saturday, Sunday. It's not a weekend.
Wendy Gaylord:***That's right. It's Thursday.
Lillian Horst:***It's Thursday, right? So yeah, we're looking forward. My brother's coming in from Wisconsin. That's right. I have one brother in Wisconsin. Two sisters up here in New York and three sisters in Pennsylvania.
Wendy Gaylord:***So they'll all be here.
Lillian Horst:***Not quite everyone is coming. Because the next generations are invited too, our children and grandchildren.
Wendy Gaylord:***And then who does the cooking for all of that?
Lillian Horst:***We all will, yeah, everybody brings something.
Wendy Gaylord:***Is there a kitchen at the Fellowship Hall?
Lillian Horst:***There's the kitchen there, there's all the. Yeah, we'll have to plug in some roasters or something, or else use the oven. We’ll all bring things.
Wendy Gaylord:***Sounds like a lot of fun.
Lillian Horst:***We'll probably have a supper, too. Early supper because some will head home then, so you can. We hope we have a good day.
Wendy Gaylord:***Yeah, my son's wife is a nurse, so she has to work on Thanksgiving this year. So in the past, we get together somewhere but this year she has that one day that she has to work.
Lillian Horst:***Somebody’s gotta be in the hospital?
We'll see them after. We'll go visit in November. I guess we'll visit them before Thanksgiving. Have Curt’s children with us for Thanksgiving.
Youth groups
And then did you and your husband meet in school?
Lillian Horst:***No, as a youth group, with the youth group.
Lillian Horst:***He is 3 years older than I am.
Wendy Gaylord:***You wouldn't have been in school together.
Lillian Horst:***No. He was 24, I was 20. Twenty-one, when we got married.
That's how our youth group is; like up here, there's over 200 youth and from age 16 to 25 or whenever they get married.
Wendy Gaylord:***So once they're out of school until.
Lillian Horst:***Age 16, more like 17, you know. Once they have their license, which isn't before 16 1/2, that's when they join the youth group.
Wendy Gaylord:***Then they can get there on their own and be more independent. I often see groups down at the lake at Seneca Lake, the park you know on a Saturday evening or afternoon.
Lillian Horst:***Oh, ok. Sometimes, right?
Wendy Gaylord:***Or Sunday afternoon sometimes.
Lillian Horst:***They have a volleyball barn along 318 J’s auction barn. If you’re ever close to that mall, that's what they use it for. It's an auction barn, but it has a big open space. And they can set up three volleyball nets they love to play volleyball.
Wendy Gaylord:***You know, my husband plays volleyball with a group that plays down the road here behind the fireman's field. Yeah, once a week they used to play twice a week when they were younger, but now they're all old.
Lillian Horst:***Oh really?
Lillian Horst:***So he would enjoy playing.
Wendy Gaylord:***And his children also played through high school and college. They played volleyball a lot. Both his daughter and his son here and in Phelps, right.
Lillian Horst:***And they'll use the yeah reception center they'll use for singing.
Lillian Horst:***Go once said, they always have an Easter singing. Where the youth have over 100 of them singing. That's really nice to see.
Wendy Gaylord:***It's really nice.
Lillian Horst:***And built a new fellowship center up close to the Pleasant Ridge Church, close to South Butler. There's a new one now, so we have two places for weddings.
Wendy Gaylord:***And do the youth groups get together? Do they? Gathered from both of them and.
Lillian Horst:***Yes, they gather on Saturday evenings, Sunday evenings.
Lillian Horst:***From all of them, right?
Lillian Horst:***They used to do it in their homes, but it's too many for in the homes now. So they have the volleyball barn and they have the fellowship centers.
Parks. We used to have them at Oaks Corners park.
Wendy Gaylord:***Right. Yeah, that's a nice park.
Lillian Horst:***It is, in the summer, that works.
Wendy Gaylord:***Although the tennis courts don't look so good.
Lillian Horst:***Yeah. The place needs a little work. Then there's other parks. They have gotten together at.
Lillian Horst:***One up at Rose on 4/14. I forget what the name of that one is, where they sometimes have suppers and play baseball and volleyball.
Wendy Gaylord:***OK. And I've seen, I don't know if it's your group, but I've seen them playing baseball at the Seneca Lake State Park.
Lillian Horst:***Too. OK, Ball Park there, right? I don't know that our youth used that, but might have.
Wendy Gaylord:***Might be other ones, yeah. And I haven't seen them for a while. But they I I was always impressed because the girls and the boys played together and the girls were often better. You know, we would like to watch them often. Better than the boys sometimes.
Lillian Horst:***Yeah, they like baseball and volleyball and skating.
Wendy Gaylord:***Where do they skate?
Lillian Horst:***They have a rink now on 318 that's close to the Outlet Mall, too. One of our people built a big…they use it for storage, and Martin Grain Systems uses it for storage in the summer. And then they flood in the winter, but it's inside with big lights, no light outside, no sign at the end. They don't want any public in there, so they kept it really private, but that's been just the last few years that they had that.
Wendy Gaylord:***That's interesting.
Lillian Horst:***Yeah, they like to skate, hockey players and hockey.
Wendy Gaylord:***Do you skate?
Lillian Horst:***I did this past winter. I was on that very rink. I went with my grandchildren. I was on about 10 minutes. I thought I'd better get off before I fall.
Wendy Gaylord:***I skated in Geneva a few times.
Lillian Horst:***I know where that is.
Wendy Gaylord:***Now they've closed it in, but at the time the sides were still open. I used to go there and skate once in a while, but then I decided I was kind of too old. If you don't do it a lot, you don't.
Lillian Horst:***Right. You don't keep up. Yeah, I felt pretty clumsy. So I skated for about 10 minutes and I decided I'm going to stop before I fall because they can go so much faster. They have hockey skates, mine are figure because that's what I had. Now they don't want figure skates, they all have hockey skates.
Wendy Gaylord:***How about skiing? Does anybody ski?
Lillian Horst:***Usually not, I don't think.
Wendy Gaylord:***I only learned when I was here. Cross country skiing through our own woods
Lillian Horst:***I don't know, not that I know of.
Wendy Gaylord:***It was very tiring for me.
Quilting
And once you had a group at your house, one day when I was there, quilting.Is there a women's group that quilts?
Lillian Horst:***That's just a common thing in the winter, people will quilt quilts for their children. The one I had was my son's quilt that he got from my mother - a top, you know, just a top. Usually mom’s make the grandchildren each a quilt top.
Wendy Gaylord:***OK. And then you get together.
Lillian Horst:***I better get started because I haven't done anything.
Wendy Gaylord:***And you have a lot of grandchildren.
Lillian Horst:***Yeah, I do. I think I will buy the quilt tops, buy them each a quilt top. I'll cheat a little bit because I don't like sewing. No.
Not when it comes to putting a quilt pattern together. Oh, I’ll sew my dresses, you know.
Wendy Gaylord:***Oh, I love sewing.
Lillian Horst:***Then winter is when people will put a quilt in and invite some of your friends, so you have enough of people to go around the quilt. Yeah, it's fun. You chat and you quilt.
Wendy Gaylord:***It's quite fun. So I like to make the quilt tops, but I don't like the quilting part of it. I'm not patient.
Lillian Horst:***So I'll have to get you to make quilt tops for me.
Wendy Gaylord:***I can make the quilt top and then you can quilt them for your grandchildren.
Lillian Horst:***I better get started because there's thirteen of them.
Wendy Gaylord:***Ohh my gosh. And it needs to be done. What? When they get married?
Lillian Horst:***Ohh, usually, just sometime. Really. Yeah, that's whenever.
Wendy Gaylord:***Just some fun. I better make something like that.
Lillian Horst:***But sometimes they do. When they get married, you know it's a gift from my grandma.
Wendy Gaylord:***OK.
Well, I see the quilts hanging in Sauders or when they have them at that fair at the Yates fair, the benefit for for Haiti.
Lillian Horst:***Ohh the benefit auction, yes. We get together, we donate six of those quilts, our church and some are from the other groups of Mennonites. We'll get together in like, February or March in the Fellowship Center, where I said we have weddings, that's enough to put 8 quilts in. It's big enough to put, so they will put 6 or 8 whatever people donate, they'll donate the tops, they'll all through winter put these tops together for donation and then we'll put them all in frames. And have 50,60,70,80 ladies.
Lillian Horst:***Then quilt them.
Wendy Gaylord:***And so that auction for Haiti, is all the Mennonite groups together, do they all donate?
Lillian Horst:***It is all the Mennonite groups together, even some Amish, maybe Amish, who are over in Romulus. But I think they might do something, too.
Wendy Gaylord:***It's quite amazing, right? The first time I went to that I was amazed at how many things were being auctioned off.
Lillian Horst:***Right. That's what the different, you know, all the woodwork, all the. Yeah, there's a lot of cabinet shops, furniture shops.
Wendy Gaylord:***There was cows, there was cows and furniture quills.
Lillian Horst:***Yeah, toys. Wooden or handmade a lot of handmade stuff, that's. Down in Penn Yan, Yates County has a lot of furniture shops and woodworking and.
Leonard Zimmerman farm
Wendy Gaylord:***OK. Well, is there anything that you? Think I should be asking you that I don't. Know what to ask.
Lillian Horst:***I don't know what.
Wendy Gaylord:***But it seems, it's important to have the history of the first Mennonite farm in Phelps.
Lillian Horst:***That's right. The last one that would have been bought in Phelps is just north of Phelps, where Terry Ho stables was.
Lillian Horst:***That is also my son-in-law, Dalton Zimmerman's brother who bought that.
Wendy Gaylord:***OK.
Lillian Horst:***What's his name? Leonard and Christine Zimmerman.
Wendy Gaylord:***Leonard Zimmerman, I feel like he's done some work on our house.
Lillian Horst:***He does do some carpentry. He does some carpentry.
Lillian Horst:***The house there was not fit to live in, they found out it was filthy and in bad shape, so they built. He built himself a shop for his business and the one end is their house. They fixed the one end up as a house. It's beautiful, until they get a new house built.
Wendy Gaylord:***So that's the most recent.
Lillian Horst:***That's the most recent, I guess, that is Phelps. Or would that be Newark? That might be Newark, I'm not sure.
Wendy Gaylord:***I'm not quite sure. In the region, in the family.
Lillian Horst:***Right. Yeah, that's the newest.
Wendy Gaylord:***OK. All right. Well, thanks. Thanks for coming in. Thanks for telling us about this. It's fun.
Lillian Horst:***Yeah, I enjoyed it. I don't know if I covered everything.
(Minute 46:01)
I am interested in having you tell us about how you came to be on your farm in Phelps. And how the Mennonite community has grown here.
Lillian Horst:***Right, in 1976, the first Mennonites came to New York from Lancaster, Lebanon County, Southern Pennsylvania. They started out with no church, no. They had church in their homes.
Wendy Gaylord:***And they weren't in Phelps.
Lillian Horst:***They were not in Phelps. They were in Wayne County and Seneca County. This is Ontario County, so it was Wayne County and Seneca County. The first church was built - I don't know which year, but it's still there, it's just outside of South Butler, which is Wayne County, then the second church was Seneca County.
Wendy Gaylord:***Oh, OK. I thought Yates County had more.
Lillian Horst:***Well, Yates County is another group of Mennonites, the horse and buggy Mennonites. They were probably up here before we were. I'm not sure on that.
Wendy Gaylord:***That's a different group. Oh, OK. So you're a different group.
Lillian Horst:***Yeah, it's two different. It's horse and buggy Mennonites and... And so Yates County is even a larger settlement than we, and may have started some years before.
Wendy Gaylord:***So your group came in ‘76 and then how did you get here in Phelps?
Horst dairy farm in Phelps 1990
Lillian Horst:***Well, 1990, we were looking for a farm. We lived in Cumberland County at the time. We were dairy farming for three years on a rented farm and we wanted to buy a farm. Farms in Pennsylvania were too expensive, and I had an aunt and uncle in New York. Over in Seneca County. So we came up to look and we looked at different farms. Came to the Donald Minns farm in Phelps. Which was sort of out of the area, but not that far. So that's where we bought; the Minns’, Janet and Donald Minns farm in 1990.
Wendy Gaylord:***In ‘90. And then you raised your family here.
Lillian Horst:***Yes, we had the two children when we moved up, they were one and four. A little boy and a little girl.
Other Mennonite families in Phelps
Wendy Gaylord:***And then how did you develop your farm? And then, how did other Mennonites come to be in Phelps?
Lillian Horst:***Well, the community from Seneca County and Wayne County has spread. It has spread. Even to yeah, Ontario County. Keuka, is there a Keuka county? Even some in Yates County, it has spread and there's 400 to 500 families now.
Wendy Gaylord:***And so how many would you say are in Phelps? I know on our road there’s quite a few.
Lillian Horst:***Right, right. And there's some at Newark. Or Newark isn't really Phelps, though. You mean just in the Phelps area? Well, there was a new family. I don't know, maybe 10. There may be 10 families in Phelps.
Wendy Gaylord:***So there's you and then your children.
Lillian Horst:***Our son and daughter now.
And my cousin is just down the road at the greenhouse. That's my cousin. Willow Creek, Willow Creek and across the road from us it is David Zimmermann's, the wood shop.
Wendy Gaylord:***And your son is taking over your dairy farm?
Lillian Horst:***He has taken over. He has bought the farm three years ago.
Wendy Gaylord:***And then your daughter has moved down on the corner here.
Lillian Horst:***Route 96 at the produce stand. Bought the Calvin Vanderlite(?) Farm.
Wendy Gaylord:***OK. And now your daughter has children. Who are growing up, I see.
Lillian Horst:***Yes, they are. There are six, and the oldest is 14.
Wendy Gaylord:***I was so surprised when I saw them at the farm stand this summer after a year of not seeing them.
Lillian Horst:***And the son on the dairy farm, his oldest is 15. There are seven.
Wendy Gaylord:***OK. And I think. David Zimmerman has six or seven.
Lillian Horst:***Or eight, eight. That is Dalton's brother. Did you know, he’s my son-in-law's brother?
Wendy Gaylord:***OK. And then are there other families around here?
Lillian Horst:***Well, there's one on Townline Rd. I don't know if that would be Phelps?
Wendy Gaylord:***I think so.
Lillian Horst:***Going over 96, Townline Rd. That's my niece.
Wendy Gaylord:***OK.
Lillian Horst:***Who else would be Phelps?
Wendy Gaylord:***Do you have any brothers and sisters that moved up here as well?
Lillian Horst:***Yes, I have. Oh yes, my sister is just down the road from us, from the farm there. The house that sets back, beside the big brick house.
Wendy Gaylord:***Oh, OK. Oh, right. That little white.
Lillian Horst:***That's my sister. The tan one, modular.
Wendy Gaylord:***Tan. Yeah. Is that the one? She sells flowers in the front?
Lillian Horst:***Yes, that's my sister. And I have a sister at Clyde.
Wendy Gaylord:***OK.
Lillian Horst:***So yeah, that would be another family for Phelps.
Area Churches for Phelps Mennonites
Wendy Gaylord:***And then did you start your own church or do you go to the Wayne County one?
Lillian Horst:***We went to Seneca County for years until they built the third church, just between Alloway and Lyons. On Reed Road. That's where we went until they built the church up on County Road 6 at Lyons. Then that is a little closer.
Wendy Gaylord:***So that's where you go now. And how about the school for children?
Mennonite schools in the area
Lillian Horst:***Our children went to Clyde school all their years.
Wendy Gaylord:***Wow, that's far.
Lillian Horst:***Yes, it was. Until this one was built at Lyons.
So now Lyons is where the local ones go. No, actually, our grandchildren go to Nine Foot Road; the new school behind the [Outlet] mall.
Lillian Horst:***Off 318.
Wendy Gaylord:***Oh, right. There's a school there?
Lillian Horst:***At the mall. At the. Yeah, there's a school back on Nine Foot Road. They go there. It's a larger school with five rooms instead of two, or split up classrooms.
Wendy Gaylord:***And how about the teachers? Are the teachers local?
Lillian Horst:***Teachers are all within our community.
Wendy Gaylord:***I was a teacher, so I'm always interested in how the teachers…
Lillian Horst:***Yeah, right. The 8th and 9th grade teacher is also principal. So they have a young man in there for the older students; the rest are young girls.
Wendy Gaylord:***And do they stop after they get married?
Lillian Horst:***Yeah, they do. They do. We are always losing teachers, but yeah. They're usually aged 18 to 25.
Horst dairy farm
Wendy Gaylord:***And you had a farm stand. And you sold eggs. So how did that start? At the same time as the dairy?
Lillian Horst:***When we moved to the dairy, we found out the former owner, Donald Minns, sold some sweet corn, his extra sweet corn, beside the road. So we grew a little extra sweet corn and we put a pile beside the road under the tree. Then we built a little stand and that sort of progressed, more sweet corn, more vegetables. People wanted more.
Wendy Gaylord:***Your corn is wonderful.
Lillian Horst:***That was our main thing. So as the children got older and could help more we grew more vegetables and added on to the stand.
Wendy Gaylord:***And then the chickens were also your project. You had eggs.
Lillian Horst:***Yeah, but not when we first moved up. We only did that a few years before we moved off the farm.
Wendy Gaylord:***OK.
Lillian Horst:***And before that, I never had chickens, but it was our son-in-law that built the chicken house and he was going to take it on his farm out back and let them run. Well, he soon found out that coyotes will pick them out of the field right in the middle of the day. And he didn't want to be bothered with fences. You can't raise chickens without fences.
Wendy Gaylord:***Right. So, he left them for you.
Lillian Horst:***So, yep, he said he's done. I said OK.
Wendy Gaylord:***And then how many cows? How did you grow your herd?
Lillian Horst:***We started with 80 cows and then we built a barn on in 19…. Well, around 2000, I guess it was.
Wendy Gaylord:***OK.
Lillian Horst:***We built on and almost doubled the size. I think he's doing 140 now, which isn't quite double of what it was original but…
More acreage he would have bought. He would have bought more land.
Wendy Gaylord:***You'd have to to increase your herd, right?
Lillian Horst:***Yes, but I don't know whose exactly that land all would have been.
Horst cattle farm
Wendy Gaylord:***And then you moved down the road.
(Minute 10:00)
Lillian Horst:***Into Tim and Emmy Corteleyou’s house in 2020.
It's easy to keep those years straight, 1990 and 2020; thirty years on the farm.
Wendy Gaylord:***So 30 years on a farm and now you're still on a farm!
Lillian Horst:***Yes. It's 100 acres. We fenced it all in and raise beef cows; cows and calves. There's 100. There's about 100 cows and calves.
Wendy Gaylord:***Do you sell them off regularly?
Lillian Horst:***Well, when the calves get to half a year old, when they're ready to wean. They actually go to my son-in-law here and he raises them to beef.
Lillian Horst:***He raises the beef cows, beef cattle, not calves. These are the offspring.
Then he sells them to for beef.
Wendy Gaylord:***Right at the auction here or wherever?
Lillian Horst:***I think he has a buyer. I think he has a buyer that comes in.
Wendy Gaylord:***Now we can see them from our house, so we always wonder. You have so many. And they never seem to get fewer. But now I see you are the breeder.
Lillian Horst:***There's more, right? He [her husband] said he thinks every one now has had a calf. One just had a baby last week.
Lillian Horst:***He enjoys his cattle, but we don't have to milk cows twice a day!
Wendy Gaylord:***I was just going to say it doesn't seem like you've downsized much from your farm.
Lillian Horst:***Yeah, it's a lot more freedom, though, than milking cows is. And he [her son] has the help. So that's why we got off. He has help. And we don't. His children.
Wendy Gaylord:***And that's six of them?
Lillian Horst:***Seven.
Wendy Gaylord:***But there's not many boys?
Lillian Horst:***Two boys, nine and 12.
Zimmerman vegetable farmstand
Wendy Gaylord:***But they all can help, and so [your daughter and son-in-law] they're raising the beef cattle and doing the vegetable stand. And then once they had turkeys, I thought.
Lillian Horst:***Yeah, he does. They did just. They had 22 turkeys this year, but that was for their own use, really. Maybe a few they sold, but Dalton also does the Finger Lakes fireplace in the winter.
Wendy Gaylord:***Oh, OK.
Lillian Horst:***Finger Lakes Fireplace. Installing gas fireplaces.
Wendy Gaylord:***Gas fireplaces. Does he clean chimneys? If they're gas, I guess you don't have to.
Lillian Horst:***If they're gas, he doesn't get into a whole lot of other furnaces. He had started out with repairing furnaces and things too, but he decided not to. He'll install fireplaces and repair fireplaces, the gas fireplaces. Otherwise he doesn't like to get into just any dirty work.
Wendy Gaylord:***Yeah, but your your daughter grew up on the farm and likes the vegetable part of it. She seems to be always there.
Lillian Horst:***Yeah, she does real well. We started with the vegetables when she was just six years old or something, and she grew up with it. And now hers are growing up with it.
Other Mennonite family businesses
Wendy Gaylord:***What other areas are the local Mennonites involved in around Phelps, particularly Phelps?
Lillian Horst:***Of what they are doing? Well, there is Delmar Martin, Willow Creek Greenhouse.
Wendy Gaylord:***OK, right. We buy a lot of flowers from them.
Lillian Horst:***The greenhouse, and then David Zimmerman has the wood shop, but he also bought a farm down close to Geneva.
On Preemption between North St. and 5 and 20. Did you ever see that?
Wendy Gaylord:***Oh, those big fields?
Lillian Horst:***Back in, they want to build a new house back there sometime, so they will be Geneva instead of Phelps, right?
Wendy Gaylord:***Technically, right, but he's still related to your son-in-law. So he makes wood like kitchen…
Lillian Horst:***Cabinets. It's kitchen cabinets, custom kitchen cabinets and office cabinets. It's too.
Wendy Gaylord:***I remember he moved just after we built our house and we'd been looking for someone to make cabinets and they all said, you know, oh, we're booking a year away. And we were building a new house and we needed cabinets. So that's too bad.
Lillian Horst:***Yeah, I'm not sure if he's going to get out of that or not. He bought that farm and it's. A lot of work.
Wendy Gaylord:***Land. Yeah, so you'd have to take care of it. You mean instead of doing cabinets?
Lillian Horst:***So they will be moving down. They'd be moving down there. There's no cabinet shop there, so he'd either have to build a new shop or discontinue that work?
Wendy Gaylord:***Or keep this one up here and…
Lillian Horst:***I'm not sure. You'd probably sell that place up here.
Wendy Gaylord:***Probably, yeah.
Lillian Horst:***They probably would sell.
Wendy Gaylord:***Unless he had kids who were old enough to farm and you could keep doing that.
Lillian Horst:***Yeah, I don't know what he's going to do yet.
Lillian Horst:***My niece's husband on Townline Rd. He is a truck driver. For EB Martin Roofing at Penn Yan.
So he takes roofing supplies, building supplies far and wide. And they have a little hobby farm there where they are right now doing duck eggs.
Wendy Gaylord:***Duck eggs.
Lillian Horst:***Duck eggs. It's supposed to be so much better for you.
Wendy Gaylord:***There's a place that makes duck egg custard, like ice cream down in Penn Yan.
Lillian Horst:***Oh really?
Wendy Gaylord:***I forget what it's called.
Lillian Horst:***I know where you mean on 54. And it has a different name. For the place too.
Wendy Gaylord:***Yeah, it's got an interesting name I forgot.
Lillian Horst:***I forget what it is. The so and so duck, the second name. The Spotted Duck!
Wendy Gaylord:***Spotted Duck, right!
Lillian Horst:***So that's why it's called that you think they use duck eggs.
Wendy Gaylord:***I think so. That's what I understand.
Wendy Gaylord:***They're supposed to be better, but I couldn't tell the difference. I'm not very expert.
Lillian Horst:***I wouldn't. I don't know; I never tried it.
Wendy Gaylord:***Then in terms of your kids, they went to school through what grade?
Lillian Horst:***Till they were 15, they do 8th grade and then ninth grade is sort of a vocational class till they're 15.
Wendy Gaylord:***Then they are considered to be done.
Lillian Horst:***They're done, right. Graduated. And usually our 8th grade class is more of a 10th grade level. They could pass the 10th grade tests.
Wendy Gaylord:***Right. Do they have to follow the New York State curriculum or do you have your own?
Lillian Horst:***We have our own. It's CLE. Is Christian Light Education. CLE curriculum is what our grandchildren use.
Wendy Gaylord:***OK. So they don't have to take the Regents tests or any of that?
Lillian Horst:***Well, they have to, at the end of the term, they have to do the. There is a test that everyone needs to do. What do you call it?
Wendy Gaylord:***The Regents? Maybe the Regents.
Lillian Horst:***Yeah, because they have a special day where they do their so and so test that is a professional test.
Wendy Gaylord:***And is that the same education you got? Same, 8th grade and then vocational?
Lillian Horst:***Right.
Wendy Gaylord:***I thought we had to go to school till 16. But I think that you're allowed to do a vocational part of it.
Wendy Gaylord:***I'm not from New York, so maybe it's different here.
Lillian Horst:***Yeah, they are usually ready for whatever job they choose once they're 16. They usually work at home until they're 16. Then, carpentry. Some are dairy, on farms. Then they have worked for them longer. But carpenters. There's quite a few carpenters in our communities, carpentry and stores. Sauders store - a lot work there. That's one of our ministers that started that store.
Wendy Gaylord:***And it was like the only grocery store around, right?
Lillian Horst:***He was one of the first people that moved up in 1976. John Sauder, and they had a little room in their house with a few groceries. For the community, for the local people. Were you ever in there now?
Wendy Gaylord:***I go there all the time. We used to go when it was smaller and then it was so big. We still go there but. It's much bigger.
Lillian Horst:***Yeah, his son took that over. Yeah, Johnny. Yeah.
Wendy Gaylord:***Well, it seems like it was the only grocery store for a while. Now, there's a Tops or something nearby.
Lillian Horst:***Oh, I well remember when Wegmans was built, Walmart was built. There was no grocery stores in this area. What I went to was either to Sauders little, little store or to P&C in Phelps across from Agway.
Wendy Gaylord:***Ohh that building. I know the building.
Lillian Horst:***Across from Agway. That was a PNC, and that was the closest grocery store.
Wendy Gaylord:***See, I moved here in 2004, so the Wegmans was already there.
Lillian Horst:***That was there. Well, it wasn't when we came - Wegmans, Walmart.
Wendy Gaylord:***And then. There's a store up on 96, has a big shoe in the front of it.
Lillian Horst:***That is my nephew.
Wendy Gaylord:***That's your nephew.
Lillian Horst:***That is my nephew, that would be Waterloo, though not Phelps.
Wendy Gaylord:***No, but it it's a Mennonite store. I love to go there.
Lillian Horst:***Yes, it is. That's my nephew. That's my sister at Clyde. That's their son.
Lillian Horst:***Yeah, he has that about full.
Wendy Gaylord:***It's a great store. It has everything. It's my favorite store to go to.
Lillian Horst:***A lot of things. You better have time and not too many children in tow, because it's pretty full in there.
Wendy Gaylord:***You know, I took my grandchildren there when they were here from Indiana. They wanted stickers. They wanted to get some stickers, so I said you can get whatever you want. You can get stickers, but then you can also pick one other thing because I know they have a lot of toys, little small toys that are not too expensive and you know, so they each picked out some small thing.
Lillian Horst:***Yeah. Timothy Hoover.
Lillian Horst:***Timothy and Rachel Hoover. They just had their third child here a while back, months ago.
Wendy Gaylord:***So they're still young, yeah.
Lillian Horst:***Older when they married, she's 40.
Speaker
Oh, OK.
Lillian Horst:***She had the third child. He's 40 and he's 30. He's 10 years younger than she is.
Wendy Gaylord:***Is that common? Oh, how interesting.
Lillian Horst:***Yeah, it is. It's hardly ever. No, they usually marry more in twentys.
Wendy Gaylord:***Did they just happen to meet and?
Lillian Horst:***Oh, I don't know. They knew each other. Yeah, longer before that. But she was so much older.
Wendy Gaylord:***I'm surprised, yeah.
Lillian Horst:***I don't know. Somehow they got things together. She had a little store. She had a little store in her parents’ house just off of Route 414 north of Fayette. And then when he married her, he said, OK, we're building a new store. We're going to put it along 96. They bought that house.
Wendy Gaylord:***That's a great location.
Lillian Horst:***I think, too, it's really central for our people, North and South. Yeah. There's another one down at Penn Yan
Wendy Gaylord:***Oh, Oak Hill. No, that's groceries. That's like Sauders.
Lillian Horst:***This is on Volk Road. Edgewood Country Store, Edgewood.
Wendy Gaylord:***Oh yes. It's similar right? I don't go there as often, but when I go down, I go off and go down to the quilt shop, the Golden Lane quilt store and stop off.
Lillian Horst:***Oh yes. That's another store down there with some clothing and shoes.
Wendy Gaylord:***Now, what about at that store on 96? There's also the sheds you know, and buildings. Is that local? Are those made by locals?
Lillian Horst:***They are made, I think, in Yates County by either Amish or one of the horse and buggy Mennonites. And there's a company down there anyways, that makes them.
Wendy Gaylord:***And then they just distribute.
Lillian Horst:***They do different spots you see in different places. So Timothy, the owner of the store, that’s sort of his project, delivering these sheds.
Wendy Gaylord:***Do you have there any any interesting stories about like coming here or your farm, did you have any problems? During your farming, any bad times, any good times?
Lillian Horst:***Right. I don't know, the ‘93 Blizzard. We all remember that. You weren't here for the ‘93 Blizzard.
Wendy Gaylord:***Oh my. I wasn't.
Lillian Horst:***We couldn't even get from our house to the barn to milk. We had to shovel our way out through and it was Sunday morning. We had to shovel to get anywhere, and then my husband spent the forenoon. There was no church. Everyone else was home too. He used the bulldozer to open the driveway so he could get from the house to the barn, and so the milk truck… No, he did not come that day, he came Saturday, so we were so glad the milk truck didn't have to come until Monday. They used the bulldozer, and I remember Sunday morning, about 10:00. Here comes a vee plough down the road. Not a regular snow plow. A vee plough. First he made a path down the middle, cause it was … But we didn't have to dump milk like some people did. Had to let the milk run as they couldn't get there.
So I don't know, then April, there was April, but I don't know which year it was that we had the ice storm that brought some trees and branches down.
Wendy Gaylord:***Yeah, all of our apples got frosted this year in May. We didn't have apples this year. Just a couple you know.
Lillian Horst:***We didn't really have anything too exciting happening. I guess the normal work, work, work.
Wendy Gaylord:***Well, that's good. Is your dairy farm part of a coop?
Lillian Horst:***Right now it is Organic Valley. It's organic. We started that organic a few years before we moved off. It took three years till everything was certified organic three or five years.
Lillian Horst:***Three years, I guess.
Growing without chemicals. So Organic Valley is where the milk goes now. We were Byrne Dairy for quite a number of years when we lived there. So it's organic and it's rotational grazing. So he[their son] does a lot like we do. At our farm.
Wendy Gaylord:***Moves them from field to field.
Lillian Horst:***Every day.
Wendy Gaylord:***Interesting.
Lillian Horst:***Cows do a lot of walking, going to the pastures. And back again. But we found that it's a healthy way to raise cattle and food.
Wendy Gaylord:***It's a lot of work for you though.
Lillian Horst:***Farming is work, but we’d never trade it for raising the family.
(Minute 27:11)
Wendy Gaylord:***And do you would you encourage, I mean, do you talk to new people as they come in? Do you encourage people? Is there land here still?
Lillian Horst:***There isn't a whole lot of farms available anymore. So that we don't have a lot of people moving up from Pennsylvania now.
Wendy Gaylord:***Yeah, you won't be growing as much if there's not as much.
Lillian Horst:***The community is growing within itself without having people come up.
Wendy Gaylord:***And isn't that what happened in Pennsylvania too?
Lillian Horst:***That's what happened in Pennsylvania, and they came up here. Now they’re quicker going to Kentucky. We started a new settlement in Kentucky. So there's some going to Kentucky. There's some going to Missouri, which is another large settlement.
Wendy Gaylord:***How about Indiana?
Lillian Horst:***And Indiana and Ohio, there's some; I don't know them. It's a different group. I don't know anyone there, but I do know people in Missouri. I have relatives in Missouri that moved out there before we moved up here. Iowa has some, too.
Wendy Gaylord:***So do you have a national conference of all Mennonites or just your own group?
Lillian Horst:***Now there is a conference. They get together twice a year. The ministry gets together twice a year and that's Pennsylvania.
Wendy Gaylord:***Of your Mennonite group?
Lillian Horst:***Yes. New York, Pennsylvania , New York, Missouri, Iowa and Wisconsin. Wisconsin also has a large settlement; started about the same time we started in New York. Maybe a little later.
Wendy Gaylord:***Good dairy.
Lillian Horst:***Dairy farmers, dairy country, yes, dairy country.
Wendy Gaylord:***Well, that's interesting.
Lillian Horst:***Missouri is maybe not quite so much dairy. A little more cattle farms, cattle ranches.
Wendy Gaylord:***Right. I've only been to the city so I don't even know Missouri.
Lillian Horst:***This is northern Missouri. But a little more of the grazing cattle.
Wendy Gaylord:***Have you been out to visit?
Lillian Horst:***Missouri. Oh yes.
Wendy Gaylord:***Yes, don't you have a sister?
Lillian Horst:***And aunts and uncles and cousins in Missouri, yes, we've been out.
Probably five times in my life, but not for 10 years now. Yeah, it's time to go.
Wendy Gaylord:***Time to go!
(Minute 29:30
Lillian Horst:***We're off the dairy farm, but we're not off the farm. You have still have cattle, still have cattle and chickens.
Wendy Gaylord:***It's difficult. And then how about your parents? Are your parents or your husband's parents still in Pennsylvania?
Lillian Horst:***My husband, only his dad is living, and he is in Richland at a elderly old people's home. We have a few of our own Homes down there.
Wendy Gaylord:***Oh, really?
Lillian Horst:***Or its Mennonite homes from different churches, different communities, the Amish and Mennonites.
Wendy Gaylord:***But it's the place that respects you.
Lillian Horst:***Your religion. So he is in the home in Richland, he's not doing real well. My mother isn't living anymore, either. She passed away of cancer at a very young age. I didn't think it was young at the time, but now I'm only a year away from that. Now it doesn't seem very…I know she was young. So Dad remarried and they are living still in the same neighborhood as where I grew up. Schaefferstown, Pennsylvania.
Wendy Gaylord:***So do you get to go down there periodically?
Lillian Horst:***We go down about four times a year. Weddings. I mean, a lot of my relatives and his relatives are down there. Yeah, four or five times a year. That's just a 5 hour drive. Easy drive.
Wendy Gaylord:***Right. So you can just do an overnight and come back.
Lillian Horst:***Mm-hmm. Usually one night. Yeah. Two days. One night. Sometimes just in one day. It's a long day. It is.
We don't need to do that anymore if we don't have cows to milk, but we used to, sometimes, we'd have someone doing the milking for one day. And just go to a wedding or whatever.
Wendy Gaylord:***You still have a big house. Even though your children have their own, do you have a lot of family gatherings?
Lillian Horst:***I have guests, overnight guests. You know, they come up. So many come up from Pennsylvania. I have room to have them overnight.
Wendy Gaylord:***Oh that's great.
Lillian Horst:***As far as having a lot in the house, it's a lot of little rooms so it’s not like one big open room. I have plenty of room for our own family.
Larger gatherings. My family is coming, all coming, for Thanksgiving.
Wendy Gaylord:***Oh, nice.
Lillian Horst:***120 to 150 people, not to our place.
Wendy Gaylord:***Oh where they going?
Lillian Horst:***For that we will use, along 414 in Seneca Falls. The Finger Lakes Fellowship Center.
Wendy Gaylord:***OK.
Lillian Horst:***Just South of Seneca Falls.
Wendy Gaylord:***Is that a Mennonite center ?
Lillian Horst:***That's where we have our weddings and like Christmas dinners and Thanksgiving when you have over 100 people.
Wendy Gaylord:***So is it attached to a church?
Lillian Horst:***It is not a church; it's a fellowship Center for weddings. And gatherings and the youth group.
Wendy Gaylord:***And then people will stay with different families.
Lillian Horst:***If they stay up, it's Thanksgiving Day. A lot of them will just come for the day because it's not a Saturday, Sunday. It's not a weekend.
Wendy Gaylord:***That's right. It's Thursday.
Lillian Horst:***It's Thursday, right? So yeah, we're looking forward. My brother's coming in from Wisconsin. That's right. I have one brother in Wisconsin. Two sisters up here in New York and three sisters in Pennsylvania.
Wendy Gaylord:***So they'll all be here.
Lillian Horst:***Not quite everyone is coming. Because the next generations are invited too, our children and grandchildren.
Wendy Gaylord:***And then who does the cooking for all of that?
Lillian Horst:***We all will, yeah, everybody brings something.
Wendy Gaylord:***Is there a kitchen at the Fellowship Hall?
Lillian Horst:***There's the kitchen there, there's all the. Yeah, we'll have to plug in some roasters or something, or else use the oven. We’ll all bring things.
Wendy Gaylord:***Sounds like a lot of fun.
Lillian Horst:***We'll probably have a supper, too. Early supper because some will head home then, so you can. We hope we have a good day.
Wendy Gaylord:***Yeah, my son's wife is a nurse, so she has to work on Thanksgiving this year. So in the past, we get together somewhere but this year she has that one day that she has to work.
Lillian Horst:***Somebody’s gotta be in the hospital?
We'll see them after. We'll go visit in November. I guess we'll visit them before Thanksgiving. Have Curt’s children with us for Thanksgiving.
Youth groups
And then did you and your husband meet in school?
Lillian Horst:***No, as a youth group, with the youth group.
Lillian Horst:***He is 3 years older than I am.
Wendy Gaylord:***You wouldn't have been in school together.
Lillian Horst:***No. He was 24, I was 20. Twenty-one, when we got married.
That's how our youth group is; like up here, there's over 200 youth and from age 16 to 25 or whenever they get married.
Wendy Gaylord:***So once they're out of school until.
Lillian Horst:***Age 16, more like 17, you know. Once they have their license, which isn't before 16 1/2, that's when they join the youth group.
Wendy Gaylord:***Then they can get there on their own and be more independent. I often see groups down at the lake at Seneca Lake, the park you know on a Saturday evening or afternoon.
Lillian Horst:***Oh, ok. Sometimes, right?
Wendy Gaylord:***Or Sunday afternoon sometimes.
Lillian Horst:***They have a volleyball barn along 318 J’s auction barn. If you’re ever close to that mall, that's what they use it for. It's an auction barn, but it has a big open space. And they can set up three volleyball nets they love to play volleyball.
Wendy Gaylord:***You know, my husband plays volleyball with a group that plays down the road here behind the fireman's field. Yeah, once a week they used to play twice a week when they were younger, but now they're all old.
Lillian Horst:***Oh really?
Lillian Horst:***So he would enjoy playing.
Wendy Gaylord:***And his children also played through high school and college. They played volleyball a lot. Both his daughter and his son here and in Phelps, right.
Lillian Horst:***And they'll use the yeah reception center they'll use for singing.
Lillian Horst:***Go once said, they always have an Easter singing. Where the youth have over 100 of them singing. That's really nice to see.
Wendy Gaylord:***It's really nice.
Lillian Horst:***And built a new fellowship center up close to the Pleasant Ridge Church, close to South Butler. There's a new one now, so we have two places for weddings.
Wendy Gaylord:***And do the youth groups get together? Do they? Gathered from both of them and.
Lillian Horst:***Yes, they gather on Saturday evenings, Sunday evenings.
Lillian Horst:***From all of them, right?
Lillian Horst:***They used to do it in their homes, but it's too many for in the homes now. So they have the volleyball barn and they have the fellowship centers.
Parks. We used to have them at Oaks Corners park.
Wendy Gaylord:***Right. Yeah, that's a nice park.
Lillian Horst:***It is, in the summer, that works.
Wendy Gaylord:***Although the tennis courts don't look so good.
Lillian Horst:***Yeah. The place needs a little work. Then there's other parks. They have gotten together at.
Lillian Horst:***One up at Rose on 4/14. I forget what the name of that one is, where they sometimes have suppers and play baseball and volleyball.
Wendy Gaylord:***OK. And I've seen, I don't know if it's your group, but I've seen them playing baseball at the Seneca Lake State Park.
Lillian Horst:***Too. OK, Ball Park there, right? I don't know that our youth used that, but might have.
Wendy Gaylord:***Might be other ones, yeah. And I haven't seen them for a while. But they I I was always impressed because the girls and the boys played together and the girls were often better. You know, we would like to watch them often. Better than the boys sometimes.
Lillian Horst:***Yeah, they like baseball and volleyball and skating.
Wendy Gaylord:***Where do they skate?
Lillian Horst:***They have a rink now on 318 that's close to the Outlet Mall, too. One of our people built a big…they use it for storage, and Martin Grain Systems uses it for storage in the summer. And then they flood in the winter, but it's inside with big lights, no light outside, no sign at the end. They don't want any public in there, so they kept it really private, but that's been just the last few years that they had that.
Wendy Gaylord:***That's interesting.
Lillian Horst:***Yeah, they like to skate, hockey players and hockey.
Wendy Gaylord:***Do you skate?
Lillian Horst:***I did this past winter. I was on that very rink. I went with my grandchildren. I was on about 10 minutes. I thought I'd better get off before I fall.
Wendy Gaylord:***I skated in Geneva a few times.
Lillian Horst:***I know where that is.
Wendy Gaylord:***Now they've closed it in, but at the time the sides were still open. I used to go there and skate once in a while, but then I decided I was kind of too old. If you don't do it a lot, you don't.
Lillian Horst:***Right. You don't keep up. Yeah, I felt pretty clumsy. So I skated for about 10 minutes and I decided I'm going to stop before I fall because they can go so much faster. They have hockey skates, mine are figure because that's what I had. Now they don't want figure skates, they all have hockey skates.
Wendy Gaylord:***How about skiing? Does anybody ski?
Lillian Horst:***Usually not, I don't think.
Wendy Gaylord:***I only learned when I was here. Cross country skiing through our own woods
Lillian Horst:***I don't know, not that I know of.
Wendy Gaylord:***It was very tiring for me.
Quilting
And once you had a group at your house, one day when I was there, quilting.Is there a women's group that quilts?
Lillian Horst:***That's just a common thing in the winter, people will quilt quilts for their children. The one I had was my son's quilt that he got from my mother - a top, you know, just a top. Usually mom’s make the grandchildren each a quilt top.
Wendy Gaylord:***OK. And then you get together.
Lillian Horst:***I better get started because I haven't done anything.
Wendy Gaylord:***And you have a lot of grandchildren.
Lillian Horst:***Yeah, I do. I think I will buy the quilt tops, buy them each a quilt top. I'll cheat a little bit because I don't like sewing. No.
Not when it comes to putting a quilt pattern together. Oh, I’ll sew my dresses, you know.
Wendy Gaylord:***Oh, I love sewing.
Lillian Horst:***Then winter is when people will put a quilt in and invite some of your friends, so you have enough of people to go around the quilt. Yeah, it's fun. You chat and you quilt.
Wendy Gaylord:***It's quite fun. So I like to make the quilt tops, but I don't like the quilting part of it. I'm not patient.
Lillian Horst:***So I'll have to get you to make quilt tops for me.
Wendy Gaylord:***I can make the quilt top and then you can quilt them for your grandchildren.
Lillian Horst:***I better get started because there's thirteen of them.
Wendy Gaylord:***Ohh my gosh. And it needs to be done. What? When they get married?
Lillian Horst:***Ohh, usually, just sometime. Really. Yeah, that's whenever.
Wendy Gaylord:***Just some fun. I better make something like that.
Lillian Horst:***But sometimes they do. When they get married, you know it's a gift from my grandma.
Wendy Gaylord:***OK.
Well, I see the quilts hanging in Sauders or when they have them at that fair at the Yates fair, the benefit for for Haiti.
Lillian Horst:***Ohh the benefit auction, yes. We get together, we donate six of those quilts, our church and some are from the other groups of Mennonites. We'll get together in like, February or March in the Fellowship Center, where I said we have weddings, that's enough to put 8 quilts in. It's big enough to put, so they will put 6 or 8 whatever people donate, they'll donate the tops, they'll all through winter put these tops together for donation and then we'll put them all in frames. And have 50,60,70,80 ladies.
Lillian Horst:***Then quilt them.
Wendy Gaylord:***And so that auction for Haiti, is all the Mennonite groups together, do they all donate?
Lillian Horst:***It is all the Mennonite groups together, even some Amish, maybe Amish, who are over in Romulus. But I think they might do something, too.
Wendy Gaylord:***It's quite amazing, right? The first time I went to that I was amazed at how many things were being auctioned off.
Lillian Horst:***Right. That's what the different, you know, all the woodwork, all the. Yeah, there's a lot of cabinet shops, furniture shops.
Wendy Gaylord:***There was cows, there was cows and furniture quills.
Lillian Horst:***Yeah, toys. Wooden or handmade a lot of handmade stuff, that's. Down in Penn Yan, Yates County has a lot of furniture shops and woodworking and.
Leonard Zimmerman farm
Wendy Gaylord:***OK. Well, is there anything that you? Think I should be asking you that I don't. Know what to ask.
Lillian Horst:***I don't know what.
Wendy Gaylord:***But it seems, it's important to have the history of the first Mennonite farm in Phelps.
Lillian Horst:***That's right. The last one that would have been bought in Phelps is just north of Phelps, where Terry Ho stables was.
Lillian Horst:***That is also my son-in-law, Dalton Zimmerman's brother who bought that.
Wendy Gaylord:***OK.
Lillian Horst:***What's his name? Leonard and Christine Zimmerman.
Wendy Gaylord:***Leonard Zimmerman, I feel like he's done some work on our house.
Lillian Horst:***He does do some carpentry. He does some carpentry.
Lillian Horst:***The house there was not fit to live in, they found out it was filthy and in bad shape, so they built. He built himself a shop for his business and the one end is their house. They fixed the one end up as a house. It's beautiful, until they get a new house built.
Wendy Gaylord:***So that's the most recent.
Lillian Horst:***That's the most recent, I guess, that is Phelps. Or would that be Newark? That might be Newark, I'm not sure.
Wendy Gaylord:***I'm not quite sure. In the region, in the family.
Lillian Horst:***Right. Yeah, that's the newest.
Wendy Gaylord:***OK. All right. Well, thanks. Thanks for coming in. Thanks for telling us about this. It's fun.
Lillian Horst:***Yeah, I enjoyed it. I don't know if I covered everything.
(Minute 46:01)
