Man creates miniature farmstead display
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GENESEO, Ill. (Quad-City Times) — Vern Holevoet loves the farm, and even though he and his wife Marcia no longer live on a farm, they have created an original farmstead display in the basement of their Geneseo home.
It has been a labor of love for Holevoet, who began the project close to 65 years ago while still living on one of three farms where he and his wife resided until moving to their home in Geneseo in 1992. He continues to add to the scene that incorporates seven buildings, two silos, John Deere and Farmall farm equipment, animals, landscaping and two augers.
“I don’t miss living on the farm, but I love the farm,” he said, and added that he continues to visit the farm in Osco Township where he and Marcia once lived.
“Our son and daughter-in-law (Mark and Lori Holevoet) live on the Osco Township farm now, and I love going out there and tinkering in the farm shop,” he said and explained that farm is now a Centennial Farm.
All items and buildings in the miniature rural estate have been completed on a scale of a half-inch equaling 1 foot of actual size, and the display represents all three of the farms the Holevoet couple lived on in Henry County — the first being in Cornwall Township — and the miniature replica includes a corn crib that Holevoet built in 1956 using a homemade saw.
The building is designed to be exactly like the corn crib on the farm, down to the grain chutes. It is made from a basswood so the exterior looks exactly like the original life-size corn crib on the farm.
The farm is now the home of Holevoet’s brother and his wife, James and Donna Holevoet of Atkinson.
The second farm is located in Osco Township and the third rural home in Edford Township is where the Holevoet couple lived the longest and operated a dairy farm. The loafing shed where the cattle slept, the Harvester silos made from empty antifreeze cans, the shed, and feed bunk are designed from those same structures that today are still standing on the farm in Edford Township.
Each of the seven buildings in the farm scene have been finished in great detail, down to the movable parts — the house, garage, shop and machine shed are replicas from the Osco Township farm, where Marcia Holevoet, the former Marcia Wildermuth, was born in the farm house. The original farm house burned in May of 1926 and was replaced in August of 1926 with a new house that stands today.
The miniature farmstead display is 6-feet wide and 14-feet long and is set up on painted green plywood, with the exception of the cattle yard that is painted gray and rests on saw horses. It spans a large part of the Holevoet’s basement.
Vern Holevoet has worked at Farm & Fleet for 34 years — 16 years in Moline and 18 years in Geneseo — and he continues to work part time. Marcia Holevoet was a certified nurse’s aide at Hillcrest Home in Geneseo for 21 years.
In addition to the couple’s son Mark, they have another son and daughter-in-law, Ron and Sue Holevoet, of Carlyle, Ill.; and a daughter, Christine VanDamme, who died in 1985.
Holevoet smiled as he said, “I will always be a farmer, and I am tickled to death when someone wants to see the farmstead I have made.”
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