Based on Corey Geigers popular Homesteaders Hope column,On a Wisconsin Family Farmflings the barn doors wide open to a cast of characters who built Americas Dairyland.
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In 1905, twenty-eight-year-old Anna Satorie, granddaughter of Bohemian immigrants, went against cultural norms and became the sole owner of her familys homestead when she purchased the farm from her father. The next year, Anna married neighboring farmer John Burich, also of Bohemian extraction, and the couple went about building a thrifty family farm. But pioneer life was fraught with trials and tribulations. Polio and tuberculosis claimed loved ones, and the difficulties of Prohibition forced the family to fabricate the death of Johns bootlegging brother to keep gangsters away from the farm. Neighbors pitched in as fellow immigrant families helped construct farmsteads and support one another through unsanctioned bank loans, daring dynamite work, and barn raisings. Leaving work aside, this vibrant community also threw parties met by the roosters early-dawn crow.
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Pairing his rural roots with lively storytelling, Geiger captures six generations of farming, family, and faith.
Known to friends as the Dancing Dairyman, Corey Geiger danced his way onto the Family Feud television show, Texas Two-Stepped on the colored shavings during the Supreme Champion ceremonies in front of a crowd of 4,500 at the World Dairy Expo and competed at the Fred Astaire Cross Country Dance Competition national finals, where he and his wife, Krista Knigge, won top amateur couple honors in their division. In 1995, this University of WisconsinMadison graduate joined the Hoards Dairyman. In 2013, Geiger was tapped as the publications fifth lead editor, and in 2019, he was elected the sixty-fifth president of Holstein USA. He was co-editor of World Dairy Expos 50th Anniversary Book, We Need a Show, and served as fundraising co-chair for the Farm Wisconsin Discovery Center. He remains trl³-
![On a Wisconsin Family Farm: Historic Tales of Character, Community and Culture [Paperback]](/itemImage/2/8/2/4/2_4464427.jpg "On a Wisconsin Family Farm: Historic Tales of Character, Community and Culture [Paperback]")