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Repository, The (Canton, OH)

Estimated printed pages: 5

August 14, 2005


Section: Main Story

The Edge of Appalachia: Fond memories fuel final farewell for a family farm
TIM BOTOS
Repository staff writer

The Edge of Appalachia: An eight-part series about the poverty-sticken region known as
Appalachia that touches Stark County's southern borders - and Stark Countians lives. This is the
fifth of eight stories of people who live on the edge of Appalachia.
OSNABURG TWP. Beneath a pair of towering catalpa trees, a crowd of about 200 people settled
into lawn chairs or stood in the shade on a Saturday morning.

Checkbooks, wallets and purses at their sides, they came to buy a piece of the Fallot farm.

They parked their cars in a grass field where the Fallots for years tended a family garden. They
bought doughnuts, coffee and hot dogs from a snack stand inside a garage that once held
tractors, a combine and farm tools. They even mingled inside bedrooms where the Fallots used to
sleep.

Its kind of an end of an era for the Fallot family, auctioneer Jim Kiko told prospective bidders.

Sprinkled amidst the gathering were the four Fallot children, all adults with families of their own.
They wished it didnt have to come to this. If possible, they would have kept that little dairy farm
their father had carried on his shoulders.

Somber, they watched.

They even cried a little.

A sale meant the official death of the familys farm. The four children David, Donna, Diane and
Debbie had prepared for this day, but that didnt make it easier.

Around the country, houses and shopping centers have replaced family farms. In a few years, they
figured, new homes would be built on the land that once sustained their cows, corn and pigs.

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It will be hard to see what happens here, Donna said.

As the morning progressed, Kiko auctioned bits and pieces of the farm. But along the way, the
sale took a turn that surprised, even shocked the Fallot children. It was a twist that buffered their
sorrow and filled a void in their hearts.

An Army veteran of World War II, farming was Bob Fallots life. It was his livelihood, his hobby and
his passion. He bought the farm on Valleybrook Street SE in 1962.

About the only other thing he ever did was shoot trap, said his 53-year-old son, David.

The family didnt go on vacations because Bob had to be there every day to milk his two dozen
cows at 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. Every couple days, he sold the milk to Superior Dairy.

For the Fallot children, the auction brought back memories of their days growing up on the farm.
As a boy, David had been over every inch of its 100 acres at one time or another. From Fallots
Woods on one side to the hog pen on the other side of Lotz Avenue.

The children were built-in farmhands. They helped their dad bale hay and store it in the big red
barn. The three girls accepted a heavier load after their brother moved out.

I was the tractor driver, Donna recalled.

Standing about 6 feet tall, Bob Fallot looked like a farmer from his wiry build, to the chaw of
Mail Pouch tobacco embedded in his cheek. While working the fields, he often wore a blue
chambray shirt. The summer sun, which rose over the hills to the east, scorched a perpetual V-
shaped tan on his chest.

His wife, Caroline, raised the children. She cooked and kept house. She helped out with the farm
work. The couple was married for 56 years.

In his later years, Bobs health began to fail. He switched from dairy cows to beef cattle. His son,
David, often returned to help, working until sundown after finishing his full-time day job.

Bob Fallot died in 2003 at age 79.

The family got rid of the animals and much of the farm equipment. They leased the fields for crops
to their neighbor Chuck Parker, who owns the farm next door. Parker used the Fallot barn to store
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bales of hay for his own farm, which he works around his full-time job with an agricultural
equipment dealer.

Caroline Fallot died this year, leaving the farm to the children. With families and bills of their own
now, they couldnt afford to run it as a farm anymore. The only way to divide it into four parts was
to sell it and split the proceeds.

David knew his neighbor was interested in buying some of the farm on auction day, though he
wasnt sure Parker had the finances to do it. The night before the auction, Parker prayed on his
front porch. He hoped for the best, but planned for the worst.

The farm was carved into 13 smaller sections, each offered to the high bidder.

Parker, who attended the auction, retained the right to harvest his crops from the leased fields.
The barn full of Parkers hay would be emptied by the time buyers closed on any of the parcels,
Jim and Joe Kiko assured the crowd.

The Kikos offered some contents of the garage as the auction began at 10:30 a.m. Aug. 6. That
was hard enough for the Fallot children to see. They watched many familiar objects sold off
crocks where they kept lard, pocket knives their dad used to carve splinters out of his hands.

At 11 a.m., it was time to sell the land.

After each of the 13 sections sold, Kiko would accept bids on the whole farm as a package. If, and
only if, a bidder offered to pay more than the sum sale price of the pieces would the farm be sold
as a whole.

One by one, in chunks of five to 16 acres, men and women in the crowd raised their hands, as Jim
Kiko whirled along. The rhythm of his auctioneers voice was the only thing disturbing the silence.
In or out, yes or no? he asked over and over again.

The first parcel to sell contained the Fallot home and every outbuilding on the property, including a
smokehouse, two pole barns, the garage, and the red barn its raised white lettering R.J. Fallot
still plastered on its east side.

The parcel went for $160,000.

As the Kikos continued through the other 12 parcels, different buyers stepped in, claiming their
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own chunk for as much as $10,500 an acre.

By 11:40 a.m., the farm was all but sold. All the pieces amounted to a combined bid of $797,500.
If a sole bidder wanted to take the farm, hed have to possess an extra large checkbook. Several
groups, including one around Parker, huddled together, as the clock ticked. Kiko said hed wait
until the conferences came to a resolution.

Its your money; Im not going to tell you how to spend it, Kiko told them.

Parker hadnt expected the bids to go as high as they did. Theres no way he could ever grow
enough crops on the Fallot farm to pay a mortgage that large, he thought. At one point, Parker
told Kiko to go ahead and just sell it in pieces.

However, a couple of his neighbors, the Virdens and Oberlys, who also wanted to see the land
remain as it is, agreed to help Parker shoulder some of the mortgage payment.

The whole community was interested in what happened; it was a very sentimental auction,
Parker said.

He chimed in with an offer of $798,000. Kiko said hed chip in $2,000 out of his own commission
to make it an even $800,000. Weve been friends for too long, Kiko said.

It was sold.

The crowd applauded.

It was one of the toughest decisions Ive ever made, Parker said.

The Fallot children burst into smiles. Tears welled in Davids eyes. They hugged their spouses.
They hugged each other. They congratulated their neighbor on his purchase.

Parker and his brother, Keith, plan to farm most of the land. A son and daughter-in-law likely will
move into the Fallot home. Its hard to put into words what it means for him to listen to coyotes
howling as they drink from the Sandy Creek at night, or watching a deer or wild turkey just outside
your house.

We need to keep our farmland, Parker said. You think gas prices are high, wait until we start
paying that for (food) ... once land is gone, theres no turning back.

Hes not making any promises. Farming can be a fickle business. Weather can turn a good year into
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a horrid year. But one day, hed like to pass on the farm to his children.

For the four Fallot children, it was as close to a happy ending as they could hope for.

Their dads farm would remain a farm.

Somewhere up above, they believed, he was looking down and smiling.

You can reach Repository writer Tim Botos at (330) 580-8333 or e-mail:

tim.botos@cantonrep.com

To read the rest of the stories in this series, go to the Advanced Search form in the left column at
cantonrep.com and type Appalachia in the headline box. Begin the search on July 17, 2005 and
your search results will include all of the published stories.

Copyright 2005, The Repository, All Rights Reserved.

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