Wayne Brabender
It's hard to predict where life will take us. I know mine has taken twists and turns that I didn't see coming.
At age 10, I wanted to be a carpenter, just like my maternal grandfather, Tony Friedl. When I was 12, I wanted to be a dairy farmer, just like my dad. At age 14, I entered a seminary because I thought I wanted to become a Catholic priest. At 18, I left the seminary to attend the University of Wisconsin-Madison with aims to become a Latin teacher, then a pharmacist, then a social worker, and then an American history professor. Instead, I earned bachelor and master degrees in journalism, writing sports in my first professional job, editing a base newspaper in the U. S. Air Force for my second, and then, starting at age 26, spending 36 years with the University of Wisconsin-Extension and the State 4-H Office doing marketing and photojournalism, writing curriculum, and serving as the state 4-H photo specialist, teaching photography to 4-H kids and adult leaders.
At age 62, I retired. At the time, I lived in Madison in a lovely old rental house, planning to spend the rest of my life there, taking photos, reading, listening to music, and enjoying time with my three sons and my grandson. My parents had died three years earlier, leaving the family’s 120-acre farm in Ashton to me and my five siblings. Because we were all settled, either owning or renting our own homes, none of us wanted to move to the farm. So we rented the farmland to a neighbor while the buildings sat empty. But when we put our farm on the market and I saw the big for-sale sign in our yard, I decided I could not sell The Old Brabender Place without a fight. It was then I heard a knock on my door: my landlord was there to tell me that he was selling the old house I was renting and I had two months to move.
So at age 65, I looked homeward and on New Year’s Eve, 2012, I moved into a very cold, dark, and dilapidated 150-year-old limestone house, the place where I had grown up and made those initial life plans.
Now in my 70s, I’m still here at The Old Brabender Place – where I was meant to be – living the life of a "gentleman" farmer, photographer, and writer – what I was meant to be.
By the way, I'm the only one in the family that calls our farm The Old Brabender Place. It's formally known as Brabender Century Farm. But I was talking to a neighbor shortly after I moved in and after I explained to him that I lived in the house and we had plans to remodel the buildings, he said, "I was wondering what had happened to the old Brabender place." So now you know.
At age 10, I wanted to be a carpenter, just like my maternal grandfather, Tony Friedl. When I was 12, I wanted to be a dairy farmer, just like my dad. At age 14, I entered a seminary because I thought I wanted to become a Catholic priest. At 18, I left the seminary to attend the University of Wisconsin-Madison with aims to become a Latin teacher, then a pharmacist, then a social worker, and then an American history professor. Instead, I earned bachelor and master degrees in journalism, writing sports in my first professional job, editing a base newspaper in the U. S. Air Force for my second, and then, starting at age 26, spending 36 years with the University of Wisconsin-Extension and the State 4-H Office doing marketing and photojournalism, writing curriculum, and serving as the state 4-H photo specialist, teaching photography to 4-H kids and adult leaders.
At age 62, I retired. At the time, I lived in Madison in a lovely old rental house, planning to spend the rest of my life there, taking photos, reading, listening to music, and enjoying time with my three sons and my grandson. My parents had died three years earlier, leaving the family’s 120-acre farm in Ashton to me and my five siblings. Because we were all settled, either owning or renting our own homes, none of us wanted to move to the farm. So we rented the farmland to a neighbor while the buildings sat empty. But when we put our farm on the market and I saw the big for-sale sign in our yard, I decided I could not sell The Old Brabender Place without a fight. It was then I heard a knock on my door: my landlord was there to tell me that he was selling the old house I was renting and I had two months to move.
So at age 65, I looked homeward and on New Year’s Eve, 2012, I moved into a very cold, dark, and dilapidated 150-year-old limestone house, the place where I had grown up and made those initial life plans.
Now in my 70s, I’m still here at The Old Brabender Place – where I was meant to be – living the life of a "gentleman" farmer, photographer, and writer – what I was meant to be.
By the way, I'm the only one in the family that calls our farm The Old Brabender Place. It's formally known as Brabender Century Farm. But I was talking to a neighbor shortly after I moved in and after I explained to him that I lived in the house and we had plans to remodel the buildings, he said, "I was wondering what had happened to the old Brabender place." So now you know.