Women In Agriculture
ROB MILLS
PERRYVILLE, MISSOURI
The 20th Century was a time when women crashed the party. The door they kicked open was to the fraternity of power, the testosterone kingdom. This was the time when ladies sat down at the table, looked at the men and said “deal.”
Before then though, women occasionally had their fifteen minutes. For instance…Cleopatra ruling Egypt…Mary telling Jesus to take care of that wine issue… Helena & Joan Of Arc caused quite a stir…Martin Luther’s wife made some of the best Bavarian beer perhaps ever brewed, possibly inspiring him to put his comments on that door in Wittenberg….Dolly Madison guarded the White House and the American democratic experience with shotgun in hand between laundry loads…and…President Woodrow Wilson’s wife quietly ran the country for a couple years, after his stoke rendered him unable to do his job.
But make no mistake in those times a woman’s place in daily life was on the back burner. Like Lily Tomlin’s character Edith Ann used to say, “and that’s the truth.”
But as the 20th Century arrived, the course of human events provoked change. The 1915 Garment District fire, the Suffragette Movement, the Second World War and the 60’s, a wave of events that couldn’t have been predicted, which led to a cultural revolution.
What emerged was a fundamental flip in how life was lived. The structure of American society slowly yielded to the new thinking about women and their “role.” But to say the ag world dutifully followed along…no… that would be a stretch.
The notion of women in agriculture carried an image of Little House on the Prairie and The Waltons, women anchoring families they quietly but firmly ran, but always knowing who was in charge…no matter how decent or repugnant their husbands were.
But as we hit the quarter pole of the 21st century, there is a trend in a world that is truly resistant to change…college educated women pursuing a career in the field of agriculture. They find it a world of creativity and opportunity. One that pays. (For some, only if the crops work out.)
Here in 2024 is one example of a female whose road to being able to administer rectal palpation included a stop at the St. Charles West prom…and a life changing experience with that world Lainey Wilson described as “Wildflowers and Wild Horses.”
Except in Marissa Wilson’s (no relation) experience, the horses were tame, living in a barn in rural Warren County, an hour west of St. Charles, Missouri, the unofficial capital of suburban St. Louis once described to me as “God’s Country.”
Her Dad was a St. Charles city cop, DARE officer to several towns around his primary work area. Having a front row seat to the emerging crime issues that began to visit even the suburban promised land in the early 2000’s, he found his escape in the countryside a world away from his beat. A place that provided a life changing experience for his little girl with the Irish red hair.
It was a plot of land with a barn. “I loved going out to that place” recalled Marissa. “Every Saturday it was walks in the country, biking and riding that animal I fell in love with. It was there I developed a true passion for horses.” She immediately started taking riding lessons, and unlike other parents paying for a child’s fleeting interest, the Wilson’s would see their investment pay off down the road.
Her high school years were spent at St. Charles West, a suburban school no different than what you would find in Anaheim, CA or Westchester County, NY. Except she says “it had a small-town feel. We knew each other K-12.“ In those years she played softball, basketball, was a shot putter & danced. She went to the barn and her horses when she could, developing into a skilled competition rider. And then as graduation came closer, she received an invitation.
“My best friend invited me to go to Cape Girardeau to check out Southeast Missouri State University,” she recalled. Marissa says she walked through the door of the school’s Agriculture Department and “CLICK”, she knew. “The moment I realized I could study Equine Science there, I was in.” Brother Trevor would make the trek to one of America’s great academic & party schools, The University of Missouri-COLUMBIA!
Marissa was going to Cape Girardeau.
Her time at SEMO led to a degree, and an education in the world she’d embraced. One that was a long way from Old St. Charles and the trip to Boston to see the Stanley Cup Finals.
“The farm, its animals, are a part of American culture. It’s a pragmatic world, never a dull moment, and I saw it has a place for anyone who wants in….and more and more suburban students are flowing into ag,” she said. Her eyes were opened as well to the machinery that feeds the world. “I saw the job of agriculture was to produce. Just look at southeast Missouri. Peanuts, corn, rice, soybeans, cotton all produced in just this region.” Southeast Missouri had made its impression on her.
Also, she had made an impression on Southeast Missouri, the school that is. Following graduation, the student became an instructor, getting her master’s degree, and becoming Marissa Wilson M.S.
Last fall, Marissa Wilson became Marissa Franke, marrying Noah Franke, a livestock farmer, whose roots are deep in the world of East Perry County, Missouri. Located 30 miles from Cape Girardeau lies a world of German heritage, where the mother tongue is still spoken. Anchored by the city of Altenburg, it’s where the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church was born 175 years ago.
She says her new life has taken some getting used to. “It’s been a time of changes and challenges.” But in her new home, and it’s annual gathering the East Perry Fair, she’s found life has become a big WOW. Her parents, along with 20,000 others, come to the late September event. “Everybody knows everybody there, I just love it,” she says. She helps at her father in law’s petting zoo. While at the Zoo, she keeps an eye on those sheep. Marissa describes them as “1000 pounds of attitude.” She had to get used to them, her father-in-law raises them.
She sees a PhD in her future, with Dr. Samantha Siemers of the SEMO ag department having had a major impact on her career. “She pushed me out of my comfort zone”, Marissa said of the woman who was her mentor and now is a fellow instructor.
For now, she has the ag world “I see it as my career” … her students, “I teach my students, but they teach me as well” …her husband and her new home (sheep included) and her beloved pets…the dog Jenko and her horse Casino. She says, “animals are part of your family, and horses are good pets.”
It can be said that Noah Franke’s wife sees her horse as more than a pet. ∆
ROB MILLS: MAFG Contributing Writer