Centennial year for Father's Day and a Wicker Park Farmers' Market vendor

Patrick Mark bagging a customer's purchase in Wicker Park.

Father's Day in the United States celebrates it's 100th birthday on June 20,2010.  One of the estimated 67.8 million celebrants is Patrick Mark, Iron Creek Farm, a Wicker Park Farmers Market vendor.  In fact he is celebrating two centennials this year.

A Civil War (1861-65) veteran, William Smart became a single parent when his wife died in childbirth with her sixth child. To celebrate his strength and selflessness in raising his children, his daughter, Mrs. Sonora Dodd, proposed the idea of father's day in 1909. One year later on June 20, 1910, the first celebration took place.

It took until 1924 for national support of Father's Day, thanks to President Calvin Coolidge. Forty-two more years passed before the first presidential proclamation honoring fathers was issued by President Lyndon Johnson.  He designated the third Sunday in June as Father's Day. In1972 President Richard Nixon signed the public law that made it permanent.

The day honors not just biological fathers but all men who serve as a dad whether as stepfather, uncle, grandfather or adult male friend.

Patrick Mark stepped into the role as dad some seven years ago when he married Tamera and her  three daughters, Brittany, Kaela and Aryn.

Patrick and Tamera are joking with one of their customers.

This year they are celebrating the 100th "birthday" of their barn. On the 85 acres that Patrick and Tamera purchased from the Mark family, who owned the parcel for over 100 years, they and their daughters grow certified organic produce on about 35 acres.  The remainder of the land is for cattle, chickens and pigs.

Their need for the type of grain they wanted for their livestock expanded the list of products they are grow to include beans, rye, wheat and corn. This year they will be offering dried beans at the Farmers Markets and plan to include grains in the future.

Their other addition this year is that of membership in a CSA, community supported agriculture.  Membership is buying a share in the farm for a season.  This helps the farmers with up front costs in the season when they are buying seeds. Members buy in for one or two weekly boxes in addition to a winter share.  Each week the Marks select the nicest, freshest produce and box them for their members.  Boxes are then available for pick up during the Wicker Park Farmers Market on Sundays.

Brittany and Tamera take the last of their materials to the truck after a Farmers Market.

Both Patrick and Tamera grew up on a farm.  He in Indiana on a vegetable farm and she in Michigan on a fruit farm.  Having met at an under attended Farmers Market in Lawndale, they had a lot of time to sit on the back of a pickup truck and get to know each other.  They re-connect mid-summer seven years ago in Lincoln Park and were married by Christmas.

All three daughters work on the farm too. Twenty-four year old Brittany is a graduate in biology from North Park College as is twenty year old Kaela who majored in English. Aryn, the youngest is in school in Michigan where she is studying health science.  Brittany spent one summer in Nicaragua helping establish an organic farm for a small school and is now a full time farmer on the Iron Creek Farm.  

To learn more about joining the CSA, contact Tamera at 269.313.2019.

For more information:  Father's Day history, statistics