Photograph as originally submitted to this page in the Historical Marker Database www.HMdb.org. Click on photo to resize in browser. Scroll down to see metadata.

Photographer: William J. Toman
Taken: October 9, 2011
Caption: Schumacher Park Marker on Kiosk
Additional Description: The following text is beside a photo of Marcella Schumacher Pendall, 1910 - 1993:

In 1892, Henry Schumacher purchased this parcel of land to operate a small family farm. At the time it was a virgin prairie. Over the ensuing years, the Schumacher family tilled the soil and lived a simple pioneer life. Their philosophy incorporated foresight, persistence, and reliance on heavenly power to strengthen them each day physically and spiritually.

Marcella Schumacher Pendall, daughter of Henry and Evaline Busby Schumacher, spent her childhood and most of her adult life on the farm. And educator, environmentalist, world traveler, humanitarian, and friend, she realized the farm and its acreage would soon become part of encroaching urbanization.

In 1978, Mrs. Pendall donated her family farm to the Dane County Parks System to serve as a laboratory for children and adults to learn first hand about the beauty of nature, the operation of the ecosystem, and the necessity for preserving it. She wanted to pass on her joy of living to future generations by offering them the medium that provided such stimulation and joy to her. It is her wish that the visitors to the Farm develop a love and appreciation of the beauty and warmth of nature and absorb its very essence.

The farm and its prairie offers individuals the opportunity to see, to smell, and to taste the beauties of Nature - not by book, not by TV screen, but by direct contact with live species - the living organism of nature itself. Throughout the years a closeness to a good earth generated a warmth that penetrated the inner soul, a warmth that encompassed all living species in the Earth's master plan, a oneness of all living creatures. The Schumacher family was a part of that drama called life.
Submitted: October 11, 2011, by William J. Toman of Green Lake, Wisconsin.
Database Locator Identification Number: p176240
File Size: 1.068 Megabytes

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