This was the farmstead of George and Anna Belle Van Horn, in Bloomingdale Township in Van Buren county. It is located just South of 1st avenue, on 40th Street. The Van Horns raised three sons and a daughter, and had a successful dairy business, was a dealer for DeKalb seed corn, ran a custom harvesting business early in George's career with steam engines and later a self propelled combine. He drove trucks during Bloomingdale's oil boom, and bought out his brother Claire's share of the farm and continued to run it with his oldest son Allen. He had at least a 17 year record of perfect attendance at the Bloomingdale Bible Church Sunday School, but rarely heard a lesson as he would arrive for attendance, and then buy a paper from the drug store and read it in the car. At the time of this picture, he had died from a heart attack earlier, and having lost Anna Belle earlier, the farm had been sold to Roland Bishop, who at the time of this writing himself has been gone for a year, passing away in the summer of 2015. The two houses have been razed, and the barn is in the process of crumbling away. During his time at the farm, George took great pride in it' appearance and upkeep, and was especially concerned with the presentation of the corn rows and the health of the forage crops. the farm ground was perfectly suited for the smaller equipment used in the day, as he knew the location of every tile line, it's depth, and what special precautions to take in each area of the farm. The barn contained 42 stanchions, outdated a bit by the increase in the size of the Holsteins housed in the recent past, but well suited for the smaller mixed breeds that were prevalent at the barns initial use. The barn was relocated from near the house on the left hand side of the picture, rolled across the dooryard on logs and set up in the present location, with hollyhocks planted on the south side of the barn in order to give joy to the grandkids, and to Anna Belle

My ex Paul bought this farm in late '86. I spent my weekends here from '86 to '90, when I finally moved there. We started dairying in September '91, with a small herd of Jersey/Guernsey crosses, and added a couple of Holsteins, plus a Holstein/Swiss shortly after. In the spring of '92, we bought a small herd of registered Jerseys, but then moved them to a tie stall barn in Paw Paw.

Roland Bishop ended up with the farm not long after that. The land contract was up, and there would have been too much work to do on the house, barn, and the rest of the buildings. Our cows were already at another farm.

I do remember the hollyhocks, although the ones that came up were outside of the kitchen window.

As for the barn, it had to be gutted in order to get it approved for dairy. Most of the stanchions were gone, so we took out the few that remained. The wall in the milkhouse that separated it from the room by the silo had to be re-constructed. It had a strong smell, kind of like some sort of medication, which didn't go away until the new wall was built.

The foundation on the west wall, what we called the loafing area, caved in, and the cows ended up in the courtyard one afternoon. There hadn't been any rain, so I'm not sure why it happened. We did notice that there wasn't any re-bar, or other reinforcement in the concrete. Fortunately, no one got hurt, but the concrete crushed a heavy metal tank that was used for the cattle's water.

Before we moved out, the foundation on the house was starting to crumble. This was pointed out to Roland, but he didn't seem to be too concerned.