Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
By Jan Uebelherr
Mary Ann Ihm grew up on a farm in Grant County, became a teacher, but couldn’t shake one dream. She envisioned what she calls “a holistic learning environment,” one with food elements as well the spiritual. They belong together, she thinks.
Ihm taught elementary school for 13 years in Chicago, Iowa and Wisconsin, then went to grad school. She worked as a teaching assistant in theology at Marquette University and taught biblical theology at Carthage College. Her last teaching job was at Sacred Heart School of Theology in Hales Corners.
But she kept feeling drawn to the land. In 1982, she combined the teacher and the farmer in her.
“I always dreamed of being able to work outdoors,” Ihm says. “Since I grew up on an organic farm, gardening was in my blood.”
And so she started Wellspring, offering wellness education, ecology and gardening classes, with elements of spirituality and personal growth, working out of a community garden in Milwaukee.
But Ihm longed to buy land in the country and expand Wellspring. Her husband, Wayne, shared that dream.
Her husband died in 1987, and about a week after the funeral, a friend dropped by with a real estate section. Ihm found an ad for land in Newburg.
“My husband could have written it,” she says.
“The board and I had been looking (for land) for four years,” she says. She got in the car and drove out. “As soon as I drove down the long driveway and saw the beautiful land, I thought ‘Wow. I feel like I’ve come home.’ ”
There was one hitch. She lacked the $300,000 needed to buy the 31.5 acres.
“In my heart, I thought to my husband, ‘I wish you’d lived to see this.’ I could hear him say, ‘What do you mean? I found this place and led you here.’ ”
Ihm soon learned he had a life insurance policy that, after covering medical and burial expenses, left her with just enough to buy the place.
“I felt that was his gift to me from the other side,” she says.
In 1988, the nonprofit Wellspring made the move to Newburg, continuing its programs and starting a CSA. It’s now the longest running CSA in Wisconsin, offering up to 110 CSA shares, but serving more households than that, as many people “share a share.” Today, Wellspring rents another 4.5 acres, bringing its total acreage to 36.
People sign up for shares, paying in advance for a season’s worth of produce. It’s delivered weekly to eight pick-up sites. The night before, an email goes out with a note about the share, tips and some recipes to try.
“We raise just about anything that’ll grow in this climate, except sweet corn,” says Ihm. The reason: “It takes a lot of space, and it’s only in late summer you can harvest it – and the raccoons get it. They’ll come in a week before it’s ready.”
Other vegetables can be harvested continuously from June into late fall, she adds. You just get more from the land.
“You name it, we got it,” she says. “All our seeds are organic. We do a lot of heirloom varieties.”
For the first time, this year they began offering “winter shares,” featuring cold-weather crops such as beets, carrots, parsnips and winter squash – kept in cold storage and distributed throughout the winter.
More of Ihm’s story can be found in her new book, “The Wellspring Story: The First Thirty Years,” available through wellspringinc.org.
