The well-worn hoe has stood idle for nearly two years now. Many years and many strokes had worn its working end to a sliver no larger than an old silver dollar.

A few years earlier I had wondered why mom stuck with it. I bought her the lightest new one that I could find. She said the new one was too heavy and it was retired instead of her long time companion.

Mother was the youngest child of the union of a Lutheran married to a Mennonite farmer just five generations removed from the first permanent settler in Lancaster County. She learned farm life early.

She married at the start of the depression and followed Dad, who had a government job, to Philadelphia. Less than five years later they were back in Lancaster on a small farm west of Lancaster. The neighbors laughed at this young couple from Philadelphia who had just bought a thistle patch. Their laughter turned to disbelief as mother's hoe slowly won the battle with the thistles. Their interest in fruit and produce was born there.

About the time I was born, my grandfather retired and they moved home. They started an orchard, which was active by the time I remember anything. In the late 1940ies there was also a large acreage of corn.

That was before machines were too plentiful or too reliable. I was too young for school but the perfect age to accompany mom and grandfather to the cornfield for fall harvest, one ear at a time. I'll never forget my grandfather¹s frequent exclamations, "Got, Ag we'll never get done." Mother's name was Agnes. He was a bit Dutch but I think you got his message.

Produce, and finally, greenhouses joined the orchard and Mom was there for each step. The greenhouses remain today. Maybe thirty years ago a co-worker playfully suggested that Mom would sit up in her casket and ask, "Who's cutting the cucumbers today?"

Mom left the greenhouse workforce just weeks before her 90th birthday. She tended her flowers at a slowing pace for nine more years. Her last trip to the greenhouse was in May. She tired quickly but was thrilled.

Mother also was active in church and had taught elementary school for 20 years.

In the last weeks, her granddaughter cut flowers from the yard of the house she had bought from her, and took bouquets to her. In the last few days only the grand children and great grandchildren mattered. Mother has moved to a garden where there is less maintenance. She was blessed with just over 100 years. She will be missed, but will always be an inspiration. She loved life, her family, her church and growing things and is survived by her hoe that proved her diligence.