Rural Missouri - December 2021 - 19

2020 edition, also featuring Century Farms, followed. The
calendars for 2021 and 2022 feature historic barns, but
Jayne plans to return to century barns as more farms are
added to the registry. Each year, Jayne has bumped up
her print order by at least a few dozen copies, and each
time the calendar sells out with some buyers searching for
a previous year's calendar.
As her work made the rounds, Jayne began hearing bits
of information from locals. The April 2019 barn owned by
Jolene Feeler was reputed to be the biggest in the county
when it was constructed by original owner Tilghman Moses
Feeler in 1883. Jayne admits she had trouble fi tting the
entire structure in the frame of her photo.
A barn that catches Jayne's eye is rarely a painting
come to life on the pasture's edge. As one of the oldest
barns she's photographed attests, a simple, low-slung
square can be just as interesting as its grander neighbors.
Built by original owner William Isenberg, the barn's last
coat of classic red paint may be fading to the nondescript
shade of plain old boards but its insides are still bursting
with that season's hay.
When she contacts the landowners for permission to
photograph the barn, Jayne is sometimes amused to hear
the owners don't fi nd their barn quite as beautiful as it is
useful.
" A lot of them think that they are not picture worthy, "
Jayne says, adding the owners of the barns always receive
a complimentary copy of that year's calendar. " When I contact
people, they always say 'that one needs a new coat of
paint,' but I'm not after newly renovated barns - I'm after
that authentic character. "
The only set dressing a barn typically receives for the
photo session is the American fl ag in July. On other occasions,
Jayne's work is done for her, be it Santa Claus or
the Nativity in December, or a snowstorm, sunset or rainbow.
At the heart of it all is the reason Jayne continues to
follow her fascination: stories she hears from the owners,
be they the original builders or the present-day caretakers,
of the barns.
The cover of the 2020 calendar sticks out in Jayne's
mind. An overalls-clad farmer is seated atop his plow, the
sun at his back and the reins to a towering pair of Belgian
draft horses in his hands. A colt runs alongside the working
team as they sow that year's sweet corn. The man, the
late Lloyd Shanks, was emblematic of many farmers in
Maries County and Missouri, who put in seven-day weeks
to manage dairy farms, break teams and put corn, wheat,
alfalfa and oats in the ground so the world could eat.
" Stories like that, I have to stop and say, 'Wow, I like
that,' " Jayne says. " That genuine lifestyle, I call it - dedication
to the farm and agriculture. "
The 2022 Maries County Historic Barns calendar costs
$10 and can be purchased at The Market located in the
South Central Regional Stockyards of Vienna. A limited
number of calendars are available. For more information
about the barns and calendars, contact Jayne at 573-3087917
or jwilliams@mariescountymo.gov.
DECEMBER 2021 | RURALMISSOURI.COOP 19
http://www.RURALMISSOURI.COOP
Rural Missouri - December 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Rural Missouri - December 2021
