May 30, 2001
Landmark Lautner barn bows to march of progress
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
Saying goodbye to the old red barn, Gerald Lautner is watching the soul of his family farm bow to the march of progress.
Built in 1913 by his father S.J. Lautner, the barn was a landmark at the corner of Garfield Road and Emerson for nearly 90 years. With the barn half disassembled by the current owners, who bought the 50 acres including the barn last November, Lautner recalled its former days housing a thriving dairy herd when he and later his son farmed the land.
"We had 190 acres here at the largest and had over 100 head of cattle when I sold the herd in 1979, one of the largest in the county," Lautner noted.
Despite the farm's prosperity in its later years, Lautner's father struggled to establish himself after his marriage in 1919.
"The barn burned two times before this one was built, the year I was born," he said.
Lautner, 88, is one of the many Lautners in the area descended from the original settlers who homesteaded in 1864 on what is now M-72 in Solon Township. As the family grew and flourished, they spread out and eventually eight of the 'Lautner' barns sprung up around the region, each the center of their respective family farms. With the upcoming demise of his own barn, Gerald Lautner reflects on a way of life now found only in history books.
"You can't do nothing about the land, you can't afford to farm it," he said. "It was a hard way of life, especially dairy farming."
Lautner remembers Garfield Road being a gravel road all the way to Front Street, one he traveled with his father many times to bring fresh cream from area farms to ice cream parlors in town. His family took a horse and buggy to town in his younger days; later his father bought the area's first Model T for $300.
Growing up in the days before electricity, when lanterns and woodstoves provided light and heat, and before indoor plumbing was just a way of life, Lautner said. Horses were used for transportation and farming and the farm's Morgan horses were a source of pride. Electricity came to the farmhouse in 1937 and he purchased the farm's first tractor in 1947, though he always kept a team of horses until a year ago.
Lautner and his three siblings attended the Birmley School through the eighth grade, which was later turned into a community hall. The one-room school had a two-week vacation every fall to allow students to dig potatoes and harvest other crops on their family farm. His father also grew corn, wheat, and oats and raised and butchered the family's meat; extra of those crops and meat was sold in town. Lautner grew up with ten other boys his age, playmates drawn from the seven other farms nearby, including Julius Sleder.
"The families always got together every Sunday for dinner," he said. "My mom was a great cook."
Gerald Lautner graduated from Traverse City Senior High in 1932, the height of the Great Depression. He worked at area grocery stores for a few years, earning $11 a week for 70 hours of work.
"Those were hard times," he said. "The younger generations, they don't realize what we went through."
Lautner married his wife, Mary, a Detroit native, in 1937 and eventually moved his family there so he could learn the carpentry trade from his father-in-law. During World War II, he worked in armament plants making airplane parts.
When he returned to Traverse City, he took over the farm from his father, who in addition to raising cows also grew a variety of fruits including peaches, plums, apples and cherries. Lautner also worked as a carpenter at the Traverse City State Hospital, where one of his tasks was helping to repair the roof of Building 50 after a fire.
After decades of farming, he eventually retired and sold all the prized Holstein cows and equipment in 1985. Now with subdivisions popping up on his family's land and the house he was born in and lived in for most of his life soon to be torn down, Lautner is philosophical about the changes.
"I stayed in the country and now the city is coming out here," he said. "I think this all will be city out here and I hope I live long enough to see it."