Outings to Legend Hills Orchard serve as summer and fall traditions for families across central Ohio. The orchard just west of Utica – filled with hundreds of peach and apple trees, sunflowers and a pumpkin patch – is also a very special place for the Hoar family.
Three generations of the family have worked the land here during the past century, and because of their long-time ownership and continuous farming, the Hoar family farm has earned the Historic Family Farm designation from the Ohio Department of Agriculture.
Every year, families from across central Ohio look forward to driving around the orchard at 11335 Reynolds Road to pick their own apples and peaches.
Working behind the scenes or behind the counter in the orchard’s farm market – filled with fresh produce, jams and jellies, and fresh meats and cheeses from Ohio’s Amish Country – are the third and fourth generations of the Hoar family.
“We love that we can keep it in the family,” said Susan Hatch, who owns and operates the farm with her husband, Virgil, and her siblings, Debbie, Doug and Richard, and their spouses.
“I live just across the street, and we all work together to keep it running,” said Hatch, 68, the oldest of the four siblings. “All of our children worked here when they were younger, just like my siblings and I.”
She started doing chores around the farm as a child.
“I was helping with my first crop at 8 years old, and when my dad bought more property, where the orchard is now, I was 13,” she said.
The orchard was already established when Susan’s dad, Richard Hoar, bought it, and she said they worked as a family to build up the business.
“My brothers were old enough to help out, (so) we spent days tearing down buildings, mowing, and digging up old trees,” she said.
The family still spends days together. Richard does a lot to manage the orchard – including efforts to keep large herds of deer from eating what they plant.
“They will chew off as high as they can reach and take out a lot of our crop,” Richard said, adding that he builds tall fences around the young peach trees to keep the deer from stripping the saplings of all of their leaves.
As with many family farms, almost everyone involved has another job. There are currently 15 teachers in the family. Susan retired from teaching and returned to the classroom, something common in their family.
“It is nice, because a lot of the family has summers off, and that is when we need the most help with the business,” she said.
Some of that help comes from above, she said. “We all believe in God and all things come from him. We are thankful for our parents who raised us to all get along.”
| Read Part 1: Ohio’s Historic Family Farms program preserves state’s agricultural heritage and history of its top industry
| Read Part 2: Licking County’s Historic Family Farms, Part 2: The Original Hatfield Homestead, circa 1831
| Read Part 3: Licking County’s Historic Family Farms, Part 3: The Stevenson “Crack of Dawn Farm,” circa 1890
| Read Part 4: Licking County’s Historic Family Farms, Part 4: The Shaw Farm, circa 1883
| Read Part 5: Licking County’s Historic Family Farms, Part 5: Legend Hills Orchard/The Hoar Farm, circa 1904
| Read Part 6: Licking County’s Historic Family Farms, Part 6: Dry Creek Valley Farm, circa 1906
Between them, Susan and her siblings have 10 children and a growing number of grandchildren to help carry on the legacy for the fourth and fifth generations of farming
Susan learned growing up that, while there are several pick-your-own orchards in Licking County, “the competition” isn’t really competition.
“The other orchards in the area, we all talk,” Susan said. “We have to. From a young age, my dad taught us to treat neighbors like family and how to build relationships with them.”
It turns out that some of them are family – or close to it. “The Branstools are cousins, and we went to school with some of the Lynd family,” she said, referring to family-owned orchards to the east and west of Legend Hills.
The Hoar children learned the meaning of and value of hard work.
“When Debbie and I went off to Otterbein College, my dad told me, ‘If you take the cider to Westerville, you can keep the money for spending money.”
Susan and her sister drove an old farm truck back and forth, bringing cider along to sell at grocery stores and markets along their route.
These are the types of memories Susan, Debbie, Richard and Doug want their children and grandchildren to experience.
“We all are able to come together over one thing and share something together,” Susan said. “We also couldn’t do it without our spouses; they become just as much part of the operation as the rest of us.”
Delaney Brown writes for TheReportingProject.org, the nonprofit news organization of Denison University’s Journalism program, which is supported by generous donations from readers. Sign up for The Reporting Project newsletter here. Brown reported this series as part of the Lisska Summer Scholars Program at Denison University, funded in part by the Robert F. & Marion E. Ball Family.