Life on a Christmas tree farm
- by Guest Contributor
- December 12, 2023
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By Jo Wolfe
After returning from duty in World War II, my father started a Christmas tree farm on his family’s former dairy farm in Kane, PA, in the Allegheny National Forest and Surrounds Landscape of the Pennsylvania Wilds region. The business was a project undertaken with my dad’s older brother, who died suddenly before the first trees ever had a chance to be harvested. Yet my father continued on with his vision through many decades. There were years when he focused on a big wholesale shipment of trees to Piggly Wiggly grocery stores in the south and southwest. Semi-trucks lined the circular drive waiting to be loaded with hundreds of trees that had been baled with twine. Then the focus became local retail sales with the experience of customers going out in the fields to cut their own tree and drag it back through the snow to their cars.
Our extended family Christmas dinner was highlighted by one of my aunts asking Dad, “How were the Christmas tree sales this year?” Everyone at the table was entertained by his telling a funny story from the past weeks’ experiences: a lady who undecorated her tree and brought it back for an exchange because it just wasn’t the “right” tree or a dog whose owner proudly stated he had “perfect control” over his pet until the dog displayed a liquid shower of approval all over the selected tree.
While winning blue ribbons for his blue spruce trees at the Pennsylvania Farm Show, our own family Christmas trees were not always of the same prize-winning caliber. There were years when Dad brought home the tree “nobody else wanted.” After the initial moans and groans, we embraced the flaws, tried to fill the holes with ornaments, and still found presents under the tree.
Image: Jo’s father, getting ready to cut down a tree
Dad sold trees until the day he died in December 1998. Then my husband and I took over the business and raised our two children on the farm. The kids worked in the summer to prune the trees, helped drag the trees out of the fields starting in November, guided customers to find the “perfect” tree, worked the bailer to wrap the tree tightly, and then sent the tree on its merry way down the road. Christmas 2015 was our final season to sell trees. New trees had not been planted, the fields were sparse, the remaining trees were overgrown.
An era had come to an end, but the memories lingered:
The sight of fields of evergreen trees, emerald pine boughs peeking out from pockets of snow.
The smell of a freshly cut tree trunk, the pungent smell of pine wood burning in the big shed stove.
The feel of prickly spruce needles and sticky sap oozing from the branches.
The sound of the buzzing chain saw cutting someone’s special tree, the tractor engine chugging into the lot with a wagonful of trees waiting to be chosen and then bejeweled with lights and ornaments.
Image: Baled Christmas trees at Jo’s family’s tree farm
As I now hike through the open fields, I can picture the former days and feel the warmth of my father’s presence while being at peace that it was his dream and vision but not mine to continue.
About the author, Jo Wolfe:
In June 2016, Jo retired after 37 years as an elementary educator for the Kane Area School District. Her next venture was spending summers at the Chautauqua Institution working at The Presbyterian House, where she discovered her passion for helping people extended beyond little children. Then an opportunity opened to be part of the PA Wilds Team at the Kinzua Bridge State Park’s Conservation Gift Shop. In Jo’s role as a Community Connector at the Conservation Shop, her mission is to truly make someone’s day by promoting the PA Wilds region (and her hometown of Kane), finding customers the perfect gift for their grandchildren, listening to their stories of “back-in-the-day”, or just offering someone a smile–or even a song. Jo’s community service includes being an active member of The Presbyterian Church of Kane, singing in the church choir, being a McKean County (Court Appointed Special Advocate for children) volunteer, as well as serving as President of the Board of Trustees for the Kane Area Children’s Museum. When she is not working or doing community service, Jo enjoys playing the piano, swimming laps at the Bradford Family YMCA, or walking Beau-Beau, her family’s dog, with her husband. Amtrak trains are her favorite mode of transportation to visit their two children, in Seattle and the Berkshires of Massachusetts, or her brother in Texas.
