Audio-Video Barn

Illinois State Museum

Lloyd Johnson

Ray Ackerman

Age: 89
Interview Date: 12/19/2007
Interviewer: Robert Warren, Illinois State Museum
Interview Length: 111 minutes Sit-Down Interview
County: Tazewell
Ray was born and raised on his family’s small Centennial Farm near Morton. He participated in the farm’s beef, dairy, and grain operations during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Ackerman Farmhouse, 1913 Wedding of John and Louisa Ackerman, 1913 Ray Ackerman, high school graduate, 1935

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Image Gallery: Ackerman

John Ackerman

Age: 46
Interview Dates: 12/19/2007, 11/3/2008
Interviewer: Robert Warren, Illinois State Museum
Interview Length: 92 minutes Sit-Down Interview, 31 minutes Walk-and-Talk Interview
County: Tazewell

To save the family farm, John (Ray Ackerman’s nephew) has transformed it from a typical grain and livestock operation. He now raises a variety of crops (pumpkins, ornamental gourds, mums, apples) and has opened the farm to agritourism.

Ackerman Family Picnic, 1992 Ackerman Farmhouse, 2007

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Image Gallery: Ackerman

Yvette Ackerman

Age: 45
Interview Dates: 12/19/2007, 11/3/2008
Interviewer: Robert Warren, Illinois State Museum
Interview Length: 25 minutes Sit-Down Interview, 7 minutes Walk-and-Talk Interview
County: Tazewell
Yvette (John Ackerman’s wife) has diversified the farm by creating a shop that offers Illinois foods and home décor in a converted farm building. She also established a second shop in the nearby town of Morton.

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Image Gallery: John and Yvette Ackerman

Leland Sweatman

Age: 79
Interview Date: 1/28/2008
Interviewer: Michael Maniscalco, Illinois State Museum
Interview Length: 81 minutes Sit-Down Interview; 41 minutes Walk-and-Talk Interview
County: Cass
Leland is a retired farmer and Allis Chalmers implement dealer. He has experienced many technological advances in tractors and other farm machinery from the 1930s to the present.

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Image Gallery: Leland Sweatman

Oba Herschberger

Age: 59
Interview Date: 2/5/2008, 5/29/2008
Interviewer: Michael Maniscalco, Illinois State Museum
Interview Length: 71 minutes Sit-Down Interview, 114 minutes Walk-and-Talk Interview
County: Moultrie
Oba is a retired Amish dairy farmer. He now breeds and raises Belgian draft horses, and uses the horses to pull plows, planters, and other implements on his farm.

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Image Gallery: Oba & Lorene Herschberger

Lorene Herschberger

Age: 57
Interview Date: 2/5/2008, 5/29/2008
Interviewer: Michael Maniscalco, Illinois State Museum
Interview Length: 68 minutes Sit-Down Interview, 5 minutes Walk-and-Talk Interview
County: Moultrie
Lorene is an Amish farm wife and mother of 13 children. She is following in the footsteps of her own mother, Elizabeth Bontrager, as a maker of fine quilts. [Note: The image is a close-up of one of Lorene's unfinished quilts. The Herschberger family belongs to the Old Order Amish congregation, which discourages posed portraits of individuals.]

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Image Gallery: Oba & Lorene Herschberger

Jacqueline Jackson

Age: 79
Interview Date: 2/25/2008, 3/5/2008
Interviewer: Michael Maniscalco, Illinois State Museum
Interview Length: 488 minutes Sit-Down Interview
County: Rock County, Wisconsin
Jacqueline grew up on a dairy and hybrid-corn farm in southern Wisconsin. She is a retired English professor and author of two books about her family farm: Stories from the Round Barn (Northwestern University Press, 1997) and More Stories from the Round Barn (Northwestern University Press, 2002).

Wesson J. Dougan, Grandfather Jaqueline Jackson at Twenty-two

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Image Gallery: Jacqueline Jackson

Eileen Cunningham

Age: 86
Interview Date: 3/26/2008
Interviewer: Michael Maniscalco, Illinois State Museum
Interview Length: 143 minutes Sit-Down Interview, 8 minutes Walk-and-Talk Interview
County: Greene
Eileen grew up on a farm in the lower Illinois River valley near the town of Eldred. She later farmed with her husband and worked outside the home as a nurse.

Cunningham Men, 1978 Cunningham Family, 1987

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Image Gallery: Eileen Cunningham

Geneva Sweet

Age: 96
Interview Date: 4/3/2008
Interviewer: Michael Maniscalco, Illinois State Museum
Interview Length: 95 minutes Sit-Down Interview
County: Morgan

Geneva is a retired farm wife and bank cashier. Her father-in-law was a photographer who began taking pictures of the family farm in the 1890s. Below are images she talked about in her interview.

Edgar Sweet Barn: Shucking Shock Corn for Fodder

Ralph, Herschel, and Cullen Harvesting Oats

Horsedrawn SleighTent Housing Railroad WorkersFields from the BarnChickens Deep in Snow: Plymouth Rock Hens

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Lloyd Johnson

Age: 69
Interview Date: 4/10/2008
Interviewer: Michael Maniscalco, Illinois State Museum
Interview Length: 146 minutes Sit-Down Interview
County: Madison
Lloyd is a retired African-American farmer and gospel singer. He lives on his family’s Sesquicentennial Farm, which was founded near Alton by his great-grandfather in 1850.

Cyrus Johnson (father), 1948 Mr. and Mrs. Cyrus Johnson's 50th Wedding Anniversary, 1972 Adele, Cora, Mary, Lucille, Virginia - Jennie, Cyrus L., Cyrus E., Harold, and willi johnson Johnson Family, 1998: V. J., Pam, Lloyd, Minnie, Sade, Michael, Cornelia, and Victor

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Image Gallery: Lloyd Johnson

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