The stories were told not only in the house, but also while making firewood, hay, lumber and doing a host of other farm chores.' Geiger was a 'sponge,' he said, 'soaking up the recollections as Grandpa Elmer and Grandma Julie came to the farm four, five, six and even seven times a week some summers.

They began to talk about their lives and their farm in 1981, when their daughter, Rosalie, and her husband, Randy Geiger, Corey Geiger's parents, became the fifth generation to operate the farm, Geiger said. Geiger's grandparents, Elmer and Julia Pritzl, are the main characters. He used actual events and people to narrate the stories, and delves into the reasons behind the decisions real people made. The book is organized as a series of stories 'carefully knit together,' Geiger said. It's a dairy story, it's a food story, and ultimately, it's a story about creating America's Dairyland.' 'While this book is my family's story,' said Geiger in an email interview with USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin, '(it's) also a Wisconsin story. About the book, 'The Wisconsin Farm They Built' Geiger, managing editor of Hoard's Dairyman. Today we open the cover of 'The Wisconsin Farm They Built: Tales of Family and Fortitude,' a nonfiction book about the history of a family farm, written by Corey A.

Lit Wisconsin is a sporadic series of stories in which we highlight the work of writers of Wisconsin or those with ties to the state.Įditor's note: This story has been changed to clarify where the farm Corey Geiger runs is located.

The relatives came book