On a farmstead north of Jasper sits the trunk of a large old maple tree.
For the Conrad family, the tree has been a legend in its own right. At 3 feet off the ground, its base has a circumference of 12 feet. Over the years, the tree has dropped large branches in the yard and upon the house. Alan Conrad, the current property owner, has done his best to remove as much of the tree as possible to avoid further incidents. What remains is a reminder of the farmsite’s beginning as a tree claim years ago, before becoming what it is today: a Century Farm.
“My father would have been 95 this year,” Conrad  said. “He said that was a big tree when he was a kid.”
Not knowing the complete history of the tree, Conrad said it’s possible that his great-grandfather, Fredrick Conrad, planted that tree when he purchased the site around 140 years ago.
“If you think about it, the Civil War would have only been in the history books for around 14 years at that time,” Conrad said.
The Century Farm recognition program, sponsored by the Minnesota State Fair and the Minnesota Farm Bureau, recognizes farms that have been in continuous ownership by a family for 100 years or more. Since the program began in 1976, more than 10,500 Minnesota farms have been recognized.
Alan Conrad’s father, Marvin, applied for and received Century Farm status in 1979.
The Conrad family’s ownership of the farm began with Fredrick Conrad, a young immigrant from Germany, came to the United States in the late 1800s and worked on a railroad section gang by Rochester, where he helped to build the Milwaukee Railroad. He eventually made his way to Pipestone County on savings of $400 plus another borrowed $400 to purchase 160 acres of land in Eden Township.
Upon coming to the United States, Fredrick Conrad denounced any devotion to the King of Prussia and instead swore allegiance to the United States. His great-grandson retains a copy of the paperwork that certifies his great-grandfather’s decision.
For the next year after his arrival, Fredrick Conrad worked to break the sod and to build a 10-by-12 foot house. According to Conrad, the original house was believed to be the well pump house that is still standing on his property today.
“It sits across the driveway from me,” Conrad said.
In 1888, Fredrick Conrad decided to have the tree claim changed to a homestead, and in 1892 President Benjamin Harrison signed the deed.
Eventually, Fredrick Conrad met and married Augusta Weinkauf, and together they had seven children: Albert, Alvina, Herman, Reinhold, Henry, Matilda, Amelia and Augusta. Albert Conrad, who was born on the farm in 1893, later married Eva Bogengrief, and together they had one child, Marvin Conrad, Alan Conrad’s father.
With at least four generations of family having resided at the farm, many memories and places were shared by the Conrad family, including birth stories.
“According to the family they (Albert and his son Marvin) were supposedly born in the very same room,” Alan Conrad said.
Marvin Conrad married Letha Hess, a Grundy County, Iowa native, and together they had seven children: Lloyd, Linda, David, Karin, Alan, Marlyn, and Carol. Alan Conrad and his siblings were born over a span of 15 years.
When Alan Conrad met his wife, Karla Hohensee, a Blair, Nebraska native, they married in 1983 and moved onto the farm in 1988 when his parents moved into town in Jasper. They had two children, Ethan, who lives with his wife in Florida, and Briana, who currently lives with them on the farm.
Over the years, each generation of Conrads farmed and kept livestock on the land, but mostly for their own consumption, Conrad said. Growing up, he recalled his family kept milk cows, cattle, sheep, chickens, pigs and lambs. Conrad recalled spending most of his time outside doing chores with his three brothers, while his three sisters helped their mother with inside chores.
“They (his sisters) would help with cleaning the house and doing dishes and that kind of stuff,” Conrad said. “We got on the business end of a pitch fork a lot.”
Conrad’s mother, a homemaker, spent her time both inside, maintaining the home and tending the children, and outside, working the garden from which she canned many vegetables.
“She was really good with gardening and canning,” he said. “I didn’t take much interest in it when she did it, but now my wife and I do it.”
Over the years, the landscape of the farm has changed, with old structures being brought down, and new ones put up. According to Conrad, four houses have been built on the property, and multiple outbuildings have been lost to history, including an old barn that burned down in 1979, the year it became a Century Farm. What has remained, however, is the history of four generations of Conrads and the remnant trunk of that grand old maple tree.