Multiple generations, mainly of daughters, have been raised on this Century Farm, a large share of them becoming teachers, always focused on the future, and providing the best education for the generation at hand.

“Mom was a school teacher,” recalled Dalene Schlitter, who raised her own three daughters on the same farm. “Mom went to college in New York City, Barnard College, which is a subsidiary of Columbia University. Her older sister lived there, so she was able to live with her and go to college. She came back to Iowa to teach, and that’s how she met my dad.”

In all, at least four generations of the family include at least a few teachers. Geraldine Hillyer managed to take time off to raise her children, and still taught music and English in several communities around Hamilton County, and elsewhere in Iowa.

Schlitter and sister Donna Foster shared the Century Farm Award in 2024. A third sister, Diane Mork, inherited a farm elsewhere in Iowa. The three Hillyer sisters also have a foster brother, Derald Hammer.

-Submitted photo
Dale Hillyer is shown with one of several planes he owned over the years. The Webster City farmer even built his own runway at the farm for easy take-offs and landings.

The 160-acre farm and home were purchased in 1924 for $156 per acre, a price that likely worried Geraldine (Gilmore) Hillyer’s parents, Oscar and Effie (Layne) Gilmore. It would be a family effort to make the farm a success.

“Grandpa never really farmed,” Schlitter recalled. “He loved to cut down weeds, and he had a big sickle that he hung in the garage. He also raised pigs. But as far as planting a crop, one of his sons was farming, and he would come and plant and take care of the crops.”

Dale Hillyer and Geraldine Gilmore would meet when she was teaching in southwest Iowa in the years before World War II. They married in 1940, and the three daughters started coming, one after another, soon after. In later years, fostering young Derald Hammer gave the couple the son they had always wanted.

As World War II broke out, Dale Hillyer joined the Navy and would spend much of the war stationed in California.

“In about 1945, we all came back from California, and we settled in Manson because my grandparents were still on the farm,” Schlitter said. Dale Hillyer worked for the Post Office until an opportunity came to start farming, and the growing family moved to the family farm in Hamilton County.

“The first winter we lived upstairs in the house because Grandma and Grandpa lived downstairs, and we shared the kitchen,” Schlitter recalled.

The large, two-story home features an open staircase in the front and an enclosed back staircase leading to the kitchen. One of the upper rooms originally served as farm storage for a very important asset — seed for the next season.

“It was called the seed room,” she said. “It had wide plank boards for the floor and they would store the seed in the wintertime. There was no heat in it.”

Growing up on the farm, Donna Foster recalled, was a delightful time, with parents who had a great zest and joy for life, and some rather spectacular hobbies.

“Dad always wanted to learn to fly,” Foster said. “Ever since he was little, that was something he wanted to do. He knew it was very expensive, but evidently Mother supported him and I think he started taking flying lessons in Pocahontas.”

After the couple moved to Webster City to start farming, Dale Hillyer had finally saved enough to buy a plane.

The Aeronca Champion, often called simply a “Champ,” was a single-engine, light plane that could hold just two people and was actually canvas covered.

“He bought it and recovered an old Aeronca Champ, and he recovered it twice,” Foster said. “That was the plane he kept at the farm.”

Of course, if he was going to keep it on the farm, he had to have a way to get it up in the sky and safely down again, so Hillyer built his own runway on the farm.

“It was wonderful,” Foster said with a warm smile. “He took many family members up for a ride, and he gave many people their first ride ever in an airplane.”

Mother Geraldine Hillyer also earned her wings. Every plane needs a co-pilot in case of emergencies, and Geraldine Hillyer took a “wife’s course” in order to learn the basics of flying and landing a plane safely in the event of an emergency.

The couple enjoyed a shared interest in a popular club of the day, known as the Flying Farmers of Iowa. Dale would serve as president and Geraldine was “Queen.”

The Hillyers were still flying when Foster became a teacher at the former Hilltop School in Webster City. She thought it would be great fun to let some of her students take to the skies with her dad, and Principal Bill Carroll agreed.

“Bill Carroll thought that would be a wonderful experience for these kids, and so we went out to the farm one day and they got to fly,” she said.

Foster was teaching sixth-graders at the time, and Hilltop School was not far from the farm, so the kids would have been able to recognize many landmarks on their brief flights in the skies over Hamilton County.

After the Hillyers retired and moved into Webster City, Schlitter and her husband, Arden, moved to the farm and carried on the tradition of raising corn, soybeans, and children.

While the farmland remains in the family, after her husband passed away, Schlitter decided she needed less house to care for on her own. After offering it first to family members, she sold the house and acreage to a lifelong neighbor and friend.

Who knows, one day there might even be more teachers raised in this sprawling house — and maybe even a pilot or two.

Hilyer Family Farm

Established: Feb. 29, 1924

Number of acres: 125

Township: Independence

Century Farm Award: 2024

Generation: Third