Farmers have come a long way from the time of the flail and the threshing floor, but the goal has never changed: Separate the oats grain from its stalk. Threshing day on Labor Day, September 5, 2022, brought back a lot of memories from my youth in the 1940s and ’50s on the 238-acre Scheckel farm outside of Seneca, in the heart of Crawford County, Wisconsin.
Fortunately, there is a place to relive those youthful days. It’s on the Monsignor Michael Gorman farm off Highway 171 between Boaz and Rolling Ground, on the western side of Richland County. The 250-acre farm has been in the Gorman family since 1857, handed down through generations of Irish immigrants. It’s located in the Driftless Area, among God’s most beautiful creations.
A farmer at heart
Monsignor Michael Gorman has been pastor of St. Charles Borromeo’s Church in Chippewa Falls and St. Peter the Apostle Church in Tilden since 2016.Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota. He was ordained a Catholic priest in May 1980. He began his priestly duties as associate pastor at St. John the Baptist in Marshfield, then Blessed Sacrament in La Crosse. He studied Canon Law in Rome from 1984-1986.
