June Reed is a farm girl at heart.
The house she grew up in was built in 1918 in rural Brooking County, South Dakota, just across the state line from Hendricks, Minnesota. Her dad bought the empty house from her uncle in 1946.
“Nobody had been living here. It was empty,” June says while walking around the property with her daughters, Pat Burri and Susan Bittner. “It was a sight to be seen.”
The fixer-upper, devoid of electricity and an indoor bathroom, would become a home more than she imagined. Over the course of more than 75 years, June raised three children and lived there on her own for 65 years after the passing of her husband.
“I used to help with putting up hay, drove horses, raked with two horses. I’ve done a lot of stuff,” says June, now 101 years old and a resident at Good Samaritan – Sioux Falls Village.
“We did learn how to milk cows before dad passed away,” Pat adds while walking through a barn.
Even in the years leading up to leaving the farm – well into her 90s – June handled much of the upkeep on her own.
June Reed mowing the lawn at the farm.
“I done all the mowing. It took me about three and a half hours to mow. The last mowing I did was October of ‘22,” she says. “I used to have a big garden. Done a lot of canning.”
She also protected the property from intruders.
“Oh, I used to get the pocket gophers,” June says with a smile. “I trapped ‘em myself. There’s a trick to that.”
There was also plenty of time to take a moment and enjoy her surroundings.
“I used to walk down to granary, and across to the barn, and from the barn I’d walk down to the mail,” she says.
“At least once a day, she’d walk down there and check the mail at the end of the driveway across the road,” adds Susan. “She’s a very small-town girl.”
Search to stay independent
Life on the farm comes with its share of bumps and bruises. June dealt with them for decades. But one incident ramped up the conversation for moving off the acreage.
“She fell out in the pasture, messed her glasses up,” Susan says. “We asked her how she got up out there in the pasture and she goes, ‘That was a tough one.’”
Aerial photo of the farm June Reed called home for over 75 years.
June knew it, too.
“I decided that I wasn't able to do things like I used to,” she says, “so I thought, ‘Well, there isn't any other choice.’”
In their search, June and her family checked out independent living at Sioux Falls Village.
“If they're coming off the farm, they have been real independent. And that's one of the main concerns is, ‘I want to remain independent and live my life,’” says senior living specialist Barbara Trefz.
June had many of the same questions people often do about independent living. And while Sioux Falls was much different than the life she’d built, she pulled up her roots and made the move in 2022 at the age of 98.
“A lot of people preconceive that once they come to a community like this, they won't be able to do the things that they used to enjoy, that they're going to give up some of that independence,” Barbara says. “They're pleasantly surprised that, no, you get your own apartment, you can come and go as you please.”
Transitions can take time. But June found balance in her new home.
“I knew I had to change, but I knew it would be a tough change because I was used to being active all the time,” she says.
“I've been able to take care of everything here myself. I do my own cleaning. Usually they will clean for you, but I have to have some exercise,” she adds with a laugh.
New neighbors, same small-town girl
June has a crop of new neighbors. Unlike out in the country, where the closest neighbor could be a mile up the road, June’s new friends are just down the hall.
“These people that never lived on the farm there, they kind of give you a blank look. They don't know what goes out on the farm,” June says with a smile. “They say, ‘Oh, you got a lot of stories.’ I don't know if they’re stories or just what I had to do.”
June’s activity calendar also stays full of opportunities to share stories and experiences with other residents. Her favorite activity is when musicians come to the community.
“They’re very good and they sing some of the old, old songs, which we like,” she says.
There are also shared birthday celebrations that bring out the best.
“If you have a birthday, you always treat the group with something,” June says. “They have these ice cream cones and, oh my, they really holler and scream about that. That's really a treat.”
June points to a painting of the home where she was born.
For as fun as a party can be, when the small-town farm girl wants her quiet space, she has a place for that, too. Her two-bedroom apartment has space for her hobbies, like crocheting and sewing.
She also has two large, framed pieces of artwork hanging in her living room – one of her longtime home in White and another of her birth home that sits just down the road.
“It's really a nice combination here where they can be independent, and yet they still get just enough help here to have that community feel of other people around them to have social activity and life enrichment,” Barbara says. “The whole purpose is to help people find that.”
