The priorities, foresight and generosity of one Upper Peninsula farming family is helping ensure its legacy of agricultural education endures — through Farm Bureau.
Both Edgar “Wally” Granskog and his wife Dorothy were proud graduates of Michigan State University — so proud they encouraged their children to follow suit and pursue degrees on the Banks of the Red Cedar.
“My dad’s mission was to build Menominee County farming and the intent of his memorial fund is to do just that, through wise education,” explains Carol Johnson, one of Wally and Dorothy’s six children — all of whom would go on to earn degrees at their parents’ alma mater in East Lansing.
“My father was active in Menominee County Farm Bureau since moving here in 1942,” Johnson said, the same year Wally and Dorothy married. “Both were active in Farm Bureau throughout their married life.
“Dad moved to Stephenson to be its agricultural teacher. He also established the longest-running community canning center in Michigan — about 25 years — started in an old music hall dad transformed into a farm shop for war veterans.”
As the local ag teacher, Wally’s influence on the local farming community was profound.
“He had more veterans and students enrolled in agriculture at MSU in the mid-1950’s than any other teacher at that time,” Johnson said. “In 1957, there were 22 students from Menominee County studying agriculture at MSU — more than any other county in the state.
“He constantly encouraged agricultural education to build the farming community here.”
Among that midcentury generation of Menominee farmers was Wally’s own son, David Granskog, Johnson’s sister.
After college David taught agriscience in Kingsley, south of Traverse City, then went to Rudyard, where he taught agriculture for 10 years. On weekends he’d travel home to Stephenson, where in 1977 he and his wife Susan established their own dairy, not far from his parents’ operation.
“He also took over my father’s beef herd and still has a small herd of dairy cattle,” Johnson said, noting that their registered Holsteins have for 20 years now earned recognition for outstanding genetics from Holstein Association USA.
“In 1987 David and Sue were honored as Farm Managers of the Year by MSU for having the highest-quality milk — and production numbers — in the Upper Peninsula,” Johnson said, noting that her brother’s farm is still listed among the top-500 quality herds nationwide.
A big part of the farm since childhood, David and Sue’s son Henry, now 58, has managed to keep five of their six children — Gabriel, Matthew, Daniel, Sadie and Miranda — still actively working on the farm today.
Of them, Matthew proudly continues the legacy his grandfather began as a member of the board of directors, chairing Menominee County’s Farm Bureau’s Young Farmer group.
“The whole family have been active in Menominee County Farm Bureau,” said Johnson, who succeeded her mother as county newsletter editor upon her death in 2011, just six years after her husband of six decades.
And while Johnson’s generation’s farming days are winding down, her family’s influence on Menominee County agriculture remains strong.
Johnson worked with the M&M Area Community Foundation to authorize a perpetual giving grant benefitting the Menominee County Farm Bureau, funded by the E.W. & Dorothy Granskog Memorial Fund, an endowment honoring its namesakes’ lifelong pursuit of education.
"We're looking forward to the wise use of those monies to help educate Young Farmers here," Johnson said. "Perhaps with help from the Farm Bureau network, we could bring practical educational help to the Young Farmers of Menominee County."
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