Pulling up to Wertz’s Farm Market on Brambleton Avenue finds things looking like they always do, except the trees outside are still barren and there are no fresh homegrown vegetables and fruit inside for sale … and there won’t be again.
Ezera and Elsie Wertz took out a small ad in the Roanoke Times recently saying “After more than 50 years, it’s time to say goodbye, and the Wertz family would like to thank our customers for their years of support and friendship.”
The short but sweet message barely scrapes the surface of the long tenure and presence they have had in the community–the years of busyness: of tilling, planting, growing, sorting, transporting, unloading, displaying and then sharing the story of the high-quality produce they were so long known for. Before moving to the Brambleton location in 2003, they were a fixture on the Farmer’s Market for decades (since 1949); the market has changed a lot since then. According to Elsie, “It’s not like it was—it’s just people selling things like crafts—not hardly a Farmer’s Market anymore.”
Their goods were always high quality “homegrown—that’s what dad always said,” daughter Sharon interjects, but to many the real value came in knowing both Elsie and Ezera Wertz and their three daughters. Elsie is matter-of-fact but proud when she says emphatically, “Ezera is just a people person; he always has been.” His big smile and wonderful way of connecting with people endeared him to just about everyone.
They have marked down everything in their store 50% off and the shelves are beginning to look more barren than not. Elsie has taken home most of the framed pictures they had displayed of the numerous newspaper and magazine articles that have been done about them through the years. She even has one about her daughter, Robin Craig, an accomplished businesswoman who left the area to pursue a career in Arizona.
Daughter Sharon, who lives nearby, reminisced about growing up on the farm with dad Ezera, who “turned us into boys for quite a few years. But they taught us a good work ethic, which paid off years later.”
Ezera, has no problem letting people know he is 85. He was raised German Baptist and his dad was also a farmer. Elsie says of her husband, “This is what he has done all his life; it’s his work and his hobby.” Elsie worked hard too; she spoke of the early years when she and her sister-in-law “made all the jams and jellies until it got too much [so they] found a couple places that could make it for us.”
It seems likely that their retirement will be a lot harder on everyone yearning for those homegrown Wertz vegetables than it will be on the Wertz’s themselves. They have a lot of long-time friends who aren’t going anywhere, and many who they see frequently at church activities throughout the week—the Wertz’s are longtime members at Poage’s Mill Church of the Brethren. It has been a focal point in their lives for many years; Ezera “had a big hand in building the fellowship hall” back in 1958.
A couple of fellow church members were hanging around the store with Ezera and Elsie, keeping them company. When asked if they were going to continue farming, the Wertz’s said they are going to have a garden, but they “are through with apples and peaches.” Ezera chuckled, saying “If you want an apple you better carry a ladder with you; they’re all at the top,” in reference to the –at least so it would seem — universal problem of deer.
From there, the conversation went “varmint,” with Kenny Stevens telling of the fellow down below him who saw six coons at one time in his apple tree. Johnny Sowder thought he could beat that with the mystery of the apple tree branch slowly bobbing up and down back in his yard. Turns out a groundhog was “climbing up to grab an apple, then sliding down a branch and riding it to the ground” – a feat not even they knew a “whistle pig” could do.
By the end of the month the familiar red truck with the white cargo cover and the “Wertz2” license plate won’t be parked out front. Their departure brings to our fair city a quiet void, but as with all changes, big and small, comes new beginnings.
As Elsie said, “Oh I’ve got plenty of jobs he can do …”
Ezera’s laugh interrupts her, “I’ll be working for ‘honey-do,’ that’s true.”
Wertz Farm Market’s last days open are February 24, 25, 26 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.