Mary Ellen Ward, How-To Author and New England Dairy Farmer

Occupation: Homestead and How-To Author, Web and Content Writer

Residence: Massachusetts

Background: Mary Ellen was born on what would now be considered a New England Homestead, later turned family dairy farm. She and her siblings worked hard but learned much. For many years as a typical teen, Mary held that when she survived that ordeal, she would never milk a cow or spend a life farming.

As they say, “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” Mary met — on a New England dairy farm, no less — and married a man who was not born into a farm as she was, but whose father had worked on many area farms, and from whom her husband caught the same bug. Fast-forward to today, they’ve raised four admirable children to adulthood and almost adulthood, circled back to their roots, embraced the Yankee ingenuity and determined “can-do” example set by their parents, and, long story short, milk a couple of backyard dairy cows, bake, grow, make butter and cheese, raise meat and eggs and elderberries and whatever else strikes Mary’s gardening fancy.

Mary Ellen’s “day job” for the past two and a half years has primarily been caring for her husband as they traveled a long road of recovery following a catastrophic leg-crush injury at work, necessitating an early retirement. Throughout that time, the family did what they could to maintain a recognizable homesteading existence and keep the framework of their lifestyle intact.