A proud heritage: Hendley family noted for a century of farming

Noreen Hyslop photo Representing the Missouri Extension Service, Agronomist David Guethle (holding framed certificate) this week presented the Hendley family of rural Bloomfield with the official certification that deems the Hendley farm a Stoddard County Century Farm. The Hendleys have been farming land and raising registered Black Angus cattle on the family farm since the mid-1800s. From left to right are Joe Hendley and wife, Kathy, Tyler Henley and his fiancé, Analise Donovon, James Hendley, Guethle, Vaneta (Hendley) King and husband, Blanton King, and Fran Hendley, wife of James. In front are Wyatt and Katie Hendley, children and future cattle farmers of Joe and Kathy Hendley.

The farm has been in the Hendley family for well over 100 years, and for that consistency, it was recognized this week as one of Missouri's Century Farms.

The Missouri Century Farm program's history dates back to 1976 and stems from the Missouri Committee for Agriculture. The committee's purpose was to organize the American Revolution Bicentennial celebration in Missouri. One activity that was initiated by the committee was the "Centennial Farm" project which awarded certificates to persons owning farms that have been in the same family for 100 years or more.

The College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources and University of Missouri Extension planned a 10-year update in 1986 called the Century Farm Program. This program has been sustained as a yearly event with over 100 farms recognized each year. In 2008, Missouri Farm Bureau became a program co-sponsor.

For the Hendley family, well known in Stoddard County and beyond for their quality registered Angus beef cattle, a history was established along the banks of the Castor River in Stoddard County around 1857. It was then that Henry M. Hendley arrived from North Carolina. History tells that Henry Hendley, the sixth of seven children born to James and Sarah Hendley, lived his life as a carpenter, a farmer and a miller. He married the former Lucretia Jane Harvey from Bloomfield. The two raised one son, James L. Hendley. Henry Hendley went on to serve Stoddard County as its surveyor for 12 years. He purchased and operated the original 400-acre Hendley farm.

James L. Hendley was the great-grandfather of the farm's current owner and operator, James Hendley, who has continued in his father's footsteps raising registered Black Angus cattle. The farm has expanded since the days of Henry, with over 1,000-acres today. Much of the history of the family farm has been handed down verbally from generation to generation.

"What I understand," Hendley says, "is that James and Sarah Hendley and their family of six children were traveling through the area on their way to Illinois when they lost one of their two oxen. The story goes that they camped by the river until James could work and earn enough money to pay for another oxen."

During their stay, however, according to what has been passed down, one of the older boys, Henry M. Hendley, decided he rather liked the Stoddard County community and when the family was ready to move on, he told his father he was staying.

"The story goes that his father, James, said if Henry was staying, they'd all just stay!"

So began the history of the Hendleys in Stoddard County. Henry went on to serve in the Confederate Army and returned home to purchase the first 400 acres of what is still the Hendley farm.

"The family operated a saw mill down by the river," says Hendley, "and the men were usually carpenters."

At one point, an ancestor had a steam-powered boat that he ran up and down the river on Sunday afternoons after church for a small fee, Hendley says.

It was in 1940 that the Hendleys began raising registered Black Angus cattle on the farm.

"They raised Black Angus long before that time," James explains, "but they weren't registered cattle as they are now."

Running the family farm is James, along with his son, Joe. A second son, Tyler, works off the farm but returns to the homestead often. Tyler has the distinction of being baptized in the farm's catfish lake, which will also serve as a backdrop for his wedding this Saturday, July 31.

The original home on the Hendley farm, built in the early 1900s, stood proud until during the ice storm of 2009, when it caught fire and burned to the ground. Joe H. Hendley, James' father, died in 1997, the same year that his grandson, a third son of James', Cody, was tragically killed in an auto accident. Joe's widow, Vaneta, has since remarried; and she and her husband, Blanton King, now reside in the home that was reconstructed at the original home site.

While Jolinda McKee, a daughter of Joe and Vaneta Hendley, resides in Colorado Springs, Colo., their son, James Hendley, and his son, Joe, carry on the work of their father, grandfather, great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather before them. Together, they continue building upon a proud history of Stoddard County farming.