Dr. Charlie Mayo’s side pursuit of agriculture

ROCHESTER, Minnesota — Wright hereas the Mayo brcompletely differents have been starting To understand notable success Inside the early 1900s Inside The sector of surgical procedure, Definitely one of them was Making sure the farms surrounding his house have been additionally attaining success.

Wayne Gannamethod, authorities director of the Historic previous Center of Olmsted County, was recently a visitor on the Agweek Podcast To debate the Mayo household’s ties to agriculture in Southeast Minnesota.

Gannamethod is from Winona, Minnesota, and his first job Inside The sector was working Inside the historic websites division On the Minnesota Historic Society.

“And so southjapanese Minnesota, with its rivers and rolling hills and bluffs and gravel roads, and cornfields, is Sort of acquainted territory to me,” Gannamethod said. “Even after touring up and down the japanese seaboard as a historian.”

He is had the privilege of working at A pair of of In all probability the most traditionally vital websites Inside the nation, Similar to a Outcome of the Mark Twain Home & Museum in Hartford, Connecticut and Monticello, The primary plantation of Thomas Jefferson in Charlottesville, Virginia.

“However I missed Minnesota, and so As quickly as I noticed This alternative right here in Olmsted County, I assumed That is one factor I Needn’t miss,” he said.

Dr. William Worrall Mayo and his spouse, Louise, raised their youngsters collectively with sons Charles And mightiam in Rochester on a farm, wright here they have been said to have assisted out with chores. Gannamethod said not a lot is know Regarding the specifics of that household farm.

“What I do know is thOn they have been raised To assist their father in all types Of the method, each with chores on the farm, going out on medical calls, as properly out To go to farms To current care to farmers,” Gannamethod said. “And so I really feel that way of life, And completely different people ethics of the southjapanese Minnesota farmer was actually ingrained Inside them, particularly in Dr. Charlie.”

In 1907, Charlie And might Mayo purchased the land Which might Discover your self to be Mayowood from Adolf Biermann, a politician and farmer. Gannamethod said it was a 340-acre farm thOn they purchased for $20,000 On the time. He said Which will finally transferred All of the land over to Charlie, and he constructed What’s now Usually acknowledged as Mayowood Mansion.

“However Maywood Is method Greater than the mansion,” Gannamethod said. “It was a 3,000-acre farm that was a critical agricultural pursuit.”

That stayed the case all The biggest method up till when he died in 1936. Gannamethod said Charlie Mayo by no means referred to himself as a farmer, but as an “agriculturalist.” Others might have referred to as him a gentleman farmer, or a e-book farmer, he said, beset off in distinction to pioneer farmers who used instinct to farm, Charlie Mayo study e-books and journals about farming earlier than he tried his hand On the apply.

The signal to the Mayowood Stone Barn, now used for occasions such as weddings and events, on Oct. 13, 2021.
Noah Fish / Agweek

“However That basically matches Dr. Charlie’s character, beset off he was so intellectually curious, and he was a researcher,” Gannamethod said. “So it solely stands to set off that he would have taken A very methodical strategy and a science, or what he seen as a science-based mostly strategy, to farming.”

Charlie Mayo acquired 9 farms all by way of the years he constructed out the Mayowood property, Gannamethod said, so he additionally Might be althought-about as a landlord.

“He wasn’t a absentee landlord, although,” Gannamethod said.

He said that A lot of the operations on Mayowood grounds have been dairy farms, and that managers of the farms Can be allowed To primarytain a proportion of milk that was produced, and The reprimarying would go to the Mayo and his household.

“He paid consideration to his farms enough To make sure that he was following One of the biggest applys of the day,” Gannamethod said of Charlie Mayo.

He said Inside the early 1900s, tright here was A lot of consideration to biggest applys, “making an try to make farming extra scientific, extra environment nice” to make rural life extra interesting. Wright hereas America was seeing a enchancment wright here residents have been flocking to cities for higher alternatives, Theodore Roosevelt’s Country Life Fee of 1908-1909 tied rural prosperity to conservation.

“It is fascinating beset off we see consideration being paid to rural life right now as properly, from people not simply who stay on farms, but completely differents in small cities and rural areas,” Gannamethod said. “They typically did that Inside the early 1900s, To reinforce circumstances, and actually Dr. Charlie was An factor of that effort. It was an enchancment movement.”