Shellers honored for Heritage Farm

If you live in the Ivester area, there’s a pretty good chance that you farm. The territory in western Grundy County is known for its fertile soils and longstanding family tradition, and one of those families, the Shellers of rural Eldora, were recently honored at the state fair with a Heritage Farm 150-year designation.
           
Daniel Sheller first purchased the land—240 acres—from a couple that had homesteaded the plot and then left, and he and his brother moved to the area from Illinois in 1866. Their wives stayed back in Illinois for six months while they got settled, and upon their arrival, both the men and the women were expecting the other group to prepare a large meal to christen the new farm.
           
“Nobody had fixed anything or planned anything,” his great-great grandson Keith Sheller said.
 
Still, the farm survived, and it’s gone through four generations since then. Sheller and his wife Dorothy are still farming to this day. 
 
Read the full story in this week's Grundy Register. Subscribe by calling (319) 824-6958 or clicking here.