History

The Farm is situated between the county seat and university town of Indiana, PA and Clymer, PA, a small town founded in 1905 for the four foot vein of coal that runs under the land, with a vein of clay through it. Originally, the land was the home to the Shawnee and Seneca (of the Iroquois nation), and later witnessed the arrival of the Delaware and many other native peoples under forced displacement by the American settler colonial state. IUP’s land acknowledgment can be read here. Border lines were drawn and colonial ownership was established in the area through the treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1768, one of many conflicting treaties proposed by the English crown to claim territory, and then later reestablished by the newly independent colonies, a part of the continued settler colonialism, genocide and expansion into native lands after the upheaval of the US-British war.

In 1913, a farmer by the name of Debendurfer raised and trained workhorses on a tract of 162 acres in Indiana, PA. With the arrival of tractors by the 1920s, Debendurfer pivoted to dairy farming. By the 1950s, the land was reworked as a beef farm, with income supplemented by work in the local mines. In 1976, real estate developer Clyde Wells bought the land and re-housed Debendurfer, leaving the blue house and original barn structures and storage facilities up for sale. 

That same year, Bob Millward–historian, author and newly hired teacher at IUP–purchased the 10-acre subdivision with the original structures from Wells. Kathleen Werner–teacher focused on social justice through a historical lens–joined him in 1979.

With support of family and friends, the open range of fields was replanted with trees. Flora found space to regrow and new pathways were established. An ecosystem–with the earthen dam pond at the center–returned. Over the next three decades, the original buildings were restored, maintained, and repurposed for woodworking, study, and lodging.

To visit was to unfold, learn, discover and create in conversation. Oral histories at the kitchen table, the whole-house library, light slanting through pines, archives of peoples’ histories, cultures and beauties and the violence, revision and propaganda that work to undermine and erase them, the chests of artifacts and antiques, bullfrogs sounding beneath weeping willows, the priority of craftsmanship, the ringing silence of fallen snow, the peering smiles over good food and comfort. The grounds with the company and resources that fill them become an organic invitation into existential, social, and geopolitical awareness. The dissonance felt by exclusionary survival and the willful ignorance that muffles it become heavy carries to unpack. 

Bob and Kathleen’s practice is a truth-telling upheld by academic commitment and deep interpersonal connections that allow for moments of honesty that change our capacity to think, to feel, to understand and thus love across lasting movements of solidarity. We tell stories, we make relics, we pose interventions to sense a belonging to that mood.

Bob and Kathleen remain a steadfast spirit of love, care, and justice in the region. They have allied with neighbors, community members and organizations to maintain a rich relationship with mutual aid, building a network of safety as people from all walks of life come to visit the farm and contribute to its living history and dialogue.

Now, with their retirement and move, their grand nephew, Nicholas Kasunic, artist and teacher, seeks to continue their work.