The Stewardship of
Susan Jane
Winamac,
Indiana
May 22, 1957 – August 21, 2023
I was born Susan Jane Hoffman in the spring of ’57,
down along
the Tippecanoe, where frogs sang at dusk and cornfields whispered old hymns.
Folks
called me Suzy Q, Saint Sue,
Sometimes
just Mom or MawMaw.
I fell in
love with Tim Alexander at sixteen.
He had farm
boy hands and a strong grin that made chores feel like a slow dance.
We married
young,
I graduated
from Purdue and went back home to Winamac...
Raised
hogs, planted grain, and raised three kids on a handshake, a prayer, and more
work than sleep.
Then in
’93, the ladder gave way.
Tim fell
while working on the grain bin.
Spinal cord
snapped.
Quadriplegic.
Couldn’t
move from the shoulders down.
I was 36.
Megan was
13.
The boys
were just ten and four.
They say
the divorce rate triples after injuries like that, but I stayed.
Not because
I had to, but because I loved him.
Because
stewards don’t abandon the field
just
because the weather turns mean.
So, I grew
the farm.
Doubled it.
I worked at
the bank, then the school, then got my real estate license.
I sat on
boards, helped the animal shelter,
and never
missed a spelling bee or ballgame.
But mostly
I cared for Tim.
For over
thirty years.
Morning,
noon, and long past midnight.
He couldn’t
walk across his soybean rows anymore,
but I could
and I did.
In 2006,
Purdue gave me their first Women in Ag award.
I smiled
for the photo,
Then I went
home to cook dinner
and fold
the towels.
That was
enough for me.
I died in
August,
at home, in
the house we built.
The coffee
was still warm.
The sheets
clean.
My heart
full.
And now my
Tim has joined me.
He waited
over three decades to hold my hand again.
And now,
Lord willing, we are walking side by side,
across a
field without fences, through rows that never end.
This isn’t
just a story about a man who fell.
It’s a
story about the woman who kept him standing.
About a
wife who was also a farmer,
a mother,
a friend,
and a quiet
kind of hero.
Our time as
stewards is over.
The land
belongs to someone else now.
But nothing
done in love is ever wasted.
Not one
seed, not one prayer, not one midnight breath.
If you are
reading this, take care of what you’ve been given...
...the
land, the people, the story.
Because someday, you'll pass it along as well. We only live as stewards to this great land of ours for a very short time.
