Buying the Farm: Peace and War on a Sixties Commune

7. Aftermath (1994–1999)

M 91 N 7 Aftermath (1994–1999) The period following the reunion was marked by optimism and a can-do attitude geared toward addressing the goals and actions outlined by the community at its summer meetings. For months, committees continued to convene to develop strategies and refine details for a viable future for the farm. The Land Use Committee searched for relevant documents and approaches. The committee charged with revising the trust explored legal precedents and organizational bylaws that might inform their work. The Finance Committee continued to clarify its analysis of the farm’s cash flow and resources. Particular projects took shape: Steve Diamond, a member of the Communications Committee, now back in California, wrote to Susan that he was nearly ecstatic at the prospect of producing a farm newsletter, something he felt sure indicated a new sense of cooperation and collective purpose. All of this initially boded well for the future of the changes outlined in the summer. As the next few years came and went, though, the efforts first forged by the Friends and then ratified at the reunion again slowed. The agreements outlined in the letter to the trustees were never confirmed . The board, which so many had offered to join, was never expanded . The trust, despite long discussion, remained unchanged. The newsletter, a modest production focusing on the reunion and some interesting facets of farm history, appeared only once. 92 N CHAPTER 7 At the farm itself, life also went on in its essential, querulous, communal fashion, largely as it had before. One change, however, became increasingly noticeable. Over the following few years Tim and Lise, the new tenants brought in by Janice less than a year before the reunion, took on an ever-expanding role. They developed their own approach to filling out the farm, recruiting friends and associates to live at the commune and join in their work. Soon, as Janice had, they thought of themselves as its principal representatives. By late 1994, in an upbeat letter to the farm’s trustees and the reunion’s Land Use Committee, the undersigned “Montague Farmhouse Residents” reported that they had reroofed the house and added two new dormers. They had also begun reroofing the barn and had repaired windows in the woodshop, cut their firewood for the winter, and finished a new library for the house. Moving on to the main business at hand, the residents proposed constructing a seven-hundred -square-foot maintenance building near the barn for the repair of farm equipment, cars, and trucks. Time was short before winter set in, they said, so it was necessary to clear the site, level it, and bring in twelve yards of stone to prepare for the pouring of the concrete slab that would serve as the foundation for the building. Of the seven who signed the letter , only Tim and Lise had lived at the farm for any length of time before the reunion. Janice was not mentioned at all. In coming years the Tim-and-Lise family would grow even larger. To Susan and others monitoring the farm in its postreunion state, the chatty, confident tone of their letter—which included plentiful references to compost, haying, organic farming, passive solar heating, and cooperative spirit—with its report of major unilateral improvements and the confident proposal of a building that needed to be started immediately, suggested a precipitous, perhaps even imperious, approach to tending community property. Weren’t such things now supposed to be decided by the larger family, and not simply announced to them with little time to effectively respond? In a letter to the informal group working with her on farm matters, Susan wrote, “There is also the issue ofthe garage they want to build. . . . Somehow the residents have to realize that it isn’t going to work if we are notified at the last moment before they are about to start a significant project, as they did with the roof of the house and now seem to be doing 93 N AFTERMATH (1994–1999) with the garage. We are the closest willing members of the larger family to meet and advise them. . . . There are a significant number ofthe family who are concerned. We can be the voice of that interest if we are allowed time to express concerns and make the process meaningful.” As time went on, other signs of stress appeared as well. In particular, the relationship between...