Buyer Wanted for Longtime Fruit Farm in Michigan
December 30, 2019 The South Bend Tribune is reporting that longtime Eu Claire, MI-based Tree-Mendus Fruit Farm is shutting down. The family who’s owned the farm since the 1920s is seeking a buyer.
According to the article, health issues have stricken Bill Teichman, who’s run the 450-acre operation with his wife Monica, after contracting the mosquito-borne Eastern equine encephalitis (EEE) virus in August. A family spokesperson told the Tribune that Teichman is at home resting, but the neurological effects of EEE have kept him from communicating or even holding a pencil.
Another Eau Claire farmer that contracted EEE just four days after Teichman died in November.
Bill and Monica Teichman have led Tree-Mendus Fruit Farm for the past 15 years, leasing it from Bill’s parents, Herb and Liz Teichman. Herb passed away in January.
In addition to the family’s personal hardships in 2019, a polar vortex at the beginning of the year wiped out most of the orchard’s peach, apricot, and plum crop and killed many trees.
The farm is known in the area for its U-Pick and well beyond for its famous, long-running International Cherry Pit-Spitting Competition.
To read more and find out about the farm and the GoFundMe page to help support the family, click here.
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