Bauermeister still caring for family farm at 80 years old

PIERCE — Dorothy Bauermeister will celebrate her 80th birthday Sept.  20, and she will spend it on the family farm where she has lived her entire life. She has continued to live on, and care for, the farm on her own following the deaths of her father, brother and husbands.

The farm, purchased by Dorothy’s father, Harry Koehler, is more than 100 years old. Born in the family farmhouse in 1939, Bauermeister was the youngest of three children. Her sister, Betty Jean, died at nine months old. She had an older brother, LeRoy, and the two — who were about three years apart in age — used their imaginations to make up games. They did not have electricity on the farm until the late 1940s, so they studied by oil lamp and had no television for entertainment.

“We played in the hay mow in the barn and used our imaginations to do things,” Dorothy said. One game she and her brother enjoyed was called “500.” One of them would pitch the ball to the other, who would hit the ball until the other got up to 500 points — catching a fly ball was 100 points, getting ground balls were so many points, and so on. Because of her experience playing ball with her brother, Dorothy gained a spot on the Pierce girls’ softball team.

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