Bio: Rusch, Mr./Mrs. Donald – Owen Enterprise Salute (1977)

Transcriber: Stan

Surnames: Rusch

---------Source: Owen Enterprise (Owen, Clark County, Wis.) 22 Jun 1977

A white sign with a painted picture of a Holstein cow and reading “Home of Aristocratic Holsteins,” announces that you are at the family farm of Donald Rusch and Sons. You can find this sign on County O, just south of County N and O corner.

Mr. Donald Rusch has been a farmer for about 26 years now, and has been farming on this farm for 21 years, since the spring of 1959. He had his first farm three miles east of Highway 73. This was an 80 acre farm and proved to be too small.

He was born on the 24th of June in 1916 on a big ranch in Montana. He lived on the ranch with his folks until he was three, when he moved to the Thorp area, where he lived with his grandparents.

Mrs. Rusch, Charlotte, was born and lived in Stanley, Wisconsin. She was a farm girl and was raised by her grandmother.

The Rusch’s have had seven children, four sons and three daughters, two of the sons live and help out on the farm, Bernard, age 26, and Bill, age 16. Bernard left the farm after graduation from O-W High School and attended UW-Stout, where he earned a degree in Industrial Engineering. Now he has returned to the farm and expects to stay and take over the farm in the future.

The Rusch family operates a dairy farm home for a herd of Registered Pure Bred Holsteins, with a total herd, both cows and young stock of about 170 head. The cow herd numbers about 65 head, with about 100 or so head of heifers and young stock. They raise everything that is born on the farm, including heifer and bull calves.