Rare Breed by Molly O’Neill
eyond the town of Lindsborg, with its church steeples and 2,000 or so houses, the Kansas prai- rie is a flat forever. There’s nothing to absorb wind or sound. The whinny of gears in a pickup; the bullish snort of a combine harvester turning frosty dirt—the noises of a winter afternoon seem bigger than anything mortal. Standing in a field on Frank Reese Jr.’s farm outside town as
the shadows grew longer, I felt truly alone.
I pictured Reese, a poultry breeder who was born near here, shepherding his turkeys across this same, end- less horizon as a boy and wondered whether he too had felt alone. From an early age, he had the job of ushering birds on his family’s farm from the barn to the open range so that they could peck for insects. He took to the role, and to the birds. When the other children in his first-grade class wrote adoring sonnets to their cats and dogs, Reese crafted a personal essay titled “Me and My Turkeys.” He was surprised by the looks he got. In his young mind, love was love, and he has no memory of not loving turkeys. That is the only way he can explain having devoted his life to preserving the traditional American breeds that were once common on din- ner tables across the country. After all, though Reese is a per- fectly good cook, he’s not the sort of fanatic who’d spend decades chasing the Platonic ideal of an ingredient. He also doesn’t seem like the type of person who’d take up the banner against industrial farmer.
In fact, Reese, who is 61 years old, would prefer to spend his evenings reading antique poultry magazines or the spiritual writings of Saint Augustine and Saint Teresa. He is solidly build and speaks in measured tones. In his well-pressed flannel shirt, he looks as if he might have stepped off a page of the 1954 Sears, Roebuck catalogue.
And yet, to food lovers, animal lovers, and many family farmers, this fourth-generation farmer from Kansas is more than just a turkey breeder with old-fashioned ways. He is a saint. Reese is the man who saved American poultry.
From the outside, the farmhouse at the Good Shepherd
Turkey Ranch, which is what Reese calls his farm, looks like a monument to a vanished way of life. Set on a corner of the 160-acre spread, the three-story home has Victorian trim and a fresh coat of white paint. It is framed by two red barns and a venerable elm tree, the kind you’d expect to see a swing hanging from. A pie should be cooling on the sill of the kitchen window. Kids should be chasing around the yard.
But Reese is a bachelor. Instead of family portraits and Norman Rockwell prints, turkey-related art hangs on the walls alongside his collection of religious art and blue ribbons from poultry shows. The house is well tended- -Reese restored the white pine woodwork and ordered burgundy-colored Victorian-style wallpaper from the design- er wallpaper company Bradbury & Bradbury for the dining room and sitting room—but the scent of diesel fuel and turkey coop from Reese’s work clothes laces the air. Feed catalogues, fan letters, tax forms, utility bills, and photo- graphs of turkeys are arranged in neat piles on the dining-room table. I’d spent the day visiting the farm with Reese, and he’d invited me in from the cold. The house was utterly quiet but for the sound of the farmer riffling through the
Winter/Spring 2012
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