The farm is named after Cross Roads, which used to be a town with a cotton gin, store, church and post office
front yard as black smoke billowed and flames pawed at the winter sky. They could hear the sirens of a nearby fire truck that slipped off the road, as it tried to make its way to the Kratochvil home. Beth and Joey watched helplessly as their home burned to the ground.
Years of memories were gone. Beth lost her wedding dress. Her family heirlooms engulfed.
She was devastated, as her parents and in-laws tried to comfort her.
They spent the night with Joey’s parents and with the morning sun, came hope. A neighbor knocked on the door, offered his condolences and then handed the couple keys to his home. The neighbor was heading out of town and welcomed them to stay as long as they needed. Generosity flooded in from family, friends, neighbors, school teachers. They were given clothes, a bible, money, household items. The community
wrapped them in a hug of generosity, and for that they will forever be grateful.
Joey and his father, a carpenter, spent the next 14 months building their new house. Beth’s mom made the curtains and many items in the house were gifts. Beth refers to their home “as a labor of love.”
The next hardship — turned blessing — came a few years later when their daughter was just a baby and Joey lost his job as a car salesman.
One day shortly after, they went to feed Elizabeth her first bites of baby food, Beth tasted it first and was disgusted. If she wouldn’t eat it, she wouldn’t feed it to her baby. Beth suggested they start making their own baby food.
Joey started to garden a patch that had been his grandma’s garden.
“He realized how much he loved it and it kept growing,” said Beth.
Living Well i May/June 2017 11
Great Grandma Charlene Moser pets the family dog. Her grandparents, Jeff and Nora Lovelace, bought the property when Moser’s mother was a child.
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