By 10:30 on a Saturday morning in early June, the last of the biscuits-and-gravy breakfast at the First United Methodist Church had been cleared and a contingent of Harvard Milk Days volunteers was ready to celebrate.
Standing amid a pack of suited Motorola Inc. executives was lifelong Harvard resident and third-generation dairy farmer Bill Davidson. Davidson, wearing a pair of neat overalls and a pressed shirt, was grinning while he waved a letter above his head.
“This letter says that the company is going to give our school district $100,000 to be used toward computer labs for our students,” 76-year-old Davidson said. “I’m just speechless. . . . I should be at the cattle show already, but you just don’t run away after someone hands you something like this.”
For Davidson, the news of this donation from the latest addition to the neighborhood was just the icing on the cake. Earlier that week, he and his wife, Selma, received the Robert Sorenson Volunteer Award, applauding decades of tireless work at the annual summer Milk Days festival, as well as with the Harvard Unit District 50 school board, of which Bill is president.
The Davidsons are just one example of the northwest suburban residents whose work provides the backbone for the city festivals that fill the suburban summer calendar.
This year, the Milk Days volunteers numbered 2,000, a multigenerational crew that represents roughly one-third of the residents of this McHenry County town.
Bill Davidson orchestrated the Milk Days cattle show, an event that featured children and teens parading their freshly groomed cows and calves before the judge, Kent Smith, a farmer from Oswego.
“The cattle show is not so strong anymore, because we lose a lot of kids every year, but we still have about 50 cattle here, enough for a good show,” Davidson said. “Ten years ago we had 150 animals, but 50 years ago we had 400 animals. I guess mainly it’s that the young people don’t want to be tied down to a dairy, seven days a week. They go off to college and find something easier.”
Yet for 19-year-old Amy Gahlbeck, a student at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville, her desire to pursue a career other than farming has not diminished her commitment to carry on the venerable traditions of her family.
“I’ve been showing since I was was 10 years old,” she said, “and it’s important for me to show my animals at Milk Days-to keep the interest going and to keep the cattle show alive.”
Gahlbeck’s Holstein, Tippy, joined forces with a collection of Guernseys and Jerseys that competed for top honors. The cattle were judged on their “dairyness,” a term that describes the characteristics and mammary systems of these enormous, gentle bovines.
While Milk Days chairman Ron Ferguson managed to drop by the cattle show, his responsibilities forced his attention to be scattered across the festival grounds, overseeing the 40 subcommittees he had selected in December.
“The end reward is to attend the festival . . . to see the smiles and hear the laughter of all the families,” Ferguson said. “Each year our goal is to make Milk Days just a little better. We’re always adding and deleting.”
As for actual attendance figures for this year’s three-day event, Ferguson admitted that the Milk Day volunteers who boasted that the attendance hit 100,000 may have been exaggerating. He believed it was closer to 50,000.
As the cattle show concluded, Harvard was buzzing with tourists and locals who had descended upon Harvard’s main drag, Ayer Street, for the parade. Lawn chairs and blankets staked out claims along the parade route, and streetside vendors set up shop for the day, peddling such things as Milk Days hats and T-shirts, deep-fried dough sprinkled with powdered sugar, and fresh-squeezed lemonade.
The parade itself was a hit, a 2 1/2-hour procession of marching bands, politicians and beauty queens punctuated by an overwhelming degree of enthusiasm for the contingent of local veterans carrying the American flag.
Later, former Harvard mayor and retired Harvard High School principal Bob Iftner pointed out that working as a Milk Days volunteer requires flexibility and team spirit.
“You work around the clock, and you fill in and do whatever has to be done. If there’s a snag, you help out,” Iftner said.
This year, Iftner and his wife, Marie, had a party at their home before the parade for 25 guests, including their children and grandchildren.
“We cook a turtle every year in a slow roaster, but we also have ham. We’ve been doing this since 1961,” Iftner said. “My favorite part of Milk Days is when it’s over and I get to rest.”
Iftner and his neighbors in Harvard had started celebrating earlier in the week at the children’s events and bed races. The festival also included a prince and princess contest, a carnival, concessions, entertainment, 2-mile and 10K runs, a merchants display, an arts and crafts fair, farm tours and a tractor pull.
The parade remained the crowning glory of Milk Days, and this year it held a rather unusual twist.
Motorola Inc. representatives were waving to and greeting the crowd, walking alongside a human-size cellular phone that patted youngsters on the head along the route.
Even a troupe of Boy Scouts sitting atop a crepe-paper-embellished float exhibited the Motorola influence. In addition to accepting the company’s sponsorship for their float, the boys carried a few props-cellular phones, of course.
Yet in spite of the changes that are sure to occur within this quintessential American main street, Harvard residents seemed to be embracing this latest development in their town’s history with their characteristic dignity.
“We’re a pretty proud community, and our patriotism will carry on as long as we’re still alive,” Iftner said.
One example of the town’s rural activisim has to do with the town’s mascot, the cow statue named Harmilda. Iftner said the Illinois Department of Transportation wanted to put Harmilda-who gets her moniker from Harvard Milk Days-out to pasture out of concerns for motorists’ safety.
“Old Harmilda has brought a lot of attention to this town, and there are a great number of people here who think she is too rural,” Iftner said. “But when IDOT wanted to move her, the town was in an uproar. We weren’t going to hold still for that.”
A compromise was reached, and Harmilda will be moved a few feet. But she will retain her considerable clout from her flower-laden pedestal in the town’s central business district.
“They decided they weren’t going to fight us anymore,” Iftner said of the Harmilda debate. “They even put up a sign when you enter town with a picture of a cow and an arrow pointing forward.”
By the time Iftner and his family set out for the festival grounds later in the day, Ayer Street was nearly deserted, suffering from a post-parade hangover that left its sidewalks littered with trash that was disposed of by a dedicated clean-up crew.
But the streets adjacent to Harvard’s downtown remained shady and cool, and the air was fragrant with lilacs. While most of the families in town had headed out to the carnival grounds, a handful of senior citizens remained on their front porches, talking and watching visitors experience one of the last remnants of vintage small-town America in the northwest suburbs.
Harvard is brimming with old stories that beg to be told, a task that seemed to come easy for longtime Harvard residents like 75-year-old Arnold Wittmus.
On the day of their 53rd wedding anniversary, Arnold and Edna Wittmus carried on their tradition of celebrating the event at Milk Days.
A former cattle breeder and the man behind the first Milk Days cattle show, Wittmus left farming years ago when his arthritis became too painful. He eventually became a successful feed salesman, yet he still recalls fondly his days as a dairy farmer, calling it “good, healthy living.”
“When I watch the younger people running the cattle show, it seems like they’re doing a better job than we did,” Wittmus said. “We’ve got to pass these things on to the younger generation. Coming to Milk Days really brings back warm memories for me. And you can live a long time on old memories if they’re good.”
