By Michael Patrick O’Brien–
Catholic monasteries are known for many interesting and wonderful things, but probably not for their pumpkins. That all may be about to change, thanks to some enterprising Northern Utah family farmers.
In 1859, the William McFarland family settled on the banks of the Weber River, in what would become West Weber, Utah. A century and a half later, their sixth-generation descendants still cultivate the same land. McFarland Family Farms has evolved from growing food for the immediate family to feeding the local community with abundant delicious crops of grain, sugar beets, sweet corn, onions, potatoes, squash, and even pumpkins.
In 2022, current farmers Kenny and Jamila McFarland took what might be the family’s most innovative step yet. They agreed to take over the farming operations at the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville.
The Abbey of the Holy Trinity closed in 2017—faced with too many old, and not enough young, monks to continue operations after seven decades. New property owners Bill and Alane White promised their Trappist friends that they would try to continue the monastery’s rich agricultural legacy.
With an assist from Summit Land Conservancy and the Ogden Valley Land Trust, the Whites recently finished the very hard work of putting the monastery land into a conservation easement. They then turned to the McFarlands for help with the farm. The McFarlands decided it was the perfect place to grow, among other things, pumpkins.
Over a period of 70 years starting in 1947, Utah’s only Cistercian monks had transformed a rugged mountain ranch overrun with scrub brush and sage into fertile fields for grazing and cultivation. They used many conventional agricultural techniques during this effort and won local and national recognitions.
They were innovative too, earning reputations as forward-thinking farmers and ranchers. One of their unconventional methods occurred each spring, as the alpine snowmelt filled their streams with cold fresh runoff. Just before planting crops like alfalfa and barley, the monks blessed their fields with prayers and Holy Water.
My favorite Trappist agricultural technique, however, was how they named their fields after notable Catholics, such as Saint John the Baptist, Saint James, Saint Lucy, Saint Benedict, Saint Pius, and many others. The largest field the monks cultivated—and where the McFarlands now grow pumpkins—was named after Saint Stephen.
One Saint Stephen was the first Christian martyr, who died sometime between the years 33 and 36 AD. When naming their field, however, the Utah Trappists probably had in mind Saint Stephen Harding, who along with Saint Robert and Saint Alberic founded the Cistercian (Trappist) religious order in 1098. The order grew significantly under Stephen’s strict vision and good management skills.
Saint Stephen’s field, at what the McFarlands now call the Historic Monastery Farm, has a rich and interesting history too. The field commands a spectacular 360-degree view of the high mountains surrounding the Ogden Valley, including the 9,000-foot peak named Monte Cristo, the mountain of Christ. The monks grew alfalfa and a number of different kinds of grains there.
The field sits just outside the main monastery entrance gate, so monks working there enjoyed many friendly encounters with their Latter-day Saint neighbors. On a recent return visit to the field, one of the last surviving Utah monks—Father David Altman—recalled his exhausting duty of moving, by hand, the heavy water pipes the Trappists used to irrigate the field.
When I was a young boy in the 1970s, my family and I visited the abbey. The Trappists befriended us as we struggled through a difficult divorce. For many years, the monastery was my second home. I worked in the monks’ bookstore and on the farm.
One day, the monks sent me out into St. Stephen’s field to retrieve a runaway calf. It was the beginning (and the end) of my cowboy career. I describe the comic misadventure in my new book about the abbey, Monastery Mornings (Paraclete Press 2021). Here is an excerpt:
The monks instructed me to walk the approximate fifty yards to where the defiant calf stood. It had recently rained. I sloshed through the mud, church shoes and all, to confront my adversary. He was shorter and stouter than me, but had an extra set of legs, which I should have realized would give him a distinct advantage in a footrace. The calf arrogantly glanced up at me. The reproachful, mocking look on its face loudly proclaimed, “Bring it on, rookie!”
In my encyclopedias, I had read how in battle it often was a good strategy to try to outflank an opponent. Accordingly, I circled around in a flanking maneuver and walked up to the calf, arms wide to both sides to make myself seem larger and more imposing, but also to try to gently direct it back toward the field where the monks wanted it to graze. The calf ignored me until I got within about three or four feet, when it suddenly snorted, bolted sharply to the left, and moved faster than I had ever imagined a calf could move. Within mere seconds, the calf was about twenty feet behind me again, peacefully grazing as if nothing had happened.
I circled around again and walked up to it and once more directed it, this time more forcefully and more loudly, but with the same result. This emerging pattern repeated itself several times. After about fifteen minutes or so of this pathetic excuse for herding, the calf was about fifty to a hundred yards farther away from the place where the monks wanted it to be than it was when we started. I began to wish I had more closely watched the calf ropers on our rare visits to the rodeo. Alas, I had no roping skills, and, no rope. I am not even sure what I would have done with the crazy calf had I been able to rope it. The calf outweighed me, had home-field advantage, and if roped likely would have dragged me around the pasture at will.
In many ways, pumpkins are the perfect crop for Saint Stephen’s field, a place with such a fine history of sanctity, hard work, and even fun.
A number of the Utah Trappist monks who now rest in the quaint monastery cemetery just up the road from Saint Stephen’s field were Irish, some even born across the Atlantic pond in the auld sod itself. It was the Irish who started the tradition of carving faces into gourds and lighting them from within using small candles, all in hopes of scaring off evil spirits. After coming to America, Irish immigrants found that pumpkins served this same purpose quite nicely, leading to the Jack O’Lanterns we all know and love today.
On Halloween, or All Hallows Eve, light from shining pumpkins also welcomes in All Saints Day on November 1 and All Souls Day on November 2, when Christians remember and honor their dearly departed loved ones, whether canonized or not. When I was boy, this also was the time of year when the monks decorated their church and altar with pumpkins and other signs of the season, giving thanks for the good harvest and other blessings.
The McFarlands are adding to these wonderful traditions. Their Huntsville pumpkin patch includes a “you pick” option for the public. Delighted kids and adults alike (including my daughter, son-in-law, and grandson) choose from a half dozen varieties of colorful gourds. The McFarlands also host fall festivals and autumn dances in a rustic barn built on the property by the Whites.
Saints Robert, Alberic, and Stephen—founders of the Cistercian order—left behind their original abbey seeking reform and a more disciplined life. We’d not see many pumpkins in their simple cloister one thousand years ago, or probably even at most Trappist monasteries one hundred years ago.
Today? I think even Saint Stephen, the strict old abbot himself, could not help but smile at the McFarlands’ enchanting pumpkin patch, growing in a field named for him, and paying tribute to his brothers…the beloved Trappist monks at the Historic Monastery Farm in Huntsville.
*Mike O’Brien (author website here: https://michaelpobrien.com/) is a writer and attorney living in Salt Lake City, Utah. His book Monastery Mornings (https://www.amazon.com/Monastery-Mornings-Unusual-Boyhood-Saints/dp/1640606491), about growing up with the monks at the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah, was published by Paraclete Press in August 2021 and chosen by the League of Utah Writers as the best non-fiction book of 2022.
