The Zaskey Christmas Tree Farm - Celebrating 100 Years !!!!!!

     Our farm has been in the Zaskey Family for 100 years.

 

     Myron (Zakrzewski) and Anna (Czajkowski) Zaskey were born in Poland, married in Northampton and settled in Hadley, purchasing the farm in 1910.  During the eighteen hundreds, there was a brickyard on a portion of the farm, and three homes, built from those bricks, still stand on Mt. Warner Road Road.  The Zaskey family started out in a period of history with no electricity and the mode of transportation was horses, carriages and sleighs.  Two wells provided water to the home and barn.

 

     Myron and Anna had four children:  Mary, Laura, Henry and Lucy.  They operated a dairy farm and grew several acres of asparagus.  The farm was self sustaining, growing feed for the cattle and a variety of vegetables, fruit, and poultry for the family.  They cut their own firewood from a portion of woodland on Mt.Warner which they owned, and even cut their own blocks of ice to cool the milk from a pond located on the farm.  The milk room still stands on the farm, and the ice house was located between the existing milk room and the garage.   The farm pond was also a great place to fish and skate in the winter.

 

     In 1923 Myron built a new farm house cutting logs from Mt. Warner and having them milled in Amherst.  A portion of the old farm house was used to build a wood shed on the back of the new home.  The stone foundation of the old house can still be seen a few feet away from the new house.

 

     Myron Zaskey died in 1938.  His wife Anna, daughter Laura, and son Henry continued operating the dairy farm through 1940.  Henry married and moved to Chicopee.  He worked as an accountant at the Springfield Armory.  Finding it difficult to continue operating the dairy farm, the family decided to sell the cattle only keeping a few for milk and meat.  Anna could often be found in the kitchen making butter and cheese for the family.  Henry continued to help his mother and sister operate the farm.  They began growing tobacco and still continued growing asparagus, wheat, hay and corn.

 

     There was a great deal of activity on the farm from early spring into the fall, planting, raising, cutting, and stripping tobacco.  Family and friends were an important part of the entire process.  Every Sunday there would be a house full of guests having dinner and socializing.  The only physical work allowed on Sunday was to milk the cows and feed the animals. Anna, known to her nine grandchildren as Babci, and her daughter Laura, known as Cioci Dudu, always made sure there were plenty of homemade pastries on hand for everyone.  Christmas was a big family celebration.  A hemlock tree, cut from our own woodland, was placed in the living room and decorated by all the children.  On Christmas Eve, a traditional meatless meal would be served.  Straw would be placed beneath the table cloth, and a special placesetting and chair reserved for a stranger who may stop in to visit.  Santa Claus would arrive after dinner ringing his bell and appearing in different windows around the farm house, finally arriving on the front porch with a burlap bag full of gifts.  After the gifts were opened, Christmas carols were sung by the entire family.  Then the family prepared to go to church for midnight Mass.  The celebration continued on Christmas Day with other relatives coming and going all day long.  The hospitality of the Zaskey family was extended to all family and friends throughout the year.

 

     Anna loved to be around her animals, the cows, sheep, horses, chickens, ducks, turkeys and geese.  She was especially fond of her 65 geese to the extent that when the eggs hatched, she brought the little geese into the house, and placed them in boxes to keep them warm and to nourish them.

 

     Anna and Laura died in 1967.  Henry continued to operate the farm with his only son Willy Zaskey.  Tobacco was the main crop along with cucumbers and strawberries.  A portion of the farm was leased to Kentfields Dairy and later to a nursery.

 

     In 1980 Henry and Willy (Bill) began growing Christmas trees on what was once tobacco land.  Henry, Bill and his son Michael along with other family members planted 500 to 1,000 trees each year.  They included balsam, fraser, blue spruce and scotch pine.  Bill would do the shearing and mowing while Michael and his grandfather Henry did the cultivating.

 

     The Zaskey Christmas Tree Farm began selling trees as a choose & cut operation in 1989.  Henry continued working the farm into his 90s and could often be seen sitting in his car watching the younger family members selling trees.  Over the years, cannan and concolor firs were added to the mix along with wreaths, roping, and tree stands.  Bill and Joanne Zaskey had three children:  Christine, Diane and Michael along with four grandchildren (the fifth generation) who expanded the retail operation. Aedan and Kieran Cullen and Hannah and Sophie Berard would bake cookies, sell hot chocolate and hand out candy canes and coloring books to the children.

 

     Henry Zaskey died in 2009 at the age of 97. Bill and Joanne Zaskey have passed the Christmas Tree operation to their daughters and sons-in-law: Christine and Bob Cullen and Diane and Scott Berard, who have built homes on the family farm as we move into the second century.