Landis Valley Village & Farm Museum
The Landis Valley Village & Farm Museum in Lancaster, Pennsylvania first started as a means to preserve historic Pennsylvania Dutch farming equipment, but it quickly broadened its scope. “Somewhere along the line in the 1980s [we] said, ‘If we’re a farm museum, we should be talking about not just the equipment that people use, but what are they really growing here,’” says Joanne Ranck-Dirks, the Landis Valley Heirloom Seed Project coordinator. “We welcomed donations from local people whose families would have been growing these vegetables and passing them down from generation to generation.”
One of the varieties that stands out to Joanne, is the beautiful ‘Fortna White’ pumpkin. This family heirloom traces back to Wayne Fortna of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. “[He] went to World War II and came back with like PTSD,” recalls his daughter, Sue Ellen Majer. “He couldn’t go back to teaching, and ended up gardening. That got him back into the soil and got him back into nature and that really helped his nerves.” When she saw his aptitude for gardening, Wayne’s aunt, Carrie Stayman, gave him a sample of the ‘Fortna White’ pumpkin seeds. For nearly forty years, Wayne grew his family heirloom with particular care, ensuring there would always be a white pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving. After her father passed away in 1990, Sue Ellen realized how important it was for her family to save the seeds. “I had gotten a flyer from the [Landis Valley] seed catalog and I said “Maybe they will help me preserve this!”
25 years later, Joanne received an order for the Fortna white pumpkin that piqued her interest. “Lo-and-behold, the person ordering it, is the same person who donated it 25 years before!” she remembers. Sue Ellen wrote in saying, “Last year I let my seeds mold… If it hadn’t been for Landis Valley our pumpkin would be extinct!”