BUTLER — Joan Walsh, of Butler, has dozens of memories from her childhood at Malabar Farm.
The 74-year-old woman remembers spending hours at the Lucas-based farm and even traveled to Texas as a young girl when the farm’s owner, Louie Bromfield attempted a version of Malabar Farm in Wichita County, Texas.
The project was short-lived, but she was there to experience it while it lasted.
“My father bought cattle from Louis Bromfield, so we spent a lot of time at Malabar Farm,” Walsh said. “Then, we moved to Texas to start a Malabar Farm down there.”
That was around the 1950s, she said. And they only stayed a few years.
“The land that they bought, the only thing that would grow was sunflowers,” she said.
Malabar Farm’s website also recounts the story. It states that on March 31, 1949, the First National Bank of Wichita Falls, Texas issued a check to the Wichita Chamber of Commerce, based on a promissory note from Louie Bromfield and one other for $10,275.
The soil on the 411-acre piece of land is described as “badly depleted of nutrients and ranged from a clay-based soil so hard a normal farm tractor of its time couldn’t begin to break up the hard pan to a sandy loam.”
Further, an irrigation system was needed because of the lack of rainfall.
This venture was cut short after conflict between the Chamber and Bromfield. Walsh’s father Roger Culler was involved, too. According to Malabar Farm’s website, Culler received one third of the undivided interest on the farm in 1952.
Walsh also recalled other memories at the Ohio-based Malabar Farm. One such memory involved Louie’s infamous boxer dogs and an automatic car.
“The dogs got in and shoved it out of gear, so it went into the pond, and Louie didn’t gives two hoots about the car, but he came out saying, my dogs, my dogs,” Walsh said.
It just so happened that Bromfield was friendly with the Walsh family, too. Joan Walsh, who married Dan Walsh, still has a picture of Bromfield beside a car from Walsh Sound Equipment, which was once located in downtown Mansfield and operated by her father-in-law, Bob Walsh.
Joan Walsh was born in Lucas and later graduated from Lucas High School. She lived in Wisconsin for some time before returning to Richland County.
