Abstract
Donita Anderson is the executive director of the North Union Farmers Market in Shaker Heights. A biologist and chef, Anderson discusses her journey in bringing local farm markets to the Cleveland area and expresses her concern regarding environmental issues that may affect local agriculture's near future. Additionally, she shares her historical knowledge of the religious community that established the Shaker area, and emphasizes the contributions of women in the community.
Loading...
Interviewee
Anderson, Donita (Interviewee)
Interviewer
Halligan-Taylor, Gabriella (interviewer)
Project
Shaker Heights Centennial
Date
7-16-2012
Document Type
Oral History
Duration
26 minutes
Recommended Citation
"Donita Anderson Interview, 16 July 2012" (2012). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 915028.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/511
Transcript
Donita Anderson [00:00:02] We’ve been off the whole time.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:00:03] Yeah. It’s okay.
Donita Anderson [00:00:05] The whole time?
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:00:06] The whole time.
Donita Anderson [00:00:07] Oh, gosh. Oh, gosh.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:00:09] It’s okay. I am a little bit interested in more about the Shakers.
Donita Anderson [00:00:14] Is it on now?
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:00:14] It is on now.
Donita Anderson [00:00:15] Okay. Alright. A little bit.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:00:17] I’m sorry about that. I think this thing wants to record now.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:00:25] I’m glad I glanced at the whole hour was nothing. Just the Shakers. As far as faith-based, did you know anything about why they left or diminished? Was it more of.
Donita Anderson [00:00:39] Well, they were celibate. I think that was probably the first reason. And I think there were. I think there were a couple scandals. You know, people weren’t being celibate. I don’t know what. You know, I just know that it was broken up. But there were two women I met in New Hampshire who were like the oldest, and there was a couple guys in New Hampshire. I don’t know if it’s called the Canterbury Village. So, you know, they held on to some of the practices, but the faith itself, you know, it, I think was probably corruption.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:01:19] Okay.
Donita Anderson [00:01:21] Not an influx of new people. Can’t have babies.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:01:26] Right. Yeah. How did they-
Donita Anderson [00:01:28] Recruited by people who showed up at the door.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:01:31] So that’s how they kept kind of- Because the Shakers have been around for, since-
Donita Anderson [00:01:39] 18- No, I don’t think it’s that long. The village here, I thought was 1820, and then for 80 years.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:01:45] But a good, right, a good 80 years.
Donita Anderson [00:01:48] Yeah. Back- Yeah.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:01:50] So you survived by recruiting.
Donita Anderson [00:01:52] Yeah. But so many of what they did, the ideas have been incorporated into agriculture and they developed the broom. I mean, there was a lot of things. They must have extra time to, you know. And the recipes were good. I’ve used their cookbooks. It’s very nice. So it would make an excellent restaurant here to have an authentic Shaker with long tables, sort of a public place to gather and have people in authentic costumes serving and using their recipes, which were very healthy in the incorporation of fresh herbs, you know. So I think it would be actually probably a million dollar idea. Plus.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:02:32] With that, as far as Shaker men versus Shaker woman, was there any kind of gender tension or any kind of gender conflict or was everybody kind of equal?
Donita Anderson [00:02:45] Yeah, I think everybody’s pretty equal. They incorporated all races. You know, whoever showed up was here and lived here, but they lived separate and they practiced their faith separately. They might have been the same building, but separate pews, I don’t know. I’ve read. I can’t remember because I haven’t. You know, I would have known more 10 years ago when I was doing the research, but forgotten. But I imagine there would be tension, you know, and people aren’t having sex or probably doing things around the corner. I don’t know. I have no idea. I haven’t read it. You know, I read things long ago, but. And I talked to a lot of people who had a lot of the. You know, I think Ann Cicarello over at the Shaker Historical Museum, you know, might have better records, complete records of what was going on. As far as tension, I don’t know if they would record that, but somebody might have written in newspapers at the time.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:03:36] Right. Well, because it seems like when the Van Sweringens came in, it was completely.
Donita Anderson [00:03:39] We’ll talk about tents. Two brothers living with each other and then dying young. So it was interesting to pair. Yeah. And launch a huge project in the middle of a depression was another interesting- You know, I have to get this call. Alright.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:03:56] If you wouldn’t mind. Just specifically picked this plot.
Donita Anderson [00:04:05] This area was specifically picked by the North Union Shakers as an area that would be the Valley of God’s pleasure, because it was a valley, but it was also protected as far as the weather and had extended, had a longer growing season because, you know, the frost ends earlier and starts later in the fall, which is, you know, you always want to get extra months or weeks in for your growing. And even now, people go through Shaker in the spring and go, your flowers last so longer. Everything starts earlier. And, you know, I see them lasting longer into June. The rhododendrons, azaleas, which are so important to the design here, is very much fundamental. People aren’t aware there is not only there is a design of homes, a design of roads, the curves in the roads, but the design of landscaping is very specific to Northeast Ohio. And this is one of the more beautiful areas. Why we have so many garden tours in this town, besides home tours, is there’s a basic standard that was developed by the Van Sweringens and the people around it. And I think that very, very importantly, you had talked about, you know, was there sexual tension back with the Shakers? I couldn’t authentically say, but I’d have to say, knowing human nature, there would be but one of the greatest assets in this town when it started, you know, developing in the ’20s. The biggest asset has been women. We were very fortunate where a lot of the women were staying at home raising families, but they were very ardent about what they wanted in design, not only in the homes, but in the Landscape design. And you still see the after effects around Shaker Lakes. Women protected nature preserves. This has been a very strong female community. And I don’t know if that’s the roots of the Shakers, which was started by a female. So maybe there’s something here that draws it because there’s still a lot of them around. But it’s one of the things we’ve lost in the United States, where we’ve been focused more on a second income from our spouses. That women have an eye for detail that is phenomenal, and they multitask and they create great communities. And that’s what was created here. It was a community that worked on all levels. People were very helpful. There were fabulous churches that the faith went not only through the parishes, but also into the homes and into the communities. And it’s always been a great school. There’s a woman on my block who was one of the original people that went to Shaker schools when they opened. She’s quite old, but she’s an amazing person. And she talks about growing up here and what it felt like. It was really a phenomenal community. But I think the women who lived here also helped create the museums that were here. That Wade Oval was very much a part case. I mean, they were the backbone of rainbow babies and children. You know, there are phenomenal things that were put into the infrastructure of Cleveland. That was the corporate wife and what she did to make sure that the poor were taken care of, the churches were reaching out, and that there was also the very astute design eye. So people don’t recognize that and say that we’ve lost something. Unfortunately, those great minds have gone into the corporate world chasing money, unfortunately. But that’s what’s significant for a lot of women now.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:07:39] Do you think that’s nationally, not only just Cleveland?
Donita Anderson [00:07:43] Oh, yeah. But this is a particular treasure in the United States. People come here. I work closely as a volunteer in the last 25 years with World Council of Cleveland and that we host in our home dinners from people from all over the world. I had the guy who was head of the European Union eat pork chops with me and the kids at our dining table. But they look at this community and say, this is unbelievable. This just goes on mile after mile of gorgeous homes and neighborhoods. There’s nothing like it where kids can walk to school. That is pretty much unheard of in the United States, that your kid, pretty much K through 12, except for two years at Middle school, can walk. And my kids did it. It’s really good for Them to be able to walk after school and think about it, talk to friends, have that sort of time to themselves. But it was just really a great place, at least for our kids, to raise them here. But thanks to, I believe it was women, the strength of this community.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:08:46] Right. And did you have any kind of fear for your kids walking down, or was it just because you had this.
Donita Anderson [00:08:53] No, I wouldn’t have moved here if I did. No. But I’m a proactive. You’ll ask anybody. I’m very active in my community and made sure that the roads were safe, that things were, you know. But no matter where kids are nowadays, there’s always wealthy, poor neighborhoods. There’s always things mothers have to be engaged for each person. If they take care of their own family, the world would be a great. Place. Produce kids and take care of them. But a lot of people do that here in Shaker, and it’s been wonderful. It’s a city of readers. We support our libraries, and I have created a system of farmers markets. We’ll have nine farmers markets this year throughout Northeast Ohio and have developed training programs to grow those small farm businesses. But the backbone of it came from. I was PTO council president for the schools and the volunteer system here. And the people I’ve met helped create that market. Tom and Chris Stevens, just amazing people throughout the city.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:09:56] And did the farmers market start with the PTO and just kind of grew. Was that how it actually started or how did the idea come?
Donita Anderson [00:10:03] I guess. Well, I started a market. Oh, geez. Five years before the one I started here in Traverse City, Michigan. And it’s still going, doing really well here. I worked in the food co op there. But, you know, it’s getting a bunch of people convinced that it’s an important thing to do to bring fresh and local foods to people who live in the city. So I came here and wanted to raise my kids on good farm food. And as soon as we arrived, I started driving out to farms and developed friendships and brought those farms in. And there was a resistance to come into the city of Cleveland because markets had been created where brokers were involved. The Westside Market is a brokered market. Product is nine days old and it’s sold very cheap. Well, farmers can’t sell that cheap and make any money at all if they’re small farms. So creating that network of certified farmers markets meant I needed mentors like the New York Green Market and the California Bay Market Systems are both my mentors.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:11:02] And do you do the one that is on Euclid in the fall at Cleveland State.
Donita Anderson [00:11:08] Yes. We’re there all summer. Right.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:11:10] Are you?
Donita Anderson [00:11:10] Every Thursday. Thursday at lunch. It’s the best lunch in town. Because it’s all locally grown.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:11:15] Yeah. Because I had classes Tuesdays and Thursdays in the fall semester, and I loved it.
Donita Anderson [00:11:21] Yeah. We’re going through September. We’d gone through November, but it was just too rainy. Last year was the most rain since 1871, so it was really hard to grow and it was hard to sell in the rain. Yeah.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:11:34] One of the farmers said that he had a terrible.
Donita Anderson [00:11:37] Yeah. What’s so funny is this is the worst drought this year. 2012 is the worst drought since a quarter of a century. So we went from one extreme to the other, and most of it’s due to sunspots and earthquakes.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:11:53] Do you think that the heat right now is going to affect the crops?
Donita Anderson [00:11:57] It’s drought. Yeah. Yeah. It’s ruining crops. Yeah. Yeah. If they have an irrigator, if they don’t have a good pond or, you know, well, system, they won’t be able to grow anything. So, yeah, we’re losing crops right now. The whole Midwest up to New Jersey is. So that’s all the farmland. Everything’s. The food’s going to be much more expensive this fall and winter for about a year. Wheat’s not growing. Everything slowed down. Soybeans, corn.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:12:28] Which is interesting. I think I’m right. Have an effect on politics. Right.
Donita Anderson [00:12:31] So the precursor to the Depression was a drought. A dust bowl is created. So I don’t know if they have things in place, if they have the infrastructure in place. Some of our farms will be able to produce, but it takes an amazing amount of irrigation.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:12:50] What’s the ninth farmers market you said you had?
Donita Anderson [00:12:53] Right.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:12:53] You started the ninth.
Donita Anderson [00:12:55] Correct.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:12:56] Are you still really active in all nine of them? Kind of getting farmers in, making sure the farmers are.
Donita Anderson [00:13:01] Oh, yeah. I’m the oversight. I’m the executive director, so I help work on the funding. We run two major fundraisers. One’s coming up called Farm to Table, where our organization helped grow something called Green Corps 14 years ago at the Botanical Gardens, where urban kids learned how to farm in the city and come to market. So we helped teach some of the skills, the marketing and the things they needed to grow. And they’ve got an amazing staff over there. So we have something called Farm to Table, where we celebrate that with chefs. We give them product to prepare, dishes to taste. After we have a panel, usually a panel discussion. This one’s on local entrepreneurs. Jenny’s Ice Cream. Her father has a dairy called Snowville, and she created an ice cream with that. And she’s in the top 10 in the country. Young Ohio woman. And Chris Hodgson of Hodgepodge and Dim and Dem Sum. He won a Food Network award for his food trucks. And Ben Bebenroth of Spice Restaurant in Gordon Square. So they’ll be talking about how they grew their business as entrepreneurs, just like the early Shakers. I love entrepreneurs and small businesses, and our organizations helped develop through job training. We do. In January, when the farms aren’t working, we have training for skill development for going to market and growing the best crops they can. That’s what I do. Yeah. Yeah.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:14:32] Do you think the farmers and entrepreneurs are going to kind of save Cleveland economically and socially?
Donita Anderson [00:14:39] The small business is the only engine that’s working, but they’ve had a lot of onerous regulations placed upon them and more to come. So it doesn’t feel like a time to invest in business. They’ve all slowed down. We didn’t go to Double Dip. It just never got out of it. So contrary to what other people are saying, you know, I hear from a lot of small businesses, and it’s very stressful. So if the government stops regulating, you know, and looks at how to build small businesses, will. Our country will grow. Because that’s what we’re all about is creating, taking an idea and creating something from it. You know, Thomas Edison from Ohio, the Wright Brothers, we have two big automotive and airlines came out of those. But we have good soil in Ohio. If people keep eating food from it, they’ll be bright enough to create new ideas, so it’ll help save the world. So I believe in fostering entrepreneurial ideas because they are what we’re all about here.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:15:48] Do you have any opinions about, about big businesses or-
Donita Anderson [00:15:55] You know, we’ve seen a lot of them. We never believed. I used to. I worked in quality control at General Motors, and I noticed when they became centralized and large, it was hard. And Bill Gates said it about large businesses. It becomes just like the government, certain corruptions and. And, you know, they don’t work as well as small businesses. They’re not swift in turnarounds and changes. I have to say that Apple’s a pretty cool business. So they’re a great small business. Big businesses. But I think we need to really look at how we’re growing food and agriculture and the big farms that we’ve created and maybe looking at using some of the practices of small farms. [illegible] Yep. Growing healthier food. And it can be done.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:16:51] Yeah, I do know this is kind of unrelated, but I want your opinion with the heat is rising, you know, and I read something that if by like 2099, Ohio is going to be like 10 degrees higher in the summer than-
Donita Anderson [00:17:12] Actually we’ve had cooling in the last year, even though it is a hot summer, overall, the average. The Earth has had a year of cooling one by- I think it’s like an amazing amount. But most of our weather, and my brother is a physicist, I’m a scientist, I read a lot. Most of our weather is dictated by something we can’t control, and that’s the sun and the sunspots and gravitational pulls. I mean, the rain we had last year was directly related to earthquakes in 1871 or thereabouts. We didn’t see the sun, half of the Earth didn’t see the sun. And there were great famines because of it. And that was due to an earthquake called Krakatoa. Earthquakes cause more pollution than all the cars we’ve ever been on Earth, all the cars that have been here. So people who don’t know science sort of latch onto things they see in the media and don’t really understand that there are bigger things going on and there’s no way to control the sun, as far as I can tell, so we can adapt to it, which we have. As far as I know, we’re all still using cars with fossil fuels. So I don’t. I’ve never seen any. I haven’t seen any really great strides in green energy or, you know, a lot of things are happening. What I’m really concerned about is the possibility of losing trees. When we become a one global world, things move very fast from country to country. Insects, famines to plants. And there’s something going on with our trees, particularly fruit trees. But there’s a lot of things, like we saw the ash just move, you know, gone. Dutch elm, gone. We could be deforested because we’re not protecting trees enough. We’re looking more at bigger pictures and not focused on some of the things that are happening. Rhododendrons and azaleas went through our country from another country and just put through our country some sort of weird moth that’s causing all kinds of problems. Things are being brought into our country and we’re not protecting our borders that are destroying a lot of plants and trees, which, you know, so we get oxygen right now, actually, we have more forest land than we’ve ever had in the world. But, you know, because we’re managing wildfires much better. I don’t think they did a good job in Colorado but they are starting to learn that they need to thin and make those practices that don’t cause all the brush to be there to be kindling for fires. You know, I know it seems sort of logical, but we do need to look at some of the diseases that are spreading very quickly through our trees that we can control.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:20:05] So are you more concerned about invasive species than [illegible] global warming?
Donita Anderson [00:20:10] Well, you’ll even notice that Al Gore doesn’t call it global warming. He goes global change. But weather always changes because the sunspots do. So it’s more cooling that’s going on now. We saw it two years ago winter, not this past winter. So I bet we get back to it. I think we’ll probably have another cold snowy winter. This one. This is a drought state. It always has been. I mean over 30 years ago SeaWorld came to the state because it did studies on it and they wanted the driest state they could find in the Midwest and this is the one. So there’s very little rain. So they knew that they could make more money because rainy days you don’t make money when you own a SeaWorld. So there’s a lot of. We don’t have a long perspective. It’s sort of instant gasping and theatrics and not good hard science, long term science.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:21:05] As far as earthquakes are talking about, just earthquakes kind of bring up gases underneath the earth and stuff like that. I’m not a scientist.
Donita Anderson [00:21:13] And throw them into the atmosphere. Yeah. But Krakatoa is an example and it’s really interesting that happened.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:21:22] I actually took a class this past semester called Natural History of Cleveland. It was really interesting kind of talking about Cleveland specifically and I enjoyed that. So that’s why I’m asking.
Donita Anderson [00:21:33] The air is a lot cleaner. Amazing. We couldn’t if you lived here, you know, in the ’20s and ’40s you didn’t see the sun, you didn’t see the stars. I mean it was just a haze. I mean there was so much industrial waste from the revolution, you know, in 18 and that’s all been cleaned up. Amazing job done. ’40s and ’50s, ’60s. Oh God, the river. Yeah, we’re much cleaner. But we do have to watch what big agriculture is doing to Lake Erie. I think one of the biggest polluters is big agriculture. And it’s important to, I think look at their model and make some very significant changes quickly because I think that they doing harm not only to the earth but to human body, most importantly to humans, human beings Health. But fortunately we can see the stars at night here. Not as many as if we go up northern Michigan, but someday maybe. Yeah, there’s a lot of good science going on. It’s just not heard about sort of people who get the bully pulpit, sort of who aren’t even scientists, start talking and none of their predictions have come true. Anything else you needed? How are we in time? Oh, good. We good?
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:22:57] Yeah. Just kind of. One last question. That kind of a. Overall, I don’t know if you. I’m sure you know, but this year is a centennial for the city of Shaker Heights.
Donita Anderson [00:23:07] Yes, they’ve done a wonderful job. The centennial committee, Dan Williams and Ann Cicarella. Yeah.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:23:15] And how does that kind of like just make you feel? Kind of coming into Shaker for Shaker, for the schools, for the community, you know, how does it just kind of make you feel, kind of be a part of this, especially because you’re so active.
Donita Anderson [00:23:30] I’ve been so busy with markets. I did what little I could and helped wherever I could. I’m going to be teaching a food preservation class in August because I’m also a chef. I studied in Europe. So I think they’ve just done a phenomenal job. I liked all the little flash singing groups, you know, on the website and the programming was really good. And you kind of want some of that energy to keep going. I think one of the biggest turnarounds and a person who’s just amazing has a great vision for Shaker is the economic developer, Tania Menesse. I hope I pronounced that right, but Tania had so much energy and the parade was significantly better. It was just wonderful and really incorporated the school kids and it gave you a feeling. And what I’m seeing at my market, I think as a result of the really good energy is where the largest crowds are people over 40. It’s now people in their 20s and 30s who really understand this is healthy food. And they’re bringing their babies in strollers and it’s really wonderful. It’s just jam packed and they understand how good the food is because we’re the only place straight from Ohio, you know, I mean, these markets, you can’t really get the food anywhere else. And it’s just great. I raise my kids on it and that come with. So far we’ve been healthy.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:24:49] It’s kind of a blessing, Ohio, really.
Donita Anderson [00:24:52] It is, yeah. Did you grow up here?
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:24:55] Yeah, I, I was actually born in Texas.
Donita Anderson [00:24:57] Wow.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:24:58] But my mom, because my mom lived there for a few years and moved back up when I was about two and a half because she was born in Parma.
Donita Anderson [00:25:07] Oh. Huh. Do you live there now?
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:25:09] Yeah, I grew up. We actually moved directly to Cleveland and my grandmother’s old house she grew up in.
Donita Anderson [00:25:15] Oh, cool.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:25:15] Yeah. And then when my grandpa died about seven years ago, we moved in with her and Parma with my mom’s house that she grew up in.
Donita Anderson [00:25:24] Yeah.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:25:25] So, yeah.
Donita Anderson [00:25:26] Yeah. They have good Indian restaurant. I forgot the name, but the Korean restaurant’s really good too. I think on Pearl. Is it? What’s the name of it?
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:25:34] I think. I’m not sure.
Donita Anderson [00:25:35] Is that on Ridge Road?
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:25:36] I always drive past it. I want to go in there.
Donita Anderson [00:25:38] Yeah.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:25:39] I’ve never had Indian food.
Donita Anderson [00:25:40] Oh, we’ll go to lunch. Yeah. I hear it’s the best. I haven’t been. I’ve just heard it’s got to be.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.
