The Story Behind Annie’s Project

A farm woman who excelled in a male-dominated business

There has been buzz about a program called “Annie’s Project” to get underway in January at Grand Forks, Fargo, Jamestown, Minot, and Grafton in North Dakota and Thief River Falls and Fergus Falls in Minnesota. The six-session program is designed for farm women, with comprehensive information on key farm management topics such as:

• How bankers make loan decisions
• Tracking expenses and income
• Mastering spreadsheets
• Land rental agreements
• Retirement, farm transfer, and estate planning
• Grain marketing
• Insurance needs, including crop insurance
• Personnel management

The objective of the curriculum is to empower farm women to be better business partners for farm management and decision-making. The program has already been held or planned in other parts of the country. 

A key question, though – who’s Annie?

Well, Annie was born in Illinois as Annette Kohlhag

Annette Kohlhagen Fleck – “Annie.” Daughter Ruth Fleck Hambleton, creator of “Annie’s Project,” says this is Annie’s favorite picture of herself from Easter 1942.  “A lot of things were going good for her,” says Ruth. “She just completed her teaching degree and was teaching 1st and 2nd grades at the local grade school. She was about to meet the farmer of her dreams…”

en in 1922, the daughter of a fireman.  She graduated from the Illinois State Normal University (teachers college) in 1942, and taught grade school for five years before marrying Frank Fleck on July 20, 1947.

That was her goal – to marry a farmer. And as she found out over the rest of her life, being married to a farmer isn’t easy.

Annie faced challenges that included three generations living under one farm roof, low profitability, changing farm enterprises, and raising four children. There were days of laughter, contentment, and accomplishment, but also days of tears, anger and sorrow that tested her conviction to be married to a farmer.

Through it all, Annie kept records – very well, in fact. She kept the farm business running, kept the family running, and kept her marriage. Annie grew to know and master deadlines, reporting requirements, tax issues, and did the little management jobs that kept big management jobs under control.

It was Annie’s farm recordkeeping that helped guide big decisions over the course of their lives, such as when Frank went to work off-farm to increase cash flow while Annie milked cows and kept an egg route in Chicago. Eventually, her records guided them to discontinue an egg laying enterprise, a seasonal turkey enterprise, and the dairy business. They turned to corn and soybeans (Annie paid the expenses and marketed the corn and beans – rare back then).  Later in life, Annie became the landowner, renting to other farmers.

Annie was married to a farmer for 50 years. She died in 1997, a wealthy woman, and doing things her way.

One of Annie’s daughters, Ruth Fleck Hambleton, also married a man from a farm. Ruth became a Farm Business Management and Marketing educator for the University of Illinois Extension Service. Ruth wanted to create a program that would take the skills instilled in her by her mother, and mentor and educate farm women. Something that would help farm women find answers, strength, and friendship, while strengthening their business skills and confidence in those skills.

That’s the story behind Annie’s Project.