I Wish I Was Dixie

Look at this photo of Dixie Scheiderer. I doubt she would mind me saying, but this lady is no spring chicken. Her words, not mine.

I met Dixie a few years ago on the Beallsville farm she worked with her “sweet, sweet man,” Jake. Fifth generation dairy farmers, the couple operated a small dairy of 40 Jerseys which supplied the milk for their cheese making business, Buckeye Grove Farm Cheese, featuring wonderful old world style raw milk cheeses. My visit there was one of the last of a long list of trips throughout Ohio and a most memorable way to wind down before digging in to write the book Farms and Foods of Ohio: From Garden Gate To Dinner Plate.

Last November, a colleague told me that the Scheiderers had retired and moved to Kentucky. Jake and Dixie had turned the businesses over to their son, Al and his wife, Renae. The young couple proved to be excellent students and the transition was seamless—barely a hiccup in the changing of the guard.

Still, I never suspected the word “retirement” to be in Dixie’s vocabulary. While I worried that something unpleasant precipitated the move, I wasn’t quite convinced.

The phone rang today and the voice was distinctly Dixie. “ So how’s retirement,” I asked. “Retirement?” she echoed incredulously. “I don’t believe in putting my feet up.” That’s what I thought. “I got a job offer I couldn’t pass up,” she announced. “How many 60 year old women do you know get offered a job?”

Truthfully? Not many.

The Scheiderers moved to Renfro, KY, home of the Renfro Valley Music Center, which I suspect is Kentucky’s equivalent to Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry. Among the things Jake and Dixie packed when they moved were three cows from their Beallsville herd: Connie, Edna, and Edna, Jr. They are the start up equipment Dixie will use to continue making her old world style cheeses, and this trio alone will produce enough cheese to delight visitors and diners at the Music Center's restaurants.

One job was not enough for Dixie. As a side career, with her 18-year old granddaughter, Lana Jean as her apprentice, Dixie will also be the Center’s “serious pie baker.” It’s enough to keep Dixie occupied and to “get her granddaughter started with something to guide her through life.” There’s something delightful and joyous about the prospect of a lifetime of making pies.

“We’re going to make the old farm-style pies that we used to make at my mom’s home-style restaurant, a truck stop outside of London, OH on Routes 29 and 42,” she said. “Her customers were truckers traveling between Columbus and Cincinnati. They loved (heavy accent on the love) those pies so much that even when it was snowing outside, I remember people lining up around the corner to get a pie.”

Dixie plans on using the same family recipes with a 75-year plus history of baking success and lard in the crust which makes it so flakey that it breaks off in sugary shards under the tines of a fork. She promises to share a recipe, which will be posted under recipes when it arrives.

“Life is going to be a little more leisurely,” Dixie predicts, as leisurely as two new startup businesses will get you. Renfro Valley is a trip back home for the tireless lady, whose family is originally from the area. She said it feels very much like home. “I was down here when I was five,” recalls Dixie. “It’s grown but it’s still the same good people.”

Plus one.