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George and Miriam Leatherman met through a mutual friend and went on their first date at the old drive-in movie theater of Moorefield, West Virginia.
At that time, the previously married Miriam had two children while George, at age 30, had never been married.
“And my sister told me when I turned 30, ‘George, you need to get married soon, or nobody’s going to want you,’” George Leatherman says with a smile. “So, when I was 31, I was married and had two kids. And she said, ‘Well, you didn’t have to jump in that deep.’”
George did not mind. In fact, the Leathermans had two more children. And they have, for years, welcomed visitors to their 190-acre Buena Vista Farm (304-530-2788) that has been in George’s family for more than a century in Hardy County, West Virginia.
Here, Miriam Leatherman spent more than 30 years as a county extension agent for families and health. And she learned the value of agri-tourism businesses while focusing on education.
In addition to raising beef cattle and poultry, the Leathermans have grown strawberries and pumpkins. And they have sold their pumpkin butter, strawberry syrup and hot pepper jelly at their farm market along U.S. 220 at Old Fields, West Virginia.
Often, they open their farm to school groups.
And they like to tout the highlights of Hardy County—from the museum-quality history preserved on the walls of the South Branch Inn at Moorefield to the steaks served at nearby O’Neill’s.
“There’s a real commitment to the rural way of living,” Miriam says. “And pretty much everybody wants to maintain that rural lifestyle.”
This sparsely populated place is popular for riding horseback trails in the George Washington National Forest, especially in the fall, says Miriam, who owns two horses, Pip and Carl.
“On one ride, there was foliage on the trail, and it was like a tunnel of color—the yellows and oranges and reds,” she says. “That was near Squirrel Gap.”
TRAVEL PLANNER
Farm: Buena Vista Farm, Old Fields, WVA
Stay: South Branch Inn, Moorefield, WVA 304-538-2033
Do: Farm tours by appointment only
Eats: O’Neill’s, Moorefield, WVA 304-530-2727 (one of Miriam’s favorites)
The story above is from our September/October 2019 issue.
