'Hope springs eternal': COVID-19 not the end for one of South's oldest Black-owned farms

For more than 100 years, Dori Sanders and her family have kept the crops on Sanders Peach Farm rotating like the hands of a clock, steadily and unwaveringly. 

The Filbert, South Carolina, farm was started by Sanders’ father Marion Sanders and is one of the oldest Black-owned farms in the South. A former sharecropper, Marion Sanders saved money as the principal of a two-room elementary school before purchasing 81 acres in 1915. The following year, his family moved to the farm on Christmas Eve. He planted the first peach trees in 1919, Dori Sanders said.

Since then, the farm and its accompanying roadside stand off Highway 321 have been a draw for locals and tourists. Visitors travel miles for peaches picked in the warm summer months. In the fall, the stand is normally filled with sweet potatoes and collard greens.

But more than anything visitors come to see Sanders, an award-winning author who honed her storytelling chops at this roadside stand when she wasn't running the farm from atop her orange Kubota tractor. 

"You kind of go for the peaches, but you really don't,” said Ben Boyles, an agent for the Clemson University Cooperative Extension Service who works with area farmers and agritourism businesses. “You go to see her and give her a hug and sit at her feet and let her talk to you. And she’s developed these relationships over, gosh, decades now.” 

Sanders' market had always been a communal experience antithetical to social distancing. She'd sit close with those buying her produce and spend hours trading tales and swapping recipes. Sometimes she'd take children out to what she calls her "storytelling rock," an alien, 12-foot-tall outcropping on the farm where she would make up stories that always ended "happily ever after." 

But in 2020, the crops and the stories came to a halt. 

Sanders saw members of her community contract COVID-19. Eventually, two farm workers died of the virus. Sanders and her brother Orestus made the difficult decision to shutter the family farm.

"It’s the first time in my memory I’ve ever seen Sanders Peaches closed," Dori Sanders said. 

'I miss it terribly'

The COVID-19 pandemic was difficult for some South Carolina farmers to navigate, Boyles said. Farms that sold directly to restaurants had to pivot to different business models when restaurants closed down or limited hours. 

But agritourism farms with open-air markets like Sanders' tended to fair better. In fact, Boyles said those farmers had "one of their best years in 2020" as families spent more time outdoors and sought produce from local establishments. 

Sanders didn't feel compelled to risk it. The pandemic had hit too close to home as she heard of community members contracting coronavirus. Black Americans are also 2.8 times more likely to be hospitalized by COVID-19 than white Americans, according to CDC data. Sanders said that factored into her and her brother's choice.

“We decided at our old age that we better sit and ride this out," Sanders said. "And we were hopeful for 2021."

Sanders hoped 2021 would be their "happily ever after." 

Unfortunately, this year brought no better luck.

The Sanders' peach trees froze in a cold snap around Easter — the same cold snap that is limiting this fall's apple harvest. A rainy summer made it impossible for their tractors to plant other fall crops in time. And "still reeling" from the loss of two farm workers to COVID-19, Sanders kept the farm stand closed. 

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"I miss it terribly," Sanders said. "It's the first time I've never been at the farm stand. But I was afraid to be there and didn't want to compound the stress of others."

Not the end for Sanders Peach Farm

Storytelling and farm life go hand in hand for Sanders.

In addition to being an acclaimed steward of Southern food culture — Sanders has won two lifetime achievement awards from the Southern Foodways Alliance and the South Carolina Agritourism Association — her first novel "Clover" won the Lillian Smith Book Award. And she spent the pandemic working on her fifth novel, which she says will be a murder mystery.

Needless to say, she knows when a story is supposed to end.

Despite the farm being shuttered for two years, she doesn't believe this is the end for Sanders Peach Farm. 

"The farm has been in our family for over 100 years," Sanders said. "So we’ll take it easy for two years and adopt that Alexander Pope mentality that 'hope springs eternal.' Perhaps next year." 

Sanders is aware of the farm's role in her community. And as a historical Black-owned farm, she recognizes the importance of keeping it open.

In 1920, a year after Marion Sanders first put peach trees in the ground, 14% of farms were Black-owned, according to USDA data. Today, that figure is down to less than 2%.

"There are still a few of us in America, and we’re still holding onto our land," Sanders said. 

This fall, Sanders and her brother once again revved up their tractors to bush hog the land in preparation for a new year. Even at the age of "80ish," Sanders will tell you wryly, she can still be found working the land her father dedicated his life to preserving. And with some luck, the Sanders' farm stand will once again be ripe with peaches — and even sweeter stories.

"We're looking forward to the coming spring," Sanders said. "And we're hopeful that it will be a bountiful one."

Andrew Yawn at 985-285-7689 or email him at ayawn@gannett.com. Sign up for The American South newsletter. Follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.