An American Farming Tale: God and Family First for Illinois Couple

David and Alice Monk possess a priceless American tale in the heartland based on God, family, and farm—and in that order.

By Chris Bennett

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February 02, 2021 08:34 AM

In 1971, drawn by a sulfurous scent permeating her Illinois farm house, Annette (Schoolman) Monk descended a wooden staircase into the bowels of the home, leading to a boiler room and the telltale source of a gas leak. Retreating back up the stairs, she paused at the landing, fingered the wall switch, and flicked downward to shut off electricity and turn off the lights. Spark to gas, the transaction triggered an instant inferno and turned the basement into a deathtrap, hurtling the beloved 63-year-old matriarch to eternity. Yet, a half-century later, Monk’s death serves as the anchor of a timeless story centered on God, family and farming.

David and Alice Monk possess a priceless American tale: a lifetime spent in toil in order to build a springboard of opportunity for others. One small farm, four children, and nine grandchildren—all inextricably linked to the effort of a couple that refused to sacrifice the permanent on the altar of the temporary. The Monk’s road to success contains no shortcuts or shiny societal standard benchmarks, but the path is paved with the satisfaction and gratitude of a life well-lived: “What will make you truly happy?” asks Alice. “What are you pursuing? We found the answer. It was all on our simple farm.”

A Piece of Dirt

In 1942, David was born to corn in the east-central Illinois town of Danforth, during an era when small acreage was akin to subsistence, rather than prosperity. At 16, his father, Dave, took ill temporarily, leaving David to shoulder the mantle of responsibility on the Iroquois County farm and walk away from high school after his sophomore year—never to return. The perceived stigma took deep root in David’s psyche, and would manifest later in life, but in reverse fashion through the success of his children.

Likewise, Alice was raised 20 miles to the southwest in Piper City, the daughter of German-stock, row crop farmers. Born in 1945, she carried an exceptional intellect beyond the fields, and obtained an associate’s degree in accounting before marrying David in 1965. The couple settled outside Danforth, and joined in the small Monk family farming operation, mainly centered on 320 acres of rented ground owned by John and Grace Fowler Childs—key figures in the Monk’s future whose influence would make an unlikely, full-circle return. Life was a mix of halcyon and hard-scrabble, punctuated by the birth of daughters Karen and Sandy. (Two more Monk children, Kevin and Annette, would be born later in the 1970s and 1980s.)

The idyllic stretch in the young farming duo’s marriage lasted until an otherwise ordinary July day in 1971, when David’s mother—Annette (Schoolman) Monk—caught the fatal scent of leaking gas. Karen was four years old at the time, but the memory of her grandmother’s traumatic passing was indelibly stamped onto a young girl’s memory. “I can never forget what happened. That was when I saw my dad (David) cry. Grandma Monk was a revered figure, a matriarch of deep influence.”

Despite the worst of circumstances and heart-rending grief, the Childs stepped to the fore and turned the script on the Monk tragedy by placing the farmland up for sale. “They had no children and they truly loved my grandma,” Karen describes. “The Childs decided they wanted the land to be in the Monk family forever and offered to sell the whole farm. I think it was their way of honoring my grandma, and it turned out to be pivotal for my family. My dad would spend his whole life working to honor that legacy, honor his mother, and provide opportunity for all of us.”

Truly. David never forgot the opportunity provided by the Childs: “Every farmer’s dream is to own a little piece of dirt,” he says. “Mrs. Childs was so generous and it extended beyond our dreams. We always wanted to be generous with others because of the way she treated us.”

Still today, the half-section is an island of corn and soybeans with open edges bleeding onto neighboring farmland. Perched on flat topography, the ground displays barely 3’ of elevation difference across the span of acreage, and is composed of classic black soil. Split by a central drainage ditch and peppered with patterned tile, the farm is the axis upon which the Monk family revolves.

But how did a farming couple take 320 acres and use it to bond a family, educate children, and ultimately achieve prosperity? David pauses several seconds to answer, and reflects back across 55 years of farming: “Never, never let the world tell you what you need.”

Aliens and Water

In 1968, David and Alice’s first year to go solo, their farm take-home pay was a lean $1,800, an amount highlighting the necessity of secondary income and sacrifice. For David, the bite of financial reality translated to a lifetime chain of ancillary jobs and a consistent four hours of sleep per night: factory work in Kankakee making lawn tools for Sears, pouring concrete, wiring houses, maintenance at a nursing home, and finally running a state snow plow from November 15 to March 15 each year. For Alice, it meant crunching numbers at an accounting firm in nearby Clifton, and later employment at the Danforth bank.

And the money? It went straight into the farm or was set aside for the kids’ future, i.e., the purse strings were kept banjo-tight. Labor stayed in the family. New equipment and vehicles were verboten; all of David’s machinery was old enough to vote or else it wasn’t in the yard. Repair, refurbish, retread—repeat. “We took care of our own situation, paid our own bills, and never worried about what a neighbor might have,” David recalls. “Money can only be spent once and every farmer has to decide where it’s going.”

“So many people, no matter how much money they make, never seem to have enough their entire life,” he continues, “It’s not what you make, it’s what you save.”

In the middle of her childhood, Karen had a reckoning regarding David’s innovative genius and bootstrap nature. The Monk living room housed a traditional furniture television, a mainstay of U.S. homes in the 1960s-1970s. At approximately 10 years of age, she rounded the hallway and walked into the living room, only to see an alien presence standing over the television: “I saw a repairman working on the TV and I couldn’t help from staring because I was shocked. I’d never seen a repairman in our house in my life. Looking back, I guess a TV was the only thing my dad couldn’t fix.”

In addition to stints at the accounting firm and bank, Alice vigilantly maintained a massive garden for sustenance, and followed a straightforward horticultural approach: Never pay for what can be grown. “I remember my parents intentionality about where money was spent,” Karen says. “It had to be spent on what lasted, and that meant the farm, education or the kids. I never felt like we were poor, but I knew my parents were very strict with money—had to be.”

David and Alice understood a financial maxim that is often ignored at all levels of income, regardless of occupation: Stay within means. The Monk’s focus on “frugality with intention” was a path to provide their children with necessities in the present and opportunity in the future. “We never lacked for anything,” Karen says, “but we never went to big-name stores, and didn’t eat out except on Sundays, just maybe. We’d go to a fast food place and order burgers and water. That was standard—water.”

When the vagaries of farming—drought, poor fortune, and dismal corn prices as low as $2.50—hammered the Monk operation, David and Alice maintained a strict economic focus, eyes on the prize of tomorrow. “There were tough times behind and tough times ahead. That’s called farm life,” David says. “You just cancel out what isn’t necessary, quit looking at what other guys are driving, keep slowly moving toward your goal, and make sure society’s definition of success has nothing to do with that goal.”

“Remember,” he continues, “if your main goal in life is to have a whole bunch of money from your farm, you many wind up with a whole bunch of money and very little happiness.”

The Blessed Bean Shoes

Childhood memories are often composed of snapshots, some faded and some tattooed on memory, all waiting to be triggered by a song, old toy, smell—or in Kevin Monk’s case, a pair of shoes. Each summer, reveille came at 5 a.m. for the Monks, roused from bed at David’s urging. By 5:30 a.m., the kids, bookended by David and Alice, assembled on the turn rows, ready to wade into a sea of green. Translated: Before the age of glyphosate-ready crops, the entire Monk family served as its own labor force, patrolling soybean rows as a unified weed-pulling and chopping crew.

Dressed in sweat pants and a t-shirt, Kevin dreaded the initial baptism into soybeans that wore dawn moisture like a second skin and shed copious droplets at the slightest touch or vibration. Ad nauseam, the water rolled off the foliage, soaking Kevin’s cotton sweats by a mere 25 paces, eventually draining into his “bean shoes.” Prior to the start of each crop season, Alice plucked a pair of “bean shoes” for each child from the low-cost shelves of K-Mart. Cheaply priced below a buck, generic, clunky, often Velcro-strapped, invariably ugly as hellfire, and likely manufactured in a distant, equitorial penal colony, each Monk child was issued a pair of K-Mart specials to be worn for the duration of crop season. At summer’s end, Alice would gather the ragged-out shoes, drop the load in the trash, and repeat the trip to K-Mart the subsequent spring.

“The first 10’ was pure misery in those wet beans,” Kevin exclaims with a chuckle, “I remember hating to walk beans as a kid. Now? I’d give anything to be out there again with my family, in the sun, laughing and spending time together.”

At noon, the family exited the fields for an hour dinner, and then fragmented into units to work in the garden, maintain equipment, or sometimes return to the fields. All the while, no matter the season, David and Alice placed a premium on extra time with their children, Kevin notes: “We were their focus. Dad would find time in the evening to play catch and shag flies. As busy as he was, he coached my little league team.”

And each summer, Alice packed several containers of food staples and piled her brood into a small camper, with David behind the wheel for a bang-bang vacation at Yellowstone, Niagara Falls, Mt. Rushmore, or just any spot with a campground. “A simple time,” Kevin recalls. “No extravagance or big-time trips. They took us to where they could afford, but it was just about being together.”

Kevin was naïve—and gratefully so. “Growing up, I thought all parents were like mine. We went to church on Sunday, worked hard together, played ball together, went on tiny family vacations, and saved together. I’m so thankful for those years of naivety. It brings up big questions for farmers today, especially young farmers: ‘What are you prioritizing? What are you sacrificing? What brings you lasting joy and true fulfillment?’”

A Broken Body

The fall should have killed him. At bare minimum, the fall should have paralyzed him.

In late fall of 1979, David climbed into an empty 8,000-bushel bin and pulled along an aluminum ladder through the hatch. Setting the ladder along a wall, he ascended the rungs to repair a stirator, and began working roughly 20’ above the bin’s perforated, steel floor—intensely corrugated. Within minutes, the ladder collapsed, sending David into a freefall.

He hit the grooved floor in a blind sprawl, and felt his body crumple. A crushed disc in the neck, broken nose, broken kneecaps, multiple internal injuries, along with severe cuts and damage to his hands. “That was a day to die,” David remembers. “God took care of me and my healing was a miracle. It’s a clear example of God’s hand on our farm. No doubt at all.”

“God’s blessing is the reason we’re where we’re at today,” Alice concurs. “He saw us through everything, every time.”

The Loop Closes

As parents, David and Alice were simpatico—two sides of the same coin—and their word was law on the farm. Year upon year, they shaped and molded their children, hitching the farm wagon to the engine of education. Alice was steeped in book knowledge, and used her acumen to oversee homework and academics, while David pushed the kids into fields, ensuring they knew the value of hand labor and a good work ethic. “Our goal was to raise children with Christian values that would have a chance to achieve their dreams,” Alice says. “We wanted them to go into the world and make a positive difference. Giving them a real chance was the goal of all we did. We planned on the educational ladder from the time they were born and knew we could use the farm to help fulfill their dreams, gifts and talents.”

Case in point: While still in high school, Karen set her mind to an associate’s degree in nursing. David, despite his lack of a high school diploma, had the foresight to recognize his daughter’s extreme intellectual ability. “He looked me right in the eye,” Karen recalls, “pointed his finger in my face, and said, ‘No. You will start with a bachelor’s degree.’”

Perhaps most revealing in the entire Monk story is the manner in which the purse strings were loosed in the name of tomorrow. The same farming couple that clipped coupons, stretched dollars, ordered water at restaurants and drove old vehicles—didn’t hesitate to throw money at education. “A fee, a class, books, a trip overseas to learn—it didn’t matter because money was suddenly not an issue,” Karen notes.

Years later, with a bachelor’s, cardiology experience, pulmonary rehabilitation, two master’s, a doctorate, a Fulbright scholarship, studies in England and Russia, and a professorship at Illinois State University, Karen is plain proof of her father’s prescience.

Significantly, her educational journey was punctuated by a jolting return to the beginning. During her doctoral studies, while nose-deep in a tome of required reading on the history of educational curriculum, Karen’s eyes chanced up a familiar name in the text: John Childs.

The John Childs of academia—a contemporary of John Dewey, professor at Teachers College, Columbia University, and major figure in U.S. education—was the same man, along with his wife, who helped kick-start the Monk’s purchase of their proud 320 acres. “Incredible,” Karen exclaims. “There I was learning about education and getting my doctorate, and able to do so because education was a vital driver to my parents, and they were able to do so because of the farm sold to them by Dr. John Childs, an educational heavyweight in U.S. history. That’s not an accident; that’s a full-circle moment in life.”

And Kevin? The same. (He is a highly reputed expert on global agriculture trends and digital ag technology.)

Sandy and Annette? The same. (Sandy is a farm wife, cosmetologist, and massage therapist, and lives relatively close to David and Alice. Annette is a certified athletic trainer and professor at Trinity International University in Illinois.)

Taken as a whole, the four Monk children share five master’s and two doctoral degrees. Serendipity or Providence, the loop is closed on the excruciating loss of Annette Monk and the generosity of John and Grace Childs.

The Time is Now

Every summer, David pulls a rickety trailer to a corner gas station behind an ailing 2002 GMC pickup worn by years of salt exposure during snow-crew duty. He sets out a chair, waiting for customers and conversation, and sells sweet corn directly off the trailer, but only for the satisfaction and not the margin. After four children, and nine grandchildren riding shotgun, the urgency of frugality is gone. He has run his race and finished a champion.

In truth, David Monk, possessing no high school diploma, is a life scholar: meteorologist, chemist, botanist, biologist, economist, business man—the requisite components of a true farmer. “I’m blessed beyond my dreams and maybe I’ve lived my American tale,” he says. “I’m just a man with a small piece of dirt, and that dirt is the only worldly thing I ever wanted or needed. I’ve got a wonderful wife. I’ve got four successful kids. I’m living in this country. What else is there?”

“I know some farmers only dream of getting rich or getting big, but that’s a dream you best be careful with. Time is short, and I’d say a man should be dreaming about pleasing God and taking care of his wife and kids first. I guarantee anybody—getting more money won’t necessarily make anything better.”

Every farmer has to ask a simple question, Alice Monk echoes: What is the No. 1 goal?

“If money is your biggest goal, then you may be chasing it your whole life, and you may not even be happy if and when you get it,” she warns. “The emptiest feeling in the world could be waiting at the end of the chase.”

“For us, we loved our farm lifestyle more than anything. We loved every minute together as a family—times we can never get back,” she adds. “People should stop and know these are the good old days right now. Right now. The time you’re spending on your farm with your kids is the best time of your life. That’s it: God, family, and farm, and in that order.”