In Memoriam

The lights are out across the street

The Panorama neighborhood lost a community treasure a week ago when Betty Jane Mincemoyer died. BJ was a friend to everyone who passed by her house, and she gifted her homegrown strawberries generously. The following article about BJ and her school garden initiative at Panorama Elementary ran in the Centre Daily Times in June 2009. Thanks to BJ, there are a lot of people in our community who understand how to grow food. BJ, we all miss you with your dedication, purpose, and grace. RIP

Strawberries were the first of BJ’s many fruit crops.

Between the black macadam of the Panorama Village elementary school hopscotch court and the backyard of a Villa Crest ranch house is a 25 by 50-foot garden plot that provides a portal to the world of farming. The watchkeeper and careful tender of the garden is Betty Jane Mincemoyer, 82, who lives in the house. A gently curving brick path edged with blooming perennials leads from her back door to the edge of the school property.

BJ used her trusty yellow-handled trowel so she could find it easily in the garden.

“We haven’t planted the garden yet this year; it’s been too cold,” explained Mincemoyer.  “What is growing here is rye that we planted at the end of last season.  Once it warms up and dries out, we’ll mow it and rototill it into the soil to act as green manure, a natural fertilizer.” 

Since they moved from a farm in Mifflinburg to the house in 1999, Mincemoyer has been working the garden plot with successive classes of children. Each March, she goes into the classroom and gives an introductory presentation on the uses and forms of plants—seed, leaf, bulb, and root.  She plants seeds with the children, using recycled plastic takeout food containers to create individual greenhouses. She discusses the growing medium, the water and warmth the seeds need, and the importance of light. 

BJ speaks to the kindergarteners at Panorama Elementary in 2009.

She doesn’t just show the seed packets, she teaches them how to read the back of the packet and open them carefully from the bottom, so they don’t tear off the name of the seeds. She shows them how to place the tiny seeds on top of the soil and push the larger ones in with the tip of a pencil.  She shows them how to wash their hands and clean up after themselves.  Each day, when she walks her granddaughter to school, she checks on the seedlings to ensure that they are moist and that the students turn them so they grow straight and tall.

BJ at her busy dining room table in 2021.

Such nurturance comes naturally to Mincemoyer.  She taught Family and Consumer Science at the Mifflinburg high school for 23 years, commencing her career at age 43, once her two children, Beth and Tom, were nearly finished elementary school.  Both she and her husband, Don, are from farming families. He taught agricultural education in Mifflinburg before moving to a position at Penn State in the same field.

Agricultural extension is a way of life in the household. Daughter Beth Egan and daughter-in-law Claudia Mincemoyer hold the Boalsburg 4H meetings in the large family room that the Mincemoyers added to the house soon after they moved in. A closet in the room holds props for teaching, including posters, a globe, and fabric for sewing projects.

This year’s unpredictable spring weather has postponed planting, but Mincemoyer is not worried.  “It’s better to plant the garden late anyway.  The children use that outdoor area daily, and balls often land in the garden on the seedlings.  It’s better if we get it in late.  By then, the local bunnies will have plenty to eat, and the insects won’t do as much damage.”

Mincemoyer tends the garden during the summer, harvesting the bounty of cucumbers, beans, carrots, broccoli, kohlrabi, zucchini, peppers, and eggplant and sharing it with neighbors and anyone who happens to be walking by at the moment.  She is masterful at presentation, too; no bag of clay-caked veggies here, but washed and polished produce, arranged lovingly.

Labor Day finds the marigold and zinnia-lined garden at peak production, and the next generation of kindergarten students reaps the benefits planted by the previous class.  “They’re really surprised how things grow,” said Mincemoyer, smiling at the detachment many children have today from real food.  “I want to expose them to fresh vegetables and let them try it.  We plant peanuts, and then in the fall, we harvest them and roast them.  We plant mini pumpkins, and the kids decorate them.  We’re busy in the fall, digging up potatoes and tasting the difference in fresh food from the garden.”

In the spring, the class plants for the next year, perpetuating the garden's continuity and the soil's sanctity, thanks to the dedication of a community volunteer and neighborhood gardening angel. 

BJ was always most at home working in a garden. 2017 photo.

One of Bj’s recipes for her deep red rhubarb.

Rhubarb Crisp

4 cups diced rhubarb

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup flour

1/3 cup quick-cooking oats

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

3 tablespoons butter

Preheat oven to 350° F.  Place rhubarb in an 8-inch square pan.  Combine remaining ingredients and cut in butter until the mixture is crumbly.  Sprinkle over fruit.  Bake

for 30 minutes.