An aerial photo shows the Reko farm before many of the structures were demolished. Nancy Reko Steinke currently lives on the homestead and rents out the land to another Reko family member, her cousin Daryl Murray, and his son, Tim. The Reko farm has been honored as a Sesquicentennial Farm.

Not every farm is going to be under the ownership of the same family for 150 years, but a few are.

One of those that attained Sesquicentennial status is the Reko Family Farm of Blue Earth.

The farm was started in 1874 by Ernst and Louise Reko. The farmstead and surrounding acres are still in the Reko family. Nancy Reko Steinke lives in the house on the farmstead and rents out the acres of farmland to another Reko family member, her cousin Daryl Murray and his son Tim.

But there is more to the Reko family history than that, says another one of Nancy Steinke’s cousins, David Murray.

The issues have to do with what date the Reko family actually came to Faribault County, and some changes in the spelling of the family name along the way.

“Sometimes it was spelled ‘Rekow,’ sometimes it was ‘Rako,’ and then it became Reko all the time,” Nancy relates.

David says the family history in Faribault County actually goes back 10 years earlier than 1874, back to 1864.

“Ernst Reko’s parents actually had a farm four miles from this place,” he says.

The family history is that Nancy’s (and David’s) great-great-grandfather was Johann Michael Rekow, born in Margonisdorf, Posen, Prussia. Their great-great-grandmother was Carolina Anna Kuehn, born in Kunkkolewo, Bromberg, Prussia.

David relates that the couple emigrated to America and their names were changed to John and Caroline Rekow. They arrived in New York on June 20, 1857, with their three children, Amalie, Ernst (Nancy’s great-grandfather) and Friedrich.

The family first settled in Mecan Township, Marquette County, Wisconsin. In 1864 they went by covered wagon, pulled by oxen, to Barber Township in Faribault County, and homesteaded a farm in Section 30. They first lived in a dugout house.

Ernst eventually left home, married Louise in 1871 and in 1874 they built a log cabin on the site of the current Reko Family Farm house.

“Ernst and Louise kept having children, eventually they had 11 kids,” David says. “So they built a 2-story addition onto the log cabin.”

That was shortly after 1882. After a few years another 2-story addition was built. In the 1940s and 1950s, the current house was modernized and remodeled.

Like the variations of the name Reko, Ernst’s name was sometimes spelled Ernest, Earnest, as well as Ernst, on various documents.

Ernst and Louise owned and farmed the land for nearly 50 years, until Ernst’s death in 1924.

Ernst’s widow, Louise, still owned the farm and farmed the land with some help, probably from her children, for nearly two years.

In 1925, one of Ernst and Louise’s sons, Albert, and his wife, Hattie, (Nancy’s grandparents) took over ownership of the farm and they, too, owned it for 50 years, until 1975.

“That is when my parents, Herbert and Helen Reko, took over ownership of the farm,” Nancy says. “Dad was the youngest of five kids. His sister was David and Daryl’s (Murray) mother.”

Herbert, along with his brother Howard, had been farming the land for many years. Herbert and family lived on the home place and Howard lived about a mile away, Nancy says. Her grandparents had moved into town but had retained ownership of the farm until 1975. Herbert eventually bought out his brother Howard’s share of the farm, and Howard moved to Texas.

Herbert and Helen Reko were married in 1940 and had three daughters, Janet Rose, Margaret Louise and Nancy Ellen (Steinke).

Herbert, and then Helen after Herbert died in 2000, continued to own the farm until 2019. That is when Helen died and Nancy took over ownership of the family farm.

But, Nancy Steinke had lived on the farm, in the family farmhouse, long before that. Besides growing up in the family house, she also lived in it with her own family.

“My parents built a new house in 1980, nearer to Blue Earth,” Nancy explains. “So, my husband, Bob, and I moved into the family farmhouse on Memorial Day of 1980.”

Bob Steinke and Nancy Reko met in college at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter in 1972. Bob was a senior, Nancy was a freshman.

“We were married at Gustavus, in the chapel,” Nancy says. “Then we lived in Le Center from 1974 to 1980, where Bob was a science teacher and I worked in an office and also continued to go to college.”

Bob quit teaching and the family moved to the Reko Family Farm and he tried farming, although he was basically a city boy from Bloomington.

He farmed the land with Nancy’s sister Maggie’s husband Greg.

It was the early 1980s and the farm economy was not good. After a couple of years the Steinkes quit farming, the land was rented out, and Bob got a teaching position in Elmore first, and then in Blue Earth.

“I stayed home with our children, Katie and twins Kurt and Petra,” Nancy says. “But when the twins started Kindergarten in 1988 I went to work at the BEA Elementary School in the elementary media center.”

Nancy’s husband, Bob, died in 2000, the same year as her father Herbert. It was a pretty rough year for the family, Nancy says.Her daughter was in college and her twins were going to start their senior year in high school.

Having so many family and friends, and living in the family home, helped them get through it.

Nancy says it might seem a little unusual to be living in the same house she grew up in, the house her great-grandfather built, the house her grandparents lived in, and her parents.

“I guess I only did not live here while I was in college and then in Le Center for a few years,” she says. “This really is home.”

The house and farm have seen many changes over the past 150 years.

Nancy has taken off several layers of linoleum and exposed the original wood floor in the kitchen and dining room, which is wood she thinks her great- grandfather reclaimed from a church.

The original wood ceilings are also exposed, and one can see the two-foot square wood patch where the chimney from the wood stove went through to the roof many years ago.

The long front porch, as well as the front door, were all removed years ago, as were all the awnings over the windows.

The original screened in back porch on the east side of the house was turned into a solid wall back porch years ago.

“We also used to have an outdoor kitchen on the west side of the house,” Nancy says. “So that the whole house did not have to get heated up in summer by a cook stove and oven.”

Outside, the grain bins are still in place, but the barn and corn crib building burned in a fire in 1999 or 2000.

The farm itself started off at 80 acres when Ernst Reko homesteaded it, but it has grown to 190 acres now.

In 1882 Ernst purchased an additional 40 acres and Nancy has the documents for the purchase. The price was $13.50 per acre and the tax was $3.05.

In 1886 the farm had grown to 160 acres and the taxes were $17.18.

Times have certainly changed since that time.

Herbert Reko expanded his farming operation over the years as well.

“My father bought a second farm in the 1960s,” Nancy says. “It was along the river on the south side of Highway 16.”

The original farm started off with crops of corn and wheat, but now it is corn and beans. There was livestock over the years, as well, from cows to horses and maybe a few pigs back in the olden days.

“My dad also had bantam chickens when we were kids,” Nancy says. “They were pretty mean.”

That is just one of many memories of life on the Reko Family Farm that Nancy has.

And her plan is to continue to keep the place in the family after she is gone, as it will be left to her adult children. Katrina (Katie) and her husband and two children live in Casselton, North Dakota, while Kurt lives in the Reko Farm house with her, and Petra lives in a house also on the property.

“My father and mother filed for the farm to be named a Century Farm back in 1981,” Nancy recalls. “They received congratulatory letters from Gov. Al Quie and from Senator Rudy Boschwitz.”

So, she decided to fill out the paperwork to be declared a Sesquicentennial Farm now, 50 years later.

“I urged her to do it,” her cousin David Murray says. “After all, 150 years in the same family is quite a deal and should be recognized.”