“It Bringeth Forth Much Fruit”
By Reverend Nathan Beale
Originally appearing in Slackwater, Volume 7
I was asked to write about the Kate Chandler Campus Farm— about its history, about how it has grown, about what it means to me. If I am capable of that project at all, then there is no way that I can begin [to tear] it apart from the person from whom the farm takes its name. The love and energy of Kate Chandler still sustains the garden and my life in it, and I will always be grateful for our years of work, fellowship, and laughter together. I will also depend on Meredith Epstein, who has helped us make the farm into what it is today. Kate’s interview with Nina Katz has provided us with important information about the history of the farm, and her words more than make up for the places in which mine fall short.
In some ways, it is appropriate to begin the task of writing this piece just before Ash Wednesday, the day on which the Church reminds us that we are dust, and to dust we shall return. Kate Chandler died just under a year ago at the time of this writing. Even though many of us were aware of her diagnosis of cancer, our loss of Kate—at the height of her youthful spirit— reminds us of our own mortality. Our time as a part of this earth is precious, and we never know how long we have with our loved ones.
Another term for dust is earth. Kate Chandler was a person who illustrated to us with her life, the fact that we are earth and to earth we must return—and how beautiful a process that is. She lived an eclectic life, which included earning a doctorate in literature. She passionately and brilliantly studied and taught English, eventually finding her way here to St. Mary’s College. During that time here, she cultivated and shared her interest and love for nature writing. Through literature, she grew closer to the beauties, gifts, and needs of the Earth, which have grown so desperate in our time of war, pollution, and climate change. Kate recognized that we are earth, that the earth’s needs are our own needs; many of us need to remember that.
Kate became involved in the growing interest in sustainability at the college. This is also where I enter the story of the campus farm during its embryonic stage in 2010. As a college student in my first year at St. Mary’s (where I transferred from Howard Community College), I also had become increasingly concerned for our planet and wanted to do something about it. I did not yet know how this needed to take shape, but I did know that a large part of our pollution and devastation of the earth comes from the industrial food system. I had begun to adjust my diet accordingly by cutting out meat but knew nothing about growing food for myself.
Around that time, I learned that there was a small but struggling garden next to the dumpsters behind the Daugherty-Palmer Commons building on campus. During a political advocacy event at that building—which turned out to be a complete waste of my time—I happily looked out to see students working in overalls and playing banjos in this little garden. The students told me about an upcoming interest meeting for the campus garden. It was at this meeting that I met Kate, Guy, and Meredith. Guy Kilpatrick had previously served as the student leader for the garden, and Meredith Epstein had worked with it through her position as the Sustainability Fellow. Kate and I learned from them that the garden was outgrowing its space. It had also been vandalized and needed to be somewhere farther from the reaches of inebriated students. I talked with a few of the students and Kate, who desperately wanted to see this garden grow. During the course of the conversation, she and some of the other students suggested that I become the president of the community garden club to help in this transition. I said that I knew nothing about gardening.
“Neither do I!” Kate laughed. She was the faculty sponsor for the club. It was then that I knew I loved this person. I agreed to sign on as the club president, but I don’t think either of us knew what we had gotten ourselves into.
During that winter and early spring (gestational periods for gardens), we spent countless hours e-mailing and meeting experienced gardeners, scouting out locations, gathering funds, and collecting supplies. I remember sitting with bloodshot eyes at the computer screen in the library, wondering if this garden would ever become a reality. I was anxious to put my hands in the dirt, to realize our potential as beings of humus, of soil. I wanted to make that real, to feel it, to live it. Finally, we did. We broke ground in the spring of 2010 on the plot of land where the garden now sits next to the intersection of Rosecroft and Route 5, and with the help of experienced gardeners such as Frank and Christina Allen, planted our first greens and other crops. These would eventually be sold to the college’s dining service to feed students and fund the farm as a place for education, a practice that has continued to this day.
When we graduated, Kate continued working. She had always worked better than any of us. Disorganization, lack of volunteers, rain, cold, heat, bugs, and other challenges of community gardening were simply profound moments for her to laugh. Life was life, and there was no point in getting upset about it. These are the things that helped us to grow.
“Kate was the muscle, the backbone, the brains, and the heart of the Campus Farm. Lugging gallon jugs of water to the site from her home in order to keep things alive without an irrigation system; that is commitment. This was beyond any job description and speaks to the passion that Kate exuded for the natural world and her students,” reflects Meredith.
Kate was also teaching English at the college, nurturing the blossoming Environmental Studies department, taking care of her aging husband, perhaps sleeping at some point.
Meanwhile, I went to Divinity School in New Haven to train for the priesthood. As I studied the things of Heaven, I also continued growing closer to the Earth. I got involved in the community garden (somehow, I ended up as president of the club again), and moved in next to Catholic anarchists who prayed, fed, and lived with people from the streets.
Trinity Church and I established the brown house as a place of Christian prayer and hospitality that also grew food for the poor within the same plot of land where the college students and community gardeners grow their crops. We share tools and work together quite often. I also began work as the Assistant to the Rector at Trinity Church and the Episcopal Chaplain at St. Mary’s College. I have been here for almost four years now, laboring and laughing as Kate taught me to do. I remember us once standing next to the fence taking pictures of ourselves with the new potatoes, remembering our first meeting together when we started this beautiful madness.
Kate Chandler
In 2016, Kate was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Her students, friends, and colleagues were devastated, much more, of course, than she was. She continued working for a time with full force in the garden, organizing students, pulling weeds, and doing everything else that gardening entails, as well as continuing all of the tasks listed above. As her illness and chemotherapy progressed, she began to lose all of her hair and a little of her energy. I would notice her yawning outside, and she would sometimes just say with a smile, “Well, I just don’t have it in me today.” She did not stop living, but she was completely ready to die when the time came.
When it did come, the entire campus, even the land itself, mourned. Bonnie Kangas (a community gardener who works at the library and practices massage therapy) and I planted some herbs for her in the garden. She always loved the zinnia flowers because they were so bright and beautiful and attracted butterflies. They have not been as prolific since her death. Kate’s body has returned to the earth from whence she came. She is still there with us every day. I know that her blood, sweat, and tears (probably tears of laughter) are still in that soil, as are mine. Some plants that she touched and tended there are still growing. All of us are mingled together in that place. Her spirit is also present. I imagine her laughing when I get frustrated and think of how she would respond to our situations. I ask her to pray for us, and she does.
She has also, as many of us do, grown beyond this place. The seeds that she planted in us, her students and friends who love her, are still growing in many places around the world. Dostoyevsky opened his great work, The Brothers Karamazov, with a quotation from the gospel of John: “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” Great writers know this, and each of us in the garden learns it year by year. One of these seeds continues to grow in the lives of Guy and Meredith, whose wedding Kate officiated. They now manage and teach at the University of Maryland Terp Farm, and recently gave birth to their first child. Reflecting on Kate’s role in her life and in the St. Mary’s Campus Farm, Meredith says, “The Farm is where she lives on today, and continues to offer an enriching space for the St. Mary’s community. It was also a timely project, as farms are popping up on college campuses nationwide, serving as vital resources for teaching, research, and community outreach. I can only hope that the College recognizes the value of the farm and invests heavily in it. It would be such a wonderful way to honor Kate.”
To volunteer or donate to the Kate Chandler Campus Farm, please contact Barry Muchnik at brmuchnick@smcm.edu.
