From planting an extensively, beautiful garden each spring, to starting her own herd of Angus cows and calves, ever since Lillie Beringer was able to walk she’s spent her life outside. When Lillie Beringer lost her hero, the man she grew up doing everything with, her dreams and goals became rooted in the Beringer Farm.

In the early afternoon of July 1, 2014, William Beringer spread his wings to be with the Lord. A man not only a father of eight children, a grandfather of 27 grandchildren and a great-grandfather of 30 great-grandchildren, but also a hunter, horseback rider, outdoor enthusiast and above all, an Iowa farmer. With a bright future and college career ahead of her, 18-year-old Lillie Beringer said goodbye to her whole world.

Now, a 21-year-old senior at Iowa State , Lillie Beringer studies her love of animal science three hours away from the family farm. With a vast legacy behind her and vivid dreams before her, Lillie Beringer has crafted a plan to turn her goals into those dreams all for a man she called grandpa.

Her grandfather, William Beringer, was an avid coon hunter, at first taking his children on his adventures through the Dubuque County forests, and then as his grandchildren grew, he showed them the ways of hunting, too. He was a man who spent his life outside in any weather imaginable to care for the cattle, his pride and joy.

However, all those titles William Beringer held, not one of them fit for his granddaughter. A man she admired, adored and idolized, those titles never seemed suitable for the man Lillie Beringer knew as grandpa.

“We were inseparable since I was born,” Lillie Beringer explained as she wiped a tear reminiscing in her old photo albums.

“I was always attached to his hip from cattle sales, to coon hunting or just anything on the farm,” she spoke passionately pointing to a tattered photo of a young Lillie Beringer holding recently shot raccoons. “It was always just grandpa and I together.”

With a sigh and a couple more wipes of tears from her cheeks, Lillie Beringer closed the photo album.

A hero is how Lillie Beringer simply explains him. The man she turned to for a simple question on the farm to a deeper understanding of her life and the lives around her. With his simple smile and corny jokes, Grandpa Beringer was the man who knew how to take a rainy day and make it sunny.

“I spent my first two years in college at Black Hawk [College] East in Kewanee, Illinois that was only about two hours from home and after my grandpa’s passing, I couldn’t get myself to go farther,” Lillie Beringer said. “But that was also only a two-year program and I knew I wanted a four-year degree, so transferring to Iowa State to finish it seemed ideal for me to do.”

As a youngster and into her high school years, Lillie Beringer’s friends couldn’t find her on the soccer field or at football games, but found her in the silent pastures with gentle Angus cattle, alongside her Grandpa Beringer.

“Lillie wasn’t ever much for doing sports or attending events in high school, but she was really active in showing her horses in 4-H and FFA,” said her best friend Elle Hoffman. “I think she just wanted to be wherever her grandpa was and he was so proud watching her compete in all those horse shows.”

Lillie Beringer’s mom, Sheila Beringer will be the first to admit Lillie Beringer’s Grandpa Beringer and dad spoiled her, buying her first horse, Trigger, for her at the lively, young age of 11.

“A lot of Lillie’s foundation for the farm started when she got Trigger,” Sheila Beringer said. “She rode that horse up every stream and back down ever stream in Dubuque County and still rides him today. I didn’t want the kids to have 4-wheelers at that young of an age so their source of transportation became their horses.”

Lillie Beringer spent the majority of her childhood with her grandfather, riding horses through the country side, regularly taking trips across the state and surrounding Midwestern states to enjoy cattle sales and with a little urge from Lillie Beringer, maybe bringing some home to add to their herd.

“The day Lillie turned 14, she went and passed the drivers test to get her permit,” said John Beringer, Lillie Beringer’s dad. “Two days later, she drove Grandpa 100 miles north to a cattle sale in Decorah, just the two of them.”

Lillie Beringer’s father, John Beringer, along with her grandpa, were often the two to immerse Lillie Beringer into the farm life allowing her to assist from the birthing of calves to running big equipment at a young age.

“I was a small kid and at first I wasn’t heavy enough to run a lot of the equipment and it would shut down if you didn’t have enough weight on the tractor seats, so I had to put a pretty good sized rock on some of the tractor seats to create enough weight for me to run them,” Lillie Beringer laughed. “A lot of the things I first started doing were little things and then as I got older I started doing a lot more of the work Grandpa couldn’t do anymore on the tractors and with the cattle.”

As Grandpa Beringer grew into his 80s and his heart began to fail him, Lillie Beringer was the one regularly visiting and caring for him, often talking about ideas for Lillie Beringer to build her herd of cattle while reminiscing on the days he farmed with horses.

In her 18 years, Lillie Beringer’s hero had never once let her down and she began to see the world through his eyes. The more time Lillie Beringer spent with him, the more his dreams of the family farm soon became Lillie Beringer’s dreams as well. A legacy she felt was left to her when Grandpa Beringer went to be with the Lord.

Lillie Beringer’s cousin, Lacie Dotterweich, who also attends Iowa State, enjoyed spending time with their grandpa on the farm and shares many memories of her upbringing with Lillie Beringer.

“Lillie and I are the same age so growing up together was basically like growing up with another sister,” Lacie said. “We fought and everything, but we also were always doing things together on the farm, her a lot more than me with our grandpa, but of all the family members, I see Lillie being the most successful with the farm in caring and building it.”

With her daily visits to Shady Rest Care Center, Lillie Beringer is blessed to be able to spend time with her one grandparent she still has: her 89-year-old Grandma Beringer. With a short two-minute drive from the farm, Lillie Beringer stops in regularly to catch her grandma up on her cows and any changes with the farm, often bringing along a fresh baked pastry.

“Oh, Lillie, it’s good to see you back again this weekend,” Grandma Beringer said in a taint voice as she reached out her wrinkled hand to Lillie Beringer’s embracing in a long hug. “You’re always coming home a lot more often than your siblings aren’t you?” she joked to Lillie Beringer.

The two share the pastry and an update since their l

ast visit as they relax in her Grandma Beringer’s room, decorated with love letters framed from her husband, William Beringer. Little keepsakes Lillie Beringer likes to re-read when she stops by, lightening her heart and keeping her memory of her hero alive.

“A lot of the time when I visit Grandma, we talk about memories of Grandpa and I swear I learn something new about that man every time I visit,” Lillie Beringer jokes. “You could not have met a couple more in love than my grandparents.”

After an afternoon spent reminiscing, Lillie Beringer heads home to present day, carrying on the legacy set before her filled not only with dreams, but also her plans.

The Dream

Lillie Beringer was never alone with her upbringing on the family farm. With two older brothers, Nicolas and Jesse, a younger brother Lee, and a younger sister Holly, Lillie Beringer is the middle child, the wild child according to Sheila Beringer, in the Beringer family of seven.

“Lillie was the drinker,” Sheila Beringer said. “Nicolas never drank, Jesse never drank in high school, but my wild Lillie, and she did her fair share of drinking in high school.”

Lillie Beringer’s drinking was never serious, but it made her a standout from her family, rebelling in one of the various ways she did as a youngster. Hoffman was also often a part of the adventures they found themselves in.

“We’d have these wild cabin parties down by the Maquoketa River where Lillie’s grandparents had a cabin and it was back in the trees away from the cops so we couldn’t get caught,” Hoffman said. “We’d decorate the place with Christmas lights and had music playing on the speakers and would just down there having a blast.”

Hoffman also reminisced on the popular floating trips Lillie Beringer and other friends would take down the Maquoketa River on hot summer days to cool off.

“One time after a floating trip, Lillies dad came and picked up about 30 of us that went in the back of his stock trailer that he had just got done hauling cattle in,” Hoffman said, laughing as she put her hands over her eyes. “He didn’t even clean it.”

With the adventures and fun came the work Lillie Beringer and her sister Holly Beringer, loved to do. However, all three of her brothers found no enjoyment at all in the farm life, attending college to pursue other passions and careers.

“I’ve always looked up to Lillie,” said her sister Holly Beringer, a senior at Cascade High School. “I don’t always tell her that, but as my older sister she was like having a mother hen. She was pretty protective of me and I guess I constantly wanted to be doing whatever she was doing. The boys didn’t do a lot of the things Lillie and I did because I don’t think they enjoyed it, but Lillie still does so much more than me.”

The older Beringer brothers work and live in Cedar Rapids. Jesse Beringer works as a caseworker, Nicolas Beringer, in operations management, and Lee Beringer attends Kirkwood Community College, all just a short one-hour drive from the family farm.

“The boys did things on the farm when they had to, but Lillie does them because she wants to,” John Beringer said. “I had this old 706 Farmall tractor that didn’t have a cab on it. When she was little, Lillie would sit on the fender next to me and watch me chore when it was cold out, and I mean damn cold but it never bothered her. She enjoyed it. She was always out helping and still does when she comes home.”

John said it only makes sense for him to see Lillie Beringer take over the farming operation because she knows the needs of the crops, the commitment to the animals and continues to cultivate a passion for agriculture with her plans and goals for the farm.

For most 21-year-old women, the dreams of marriage and children hang in the forefront of plans and ideals. However, for Lillie Beringer, the farm is of the most importance maintaining her focus and future with it.

“I guess I consider myself a little out of the norm of what a girl would usually do,” Lillie Beringer said. “They’re not necessarily really seen as a farmer, let alone someone who is running big equipment and doing everything that consists of being on a farm, but I can confidently say I can see myself doing this and I just want to prove everybody wrong that I can do it.”

John Beringer and Sheila Beringer are excited for their daughter to return home and have an interest in taking over the operation, but they do voice their concerns to her often, allowing her to know farming isn’t always easy.

“I think Lillie is going to have a big eye opener when she comes back because she doesn’t always agree on the way we do things,” Sheila said. “And the way she wants to do things is great, but it takes a lot of money. Sometimes in farming you don’t have a lot of money to use and you have to work with what you have or end up creating what you don’t have.”

“All I can tell her is that we work really hard and if she wants to work that hard that’s completely fine,” John Beringer said. “But I also think there’s a lot easier ways to earn a living, but Lillie wants to and can work hard.”

Lillie Beringer had the opportunity to purchase an acreage of her very own five miles from the farm she knows like the back of her hand. She jumped on the idea of moving back home after college, and in May, will be returning home with a full time job as an animal nutritionist, as well as establishing a plan to take over the operation.

“I have so many goals and ideas for what I want to do with the farm and I just have to constantly remind myself that its all going to take time and a lot of work, but it’s work that I want to do. Ideally, in 5-10 years what I want out of the farm is to see more growth on the row-crop side and continue to grow my cow-calf herd.”

For Grandpa

Lillie Beringer walks through the pasture to greet her cattle with freshly ground corn mixture seeming as though she has a gift of corralling them to the bunk, an instant connection between each one just as she had with her grandpa.

“Everything that I do is for my grandpa,” Lillie Beringer said. “Everything I work for is for my grandpa. All my goals and what I want to do with the Beringer farm is to give back to what my grandpa has started for me and I can’t wait to come home and start.”