When fire destroyed David and Katie Vanderstappen’s northern Illinois dairy barn, the couple immediately worked to rebuild.
“This is the only thing that I’ve ever wanted to do,” says David. “With all my heart, I wanted to rebuild.”
So did Katie, who was expecting twins at the time of the blaze.
“It’s my husband’s life,” she says. “He loves it. I love it. I love raising my kids here. They love the cows. I could not imagine us not rebuilding.”
After nearly three years, the family recently welcomed the herd back to the home farm in McHenry County.
But for the couple, the details of June 19, 2018, are forever etched in their minds.
Around 4:30 a.m., David moved all 93 cows out of a smoke-filled dairy barn before flames engulfed the structure. By 10 a.m. that morning, local farmers had transported the entire herd in trailers to Joel and Linnea Kooistra’s farm in nearby Woodstock and had each milked, which is necessary to do at least twice per day. The Kooistras had sold their dairy herd earlier in the year due to a combination of poor prices for their milk, the need to replace aging equipment and nearing retirement age.
“It was a real blessing that facility was there,” says David. “It was a huge adjustment kind of on the fly.”
Meanwhile, COUNTRY Financial worked closely with the family on the insurance claim, which provided some help to build a new barn with adjoining parlor where the cows are milked. McHenry County Farm Bureau helped the family sort out permitting. The couple hit the road to examine new barns and equipment to rebuild.
“I wanted an efficient milking parlor,” David says. “I wanted it to produce high-quality milk because that’s the name of the game, and I also wanted comfort for the cows. If they’re not comfortable and they’re not feeling right, they’re not going to produce a high-quality product.”
Since the fire, the Vanderstappens have grown the milking herd to close to 130 cows.
“There were tears. There was laughter. But we finally were able to put it all together and bring them back,” says Katie. “Raising the kids on the farm, that was a big reason why we pushed through, we want our kids to have this one day.”
Both repeatedly expressed gratitude to the local farming community that has helped them since that June day in 2018.
David and Katie Vanderstappen share their story on how they recovered from the loss of a dairy barn to fire in the Partners podcast available here.
