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Perrys find special mission with historic farm museum
Mike and Henriella Perry, founders of Heritage Farm Museum and Village, have remained happily married for 50 years now and continue to be an important part of the community.
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HUNTINGTON -- Flowers burst from barrels along a winding cinder trail at Heritage Farm Museum and Village in Harveytown.
There's hardly any sound -- just birds in the air and Freddy the cat, as he whines and then stretches out in the sun in the middle of the trail, lined with log buildings. There's the Apple Butter Inn, the log church/meeting hall, the blacksmith shop and several buildings filled with educational exhibits -- all celebrating the hardiness and innovation of pioneer mountain settlers, as well as Mike and Henriella Perry's love of antique shopping.
The Perrys, who founded and designed Heritage Farm, stand on a nearby bridge. Mike leans in and gives his wife of 50 years a kiss, then shares the secret to a good marriage.
"Tell her you love her 10 times a day and then give her a kiss," he said. "More importantly, treat every day of marriage as if it's your first date."
On July 12, the Perrys celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. On that same day, Henriella was presented the Distinguished West Virginian Award by Randall Reid-Smith, commissioner of the West Virginia Division of Culture and History.
According to her husband, she's deserving for a couple reasons. The first is for putting up with him for 50 years, he said, and the second is for designing and managing a place that can instill pride in Appalachian children and show them how ingenious their ancestors were.
"There never would be a museum if not for Henriella," said Perry, a retired banker who also worked as a lawyer for 20 years in Huntington. "When most women are looking forward to retiring, she's down here feeding animals at 7 in the morning and running the office here."
It's an award that's given out periodically, when it comes to the attention of the governor that a West Virginian is doing a great job somewhere, said Keith Spears, director of special programs for Education and the Arts at the state. It's gone to "professors, archeologists, performers, business people -- all walks of life," Spears said. Henriella Perry's contributions are a nice cross-section of skills -- not so unlike the settlers whose history she's worked to preserve. She's also demonstrated the same level of hard work, Spears said.
"Henriella Perry is a wonderful mix of community spirit, West Virginian hospitality and businesswoman," he said.
Both Mike and Henriella, ages 72 and 71, respectively, are Huntington natives. They met in fifth grade, when Mike came home from school one day and told his mother that he found the girl he's going to marry. They didn't start dating, however, until 12th grade at Huntington High, when a Glee Club teacher put them together for a duet.
They got married in 1958. Mike went to work for Huddleston Bolen for 20 years, and then went into banking, retiring as chairman of the board at Bank One. He also has served as interim president at Marshall University and still serves on several boards of directors throughout the community.
Henriella raised their three children, Michele, Melanie and Audy, and the Perrys now have eight grandchildren.
Meanwhile, Henriella has been working on the farm.
Looking back
The Distinguished West Virginian Award was created to honor those who have contributed significantly to the state or other West Virginians, and who have brought positive attention to the state. But when it comes down to it, Henriella says, Heritage Farm started out as a way for the family to spend time together.
Oddly enough, it goes back to Mike Perry's love of golf. He had been spending long hours at the office and enjoyed golfing on the weekends, and Henriella suggested that they spend that time and money going antique shopping. They visited flea markets and antique shops all over the region and enjoyed collecting items like early, wooden washing machines and other tools the Appalachian pioneers dreamed up. A ladle made from a hollowed gourd, for example. A corn husk broom.
After all, Mike Perry points out, the pioneers who came over these mountains and separated themselves from city life had to become their own builders, doctors, farmers, teachers and tailors.
They may not have realized it, but the Perrys made had made their first step toward establishing an attraction for area students and tourists from all over the world.
They made another in 1973, when Mike and Henriella decided to sell their brick home on Huntington's South Side and move with their daughters and son into a log farm house in Harveytown, just over the Wayne County line. It had no indoor plumbing, and had one light and one electrical outlet for radio.
When the Perrys told folks about their move, "They were polite, but they really weren't sure if we'd gone bankrupt or lost our minds," Mike Perry said. "We just wanted a farm, and this one had a price we could afford."
It was a fixer-up for sure, but to Henriella, it was another opportunity for the family to spend time together.
"It was something we could do completely together," she said.
It took several years. At first, the family had well water, and "the kids would hardly brush their teeth," she said. Eventually, it got city water and sewer. The house improved and grew in stages, and as they worked on it, they began to notice the intricacies of a log home and admire the work of the early settlers.
In the next decade, they started turning the barn -- where Mike and Audy had played basketball and where Michele and Melanie kept horses -- into a museum of their antiques.
About 14 years ago, a cornfield started to become what is now the main street of Heritage Farm. They started bringing in log buildings from other places, by disassembling them, transporting the parts, and reassembling them here.
The farm today
Go out to Heritage Farm today -- either during the Spring Festival in May or for a personal tour -- and you'll feel marvelously transported in time. For the festival, it springs to life when 300 volunteers take on the duties of our ancestors, like churning butter.
Heritage Farm has a zoo with animals like pigs, llamas, donkeys, rabbits and turtles. It has a Progress Building with thousands of antiques used through the centuries. It has kitchen displays from different eras, a spinning wheel to show how thread was made, old printing presses and an old fashioned soda shop, complete with sundaes made of wax.
In the Transportation Building, there are models of carriages and early cars, including the Model T. There is a 1920s airplane and several other modes of transportation. Outside sits a Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad caboose, which used to be the ticket stand outside Fairfield Football Stadium.
In the Industry Building, there are models of mines and a glass factory. There's a country store as well, with food and supplies and complete with an old checkerboard. Often, people had to travel a long way to get to the store, so they'd spend a long time there doing things like play checkers, Henriella said.
The village now has five houses, or inns, where guests can stay overnight. There are several other buildings, the most important being the old church, Henriella said. She and Mike spent a long time figuring out how to situate the church in their little village. It had to be just right.
"It was your meeting hall, your church service, your school," she said. "It was the focal point of the village."
These days, Heritage Farm hosts weddings, reunions and other gatherings. It has thousands of schoolchildren pass through, and visitors from out of state.
Mike tells the story of a family that came from New York. The mother was concerned when they arrived and realized there were no TVs in the rooms. The children are used to having entertainment, she told Mike. So he directed her to Pullman Square, where the family could get something to eat and pick up some books for the kids.
But the next time he bumped into the family, the kids were leaning over the bridge in the village, playing in the creek. For the first time, they had learned how to entertain themselves, he said.
He also talks about a group of teenagers from Hong Kong who came and were stunned by the quietness of the place. They'd never been anywhere that you could hear nothing but birds chirping, he said.
"This is a place to get away from modern life and listen to God's creatures and see his creation," he said, as he and his wife surveyed the village, a project decades in the making.
Celebrating 50 years
For their 50th anniversary, Mike and Henriella Perry had two days of gatherings, one on Saturday, July 12, and one the next day. One evening, after all the guests left, Mike had a little surprise ready for his wife. He made Henriella think that the grandkids were planning to perform some music in church and brought her there.
Inside, she got a personal concert from her favorite Gospel singer, Janet Paschal. Mike said he knew that Henriella wouldn't want jewelry or to go on a cruise. He knew that she listened to Paschal every day when she did devotions, and he arranged for her to come sing.
"I thought I would faint," Henriella said of seeing Paschal in their old church. After Paschal sang for a while, she invited Henriella and her daughters to sing with her. Then the grandchildren got a chance to sing, and then Paschal led them in prayer. It was perfect.
Music has always been part of the Perrys' lives. Henriella plays the piano, and both she and Mike sing at The New Baptist Church, which is the consolidation of 20th Street Baptist and Beverly Hills Baptist churches. Mike also teaches Sunday school there.
Mike's anniversary present, Henriella said with a laugh, was an old fashioned butter carrier made from wood. It's something that settlers used to bring butter from the barn to the kitchen, or carried out to the store to sell their butter.
Simple, but a nice addition to the Progress Building.
Their life has been heaped with blessings, the Perrys said. They're just glad they've found a hobby that they can dive into together, share with the community and use to celebrate Appalachian culture.
"To spend your life in a community that's done so much for you and to try and pay them back -- it's nice," Mike said.
