Willard Pengelly collars one of his flock. Photograph by Walter Horylev.

The ultimate entrepreneur finds business in every corner

Meet Riga's Willard Pengelly.

Willard Pengelly is an octogenarian who has lived his entire life in this western corner of Monroe County, but is known well beyond New York state's borders and even nationally in the arena of veterinary medicine. Pengelly was the first layman to address the National Veterinary Convention in Ohio on the "prevention and control of strep, staph and coliform in dairy cattle."

Listening to him reminisce is like taking a wild roller coaster ride over the last century, bouncing from WPA workers manually laying the stone foundation for Westside Drive in the 1930's to the present. He observes that the current site of A Touch of Country Class shop in the village of Churchville has a dual distinction. It is the birth site of Frances Willard, the famous Women's Christian Temperance leader, and seventy years ago, there was a large smoke house situated behind the building. Pengelly's father brought his meat to be smoked behind what is now the florist shop, as did most of the local farmers, and his mother, an admirer of the temperance leader, named her second son after the woman whose name is on an historical marker on the side of Mayor Donald Ehrmentraut's business.

And then Pengelly leaps back many decades to the time when gypsies would camp in the apple orchard that is now the Farmer's Market at the United Methodist church on the corner of Buffalo Road and Westside Drive in North Chili. "They drove very fancy horse drawn wagons and their mission was horse swapping. They were great horse traders."

And that reminds him of the cattle drover who would periodically pick up a shipment of skinny yearling steers from the Midwest at the stockyard beside the tracks in Churchville, just west of the current Churchville Farm and Home Store. He would drive the herd past the local farms, stopping to sell to interested buyers. Pengelly remembers, "My folks would always buy five or six steers." Then he goes to explain, "There were stockyards by the tracks in every small town. Higbies in North Chili was also the site of a stockyard and they had one in Bergen."

Not only do his memories disregard chronology, they also soar from the rich and famous to the most plebeian locals. He remembers the state sending hundreds of conifers to local agriculture teachers, and his teacher assigned him and Eddie Peotrowski (later killed in WWII) to plant the trees around the brand new Churchville school campus (now the Churchville primary school). "We planted all the pines around Sprucewood Nature Center. Because nobody was sure of the school's boundaries, many were later cut down as the land surrounding the school was developed." A few minutes later he remembers hobnobbing with J.C. Penney and many members of the Dupont family at cattle shows and conventions he attended with partner and mentor Harry Snyder. He also recalls meeting the locally famous Max Russer, creator of the white hot dog. "I would go with my father and grandfather to Russer's Market on Maple Street, where they took dressed out hogs for Russer to convert into his famous white hots."

But enough about Pengelly's roller coaster ride all over the last century.

The real question is how did Willard Pengelly evolve into the well-known entrepreneur he is today? If you suspect that would require a book, you're right. But let's impose chronology on his meandering and try for a thumbnail biographical sketch. The story of his first ancestor's arrival in America, however, is too good to abbreviate. Pengelly's grandfather, James Pengelly, born in the last year of the Civil War, left England in 1881, bound for NYC in a sailing ship. The ship sank mid-ocean and there were only enough lifeboats for the women and children. However, a small Scandinavian sailing vessel carrying lumber happened by and enabled the men to fashion rafts from the lumber. They were all rescued seven days later. And so began the family history of good fortune.

James joined his brother who operated a greenhouse business in Rochester, where he earned his living as a carpenter and drayman. He hauled ashes and ice with his four teams of horses and built most of the existing houses on Avenue D in the city. After the death of his wife, he decided he wanted to raise his children outside the city, and so in 1901 he bought a farm in Riga. He later expanded to two farms, one of which is now the site of the Churchville-Chili Fairbanks Elementary School.

Pengelly's grandfather died at 88, adding longevity to good fortune as a family tradition. James' son, William J., Pengelly's father, died at 87 after a full life, including graduating from Chesbro Seminary (now Roberts Wesleyan College) and RBI where he studied banking.

After William's sister died of polio, James prevailed on his son, the lone heir, to abandon banking and take over the family farm. Even today, many people remember the sheep and peacocks that always roamed the family homestead. Pengelly observes, "I have been breeding and raising sheep my entire life. The peacocks originally came from Otto Leibeck but became a Pengelly trademark."

Willard Pengelly almost didn't happen because his brother's birth six years earlier was so arduous the midwife strongly advised against further pregnancies. In the course of the firstborn's delivery, forceps damaged one of his eyes, but the unsophisticated medical practices of the time failed to detect the infant's blindness in that eye for almost eight years. Fortunately, especially for Pengelly, his parents disregarded the midwife's advice and their second son was born December 1, 1921. Before entering motherhood, Pengelly's mother graduated from Churchville High School, in a class of four students, and immediately began teaching grades one through eight in a one-room schoolhouse on the corner of Washington Street and Bunny Run. She died at the age of 91, perpetuating the Pengelly propensity for longevity.

Pengelly has many memories, in addition to those already shared, about growing up in the 1920's in Riga and Ogden. But there is one more worth sharing. During the Depression, all the farmers joined together to share machinery. The two biggies were the thrashing machine and the potato sprayer. "As the machinery moved around the neighborhood, when it got to you, you simply hooked up your horse team and went to work and then sent it on." Pengelly continues to emphasize, "Back then we had no electricity. I remember we had to cut ice out of Black Creek and haul it home on sleds."

After graduating from Churchville High School, Pengelly became associated with H.F. Snyder, a very successful purebred cattle breeder situated on what is now the Zuber Farm. This association evolved into a partnership and ultimately, at the age of 33, Pengelly become sole owner of the enterprise. At this point he adds a parenthetical observation. "Six days after my twentieth birthday we entered WWII. Right after Pearl Harbor, Ernie Pimm and I drove to Buffalo to enlist in the army. They turned be down because of a back injury."

Then he resumes his narrative: "Purebred Guernsey and Black Angus cattle were very popular with wealthy landowners in the first half of the last century, largely because of tax advantages. We catered to their demand." However, when Americans started to become fat conscious, Pengelly gradually crossed over to Holstein breeding. "As the value of Guernseys fell, I would purchase entire herds and sell them to the Amish, who refused to join the fat-conscious trend. I did a great deal of business in Lancaster, Pennsylvania."

During this time he became associated with Cornell University and participated in many medical and nutritional experiments. Cornell students regularly visited the farm and one time a group of nine professors from Austria did a tour. Later the Secretary of Agriculture from India dropped by for a visit. "Before the technique for freezing semen was perfected, I can remember drawing semen from my best bull and transporting it under my armpit to a waiting cow in Ohio," Pengelly relates with an impish grin.

Pengelly eventually sold the farm to Bill Zuber, whose sons still operate the farm today. He continued to run the original family farm operation and rented several nearby farms. About this time, he also purchased a farm in Bergen across from Sheards' Country Store on Lake Road. From there he bred purebred Holstein cattle that were sold all over the U.S., Europe and Japan.
Then, Pengelly began to explore other avenues of income. The key to his sustained success was his willingness to diversify and adapt to changing times. He enjoyed large profits selling lumber for baseball bats, and during the plague that killed off Dutch elm trees, he bought acres of woods and sold the elm to manufacturers of wood pallets. At one point he sold 1000 tons of manure a year to Harris Seed. In fact, Pengelly had too many business ventures to enumerate all of them here, but two other enterprises are worth mentioning. Early in his entrepreneurial career, Pengelly developed a process whereby culled beans became an excellent livestock feed, which he successfully marketed. He then branched out to the distribution of bottled gas to both wholesale and retail customers.

And as time passed, he gradually began to do farm appraisals, with no training other than his vast experience. "When Route 490 came through Churchville, many farmers felt they were not adequately compensated for the land the state required for the expressway," Pengelly observes. "So I worked with their attorneys and we were quite successful in convincing the state it was not being fair. Soon the word spread and I became listed in New York State Courts as an agricultural expert." Pengelly ultimately got his broker's license shortly after Route 490 came through Churchville. He the joined the Harris Wilcox firm, where he has been managing broker for the last forty years. In fact, he still works there part time.

Readers should know the parts left to be covered are greater than those included in this story. Pengelly married Edith Brisbane in 1944. During their marriage they were good friends with another couple, Pat and Evelyn Sorce. After both spouses died, Pengelly and Evelyn Sorce were marrried nine years ago and now reside in a restored farmhouse on Dewey Street in Ogden that dates back to the 1700s. And yes, sheep and peacocks are still in evidence and occasionally a llama or two. Evelyn is widely known for her quilting expertise; she teaches, appraises and collects quilts.

And what is Willard Pengelly's final advice: "Success in independent business depends on your ability to select qualified associates." When H.F. Snyder, adhering to that maxim, selected Willard Pengelly as his associate, a young man was launched on a long and successful path to becoming the ultimate entrepreneur.