Family keeps father’s legacy,
his farm and love of the land
By jamie dougher
Staff Writer
EAST BRUNSWICK — Family of the recently deceased Vincent Giamerese remember growing up in a simpler time, when farming was the desired way of life.
His children remember their whole family’s love of the land, and say that is what kept them from selling to developers, a practice commonly seen at many other farms in the county.
"The love of the land is not there when it’s not family-owned and operated," said Lynn Giamerese, one of Vincent’s five children.
The Giamerese farm — which produces fruits and vegetables, has a greenhouse for plants and flowers, and sells pick-your-own pumpkins in the fall and Christmas trees in the winter — will remain in agricultural use forever, as it is preserved through the state’s Farmland Preservation Program, which pays farmers for development rights and prevents the farm from ever being developed.
The current owner of the 35-acre Giamerese farm is Vincent’s nephew, Jim, who saw the farm receive acceptance into the program in December and was greeted by Gov. James E. McGreevey, who applauded the program during a Jan. 15 ceremony at the farm.
"We would hate to see houses put on it just because it was so much of what we remember," said Vincent Giamerese’s daughter, Janeen Lee, now a resident of Bayville, Texas. "We remember it the way it was. To have it all built up, it wouldn’t be the same. There’s a lot of sentiment in it right now."
Vincent Giamerese worked the Fresh Ponds Road farm with his father, also named Vincent, from the time it was purchased in 1941 up until his death July 23 at 81 years old. The family moved from Jamaica, N.Y., to East Brunswick, and became tenant farmers on a Dunhams Corner Road farm until they had the money to purchase their own on Fresh Ponds Road. The elder Vincent Giamerese died in the 1960s.
The economy did not allow for the younger Vincent Giamerese, who co-owned and operated the farm with his brother for more than 50 years, to solely attend to the farm. He took a job as a heavy machine operator at the General Motors plant in Linden and worked there for 33 years. Janeen said that to keep the land in agricultural use, they kept a large garden, tended the fruit trees, and rented the land to various farmers who grew wheat and other crops.
"It still was kept as agricultural land," she said. "It just wasn’t as intensely farmed as it was when my grandfather was alive."
The family farm also grew raspberry bushes and apple, pear, peach and cherry trees.
"He always thought in large quantities," Janeen said, recalling their "garden," which stretched for a half an acre. "My mom could cook as much as she wanted."
Lynn, who now lives in South Dakota, and Janeen said they remember seeing a bumper sticker from the New Jersey Farm Bureau that their cousin Jim had on his car. It read, "No farmers, no food," and Lee agreed, citing how the economy would suffer without farming.
The fewer farms there are left in New Jersey, Janeen said, the more the state has to get all its produce from the Midwest, and pay for the added costs of shipping and packaging. She said her family never ate food that was out of season, as part of an effort to support local growers.
"You would be forced, in New Jersey, to just truck in the food," she said. "It would just add to the cost of living. It goes to everything from the shipping to the packaging to the grocery store’s profit."
Janeen said her memories of the farm include ice-skating on and fishing in one of the irrigation ponds on the property, and riding the farm equipment with her father.
"He never let us out of his sight," she said about riding some of the more dangerous equipment. "We would sit on the wagon and ride to wherever they were going."
In 1987, Jim Giamerese bought the farm from the family and has continued to farm it over the years. During that time, Jim noted, many "big-name developers" sought him out with the hope of buying the land for housing.
"We hate to see more houses," he said. "We just felt like we had a good farm."
Jim and his wife, Sue, decided to apply for farmland preservation in 2000, when the township was rezoning that section to minimize the number of new houses being built there, which some landowners believed would decrease the values of the land.
"We were kind of facing an uphill battle with the town," he said.
As for the rest of the Giamerese children, who have all grown up and are scattered in various parts of the country — New Jersey, Florida, Maine, South Dakota and Texas — they all have some sort of garden at their homes that Janeen said comes from growing up with their father’s farming instincts.