Goodbye Farmer Strotz

When we first moved here, we found ourselves drawn to a side road off Hwy 530, guided by a sign that read “Strotz Country Feed.” We turned down the bumpy, pot-holed road and found ourselves right in the middle of a old time dairy farm, complete with a giant red barn, chickens, ducks and a bunch of humongous pigs.

The dairy farm was no longer but replaced with a feed store that carried everything from grain to bridles to dog chews. Sitting behind the counter was a kind, friendly guy with a baseball cap on his head and offered the kids a bag of popcorn.

And a friendship was born.

Once we learned how to pronounce his name (said like struts), Roy Strotz became our go-to guy for all things animals. True, his chicken coops were a little scary and there was the time I saw the pigs tossing a dead, furry creature into the air before I heard them crunching on it. THAT was weird. But all in all, this was a great place for kids to go to on a Sunday afternoon. He always had Johnny Cash playing overhead and free suckers and popcorn for the kids. He even made sure that there were blue suckers for me when he found out they were my favorite flavor.

Roy and his golf cart.

Roy was the head of the Silvana Fair, a fair that was only for the 4-H kids and was officially the start of the fair season in our area. He ran the whole thing it seemed, and you could always count on seeing him spinning around in his golf cart, checking on everybody.

I went to him for advice about my chickens, my goats, my pigeons. We adopted our cat, Sam, from his store after seeing him there in a little cage when someone had dropped him off. I bought all my food and grass from him for the animals. He even let me borrow his doves for Robee’s magic show.

When someone dies so suddenly as Farmer Roy did, it always takes my breath away and I find myself wishing I had talked to him more about what life was like for him, growing up in Arlington, growing up on a dairy farm. Those days are so gone and those people that lived them are going away too. It still makes me a little sad when I drive by the farm and I see it sitting out there in the field, knowing that I’m not going to be talking to him about corn growing or the weather or why my chickens aren’t laying this month. For a moment in time, I felt like I had a little bit of roots when I talked to him. He never made me feel like an outsider (as some locals do) or dumb when I didn’t know something. He was always patient and kind.

Roy Strotz, who has been running the Silvana Community Fair for more than 20 years, works at a recent auction to raise money for the annual event at Viking Hall in Silvana

Since I want to remember him again and again, I’m putting this in my journal so we can always remember this wonderful guy.

Roy D. Strotz, 73, passed away suddenly on February 8, 2012, in the very same house he was born in, on February 3, 1939.
Memorial service will be held, Saturday, February 18, 2012 at 1:00 p.m. at the Snohomish County Fire District 19, Station 94, 2720 212th St. NW., Stanwood.

Goodbye Farmer Strotz. The fair will be very lonely without you this year.