UPPER SANDUSKY, Ohio — Eugene Logsdon, 84, an author known internationally for promoting a return to the land and small-scale farming, died Tuesday at his home in Wyandot County’s Mifflin Township.
He had lymphoma, his wife, Carol said. He continued to write “Country rover,” a column in the weekly Progressor Times of Carey, Ohio, and regular posts to his blog, “The Contrary Farmer.” He was a contributor to Farming Magazine and Draft Horse Journal. He’d written more than 30 books and was always at work on another, his wife said.
Mr. Logsdon grew up on a farm and returned to northwest Ohio after nine years as an editor for Farm Journal, a national magazine. He based his first book, Two Acre Eden, on his family’s experiences working their homestead in suburban Philadelphia.
In 1974, the family moved to 22 acres south of Upper Sandusky.
“He wanted to do things more the old-fashioned way and on a smaller scale,” his wife said. The family had a large vegetable garden and grew strawberries, raspberries, peaches, apples, and grapes. They had steer, a milk cow, chickens, hogs, and sheep.
Mr. Logsdon regularly received letters “from people telling them how he influenced their lives,” his wife said. “He was very considerate and very dedicated to promoting his ideas of small farming, garden farming.”
Born Nov. 5, 1931, to Catherine and Gerald Logsdon, he was preparing for the Roman Catholic priesthood while studying at Mount St. Francis in southern Indiana. He left the seminary and worked on his father’s farm for five years before receiving a bachelor’s degree at Bellarmine College near Louisville. He had a master’s from Indiana University and completed a doctoral dissertation on the folklore of Wyandot County, but the degree was not conferred, his wife said.
Mr. Logsdon was a slow-pitch softball enthusiast and played into his early 70s. His team, the Country Rovers, won a national tournament in 1995.
Surviving are his wife, Carol, whom he married Aug. 26, 1961; daughter, Jennifer Cartellone; son, Jerry; sisters, Marilyn Barnes, Jenny Barnes, Berny Billock, Rosy Binau, Teresa Amert, and Gerry Walton; brother, Giles; stepmother, Sarah Logsdon, and three grandchildren.
Visitation will be from 2 to 6 p.m. Saturday in Lucas-Batton Funeral Home, Upper Sandusky. There will be no services. The family suggests tributes to Hospice of Wyandot County.
Contact Mark Zaborney at: mzaborney@theblade.com or 419-724-6182.
First Published June 2, 2016, 4:00 a.m.
