Bob Sheasley, Author

Bob Sheasley and his wife, Suzanne, operate Lilyfield Farm in Worcester Township, Montgomery County, where they rent horse stables, grow daylilies, and raise chickens.  An editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer for 15 years, he and his wife live on an 18th century farmstead. He is also the author of “Home to Roost: A backyard farmer chases chickens through the ages,” published in 2008 and 2009 by St. Martin’s Press.

Visiting with his wife, he read selections from the book and a recent essay, “Newspapers at Season’s End: Journalism, Farming, and Other Lives,” that he wrote in summer 2009 for “Lost,” an online magazine that deals with things that are passing from our culture – and, sadly, that seems to include newspaper journalism, to which he has devoted his career.  He contrasted his experiences with fading worlds he knew so well:  He grew up on a Western Pennsylvania dairy farm, in Amish country near New Wilmington, and in his youth he saw the struggles of small family farming; as a young man, he was a newspaper reporter covering the dying steel industry, and now, at 52, he faces the sea change in journalism as the Internet forever changes the course of newspapers:

Presntation Summary