A century of farming in Center Moriches

Before “farm to table” promoted restaurant and hospitality offerings and Center Moriches became CMO, Wilcox Farms raised Peking ducks and Thee’s Dairy delivered fresh milk to our doors.  Over the last 50 years, as farmland that once surrounded the village and framed its way of life has been developed into residential housing, the farm that Joseph Thee and his sister Margaret founded in 1925 has been a constant within the community.

By the time Joseph Thee arrived in Manorville in 1910, he had already spent time working as a porter in Switzerland and London, before immigrating to New York and working as a laborer.  Moving to Manorville must have been a huge change compared to living in Manhattan. Manorville was so sparsely populated that it didn’t appear on census maps until well after 1950. Most of those who lived there were farmers. From 1910 to 1914, Thee worked on farms before moving to Center Moriches, eventually becoming a herdsman for the wealthy Masury family on their Old Neck Road estate.

During this time, Suffolk was growing and many German, Polish and Ukrainian immigrants arrived to work on area farms.  When Joseph’s sister Margaret arrived from Germany in 1921, they moved to the William Carr estate on Belleview Avenue and set up a dairy operation.

A frugal man, used to hard work and careful planning, he bought a former chicken farm on the west side of Chichester Avenue in 1927, where he and Margaret could raise cows, chickens and pigs, working out of a repurposed poultry barn and clearing trees to create additional cropland for hay and corn.

By 1936, with 37 acres of cleared crop and pastureland—stretching from what is now Frowein to Wading River Road—he built a new basic dairy barn with a 28-cow capacity.

A typical day on the farm was demanding: up at 4 a.m. to feed the cows, milk them, set them out to pasture, and load the milk truck for the day’s deliveries; 7:30 a.m., breakfast; 8:30 a.m., begin the rest of the day’s chores; 1 p.m., lunch; 3 p.m., milking until 5 p.m. before settling in.

When Joseph Thee died in 1951, the population in Center Moriches was less than 1800. Many veterans had started families and moved from New York City to the newly formed suburbs on Long Island.  And the demand for dairy products was growing.  Left to run the farm on her own and with a growing business to manage, Margaret reached out to her sister in Germany for help.

Her nephew, Josef Strobel, arrived in 1951 to a farm with few tools; hired help had left and taken them.  There were long hours of physical labor.  But the small-town atmosphere reminded Josef of home.  He decided to stay on, writing to Anna, the sweetheart he’d left behind, to keep in touch until she could join him in 1961.

He did the milking and field work while Anna raised their three children and ran the on-site retail sales of milk, eggs, and other dairy products from a small milk house. The daily needs of keeping dairy cows meant there was never a day off.  The entire family worked to support the dairy, caring for the cows, raising feed and tending the business.

The Strobels were part of a community of chicken, duck, potato and vegetable farmers in the Moriches area.  But new regulations brought change to local agriculture.  Environmental regulations in the 1980s forced an end to duck farming.  New mandates for water treatment systems forced Schwenk’s dairy in East Hampton to shut down their bottling operation, leaving local dairies with no option to process their milk.

These changes forced painful decisions. To save what they could of the farm, Joe and Anna sold all but one of their cows and 13 acres of land at the north end of the farm.  For Josef it was akin to severing a limb to save what remained, bringing an end to a way of life.

Josef and Anna lived long enough to see homes built on the north end acreage and their children on their own.  But more change was to come. Farms that once provided area families a livelihood and underpinned the community’s rural character were turned into subdivisions, and with them came stores, larger schools and increased traffic. Today, the population of Center Moriches is 8,000 people—more than four-fold what it was in 1950.

But although Center Moriches has grown dramatically, the Strobel-Thee Farm remains—one of a few agricultural enterprises in Center Moriches.  Herb Strobel, Joe, and Anna’s son raise and sell hay, keeping the traditions started by the Thees alive.

On the eve of the farm’s centenary, Herb reflected on the changes time had wrought.

“Our family farm was like so many small businesses in the community,” he said.  “Corey’s Deli,  CM Camera, Center Sport Shop, Bowl Away, B & B Tackle, Atlantic Electronics—just to name a few.  They were just always there.  And, quite frankly, one didn’t give them much thought. 

Until they were gone.”