This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

The Linvilla Story: What keeps people the world over coming back for more

Linvilla Orchards inspires a great deal of love and loyalty among customers, old and new. When you walk around the well-tended and expertly managed farm, you get a feeling that's unique to the place.

Linvilla Orchards inspires a great deal of love and loyalty among customers, old and new. When you walk around the well-tended and expertly managed farm, you get a feeling that’s unique to the place. 

As a tribute to Linvilla Orchards’ 100th anniversary this year, we’ve set out to discover exactly what makes the farm so very special, and what keeps people the world over coming back for more, generation after generation.

After Peg and Paul Linvill became husband and wife in the summer of 1957, it was right back to life on the farm. Peg recalls that it was strawberry canning season, so instead of a honeymoon, Peg was putting up strawberries. Lots and lots of berries. Meanwhile, Paul took time to recover fully from his wrist injury.

Find out what's happening in Mediawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

In the fall of 1957, Peg returned to Friends Central to teach for one more year. She planned the delayed honeymoon, and in the summer of 1958, Peg and Paul went to Europe, stopping in England, France and Spain, and Peg recalls that part of the trip with great fondness. It was there that she saw ancient cave paintings. The oldest known cave art is in El Castillo in Cantabria, Spain. At that moment, Peg and Paul were pretty much left to their own devices with the 40,000-year-old paintings, because the caretaker wasn’t much for paying attention and no one else was visiting.

Peg returned to Linvilla Orchards in the fall of 1958 pregnant with her first child. Susan was born on January 5, 1959. The first of the couple’s four babies didn’t slow down the adventure, however. Peg says she and Paul would pop little Susie in a basket and bring her along to restaurants, hanging the basket containing a very quiet infant on a nearby coat rack.

Find out what's happening in Mediawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

And the travels continued. 

The babies were born every year or two. Steven arrived on August 28, 1961. Nancy was born exactly one year later, on August 28, 1962, a coincidence that was not planned. And Jean came into the world on June 21, 1965.

You might think it was a quiet period for the Linvills, who had their hands full with infants and toddlers in the early to mid 1960s.

But childrearing didn’t stop the family. The Linvills traveled with a purpose, both to visit friends and family and bring experiences and ideas from the world back to the farm. “You have to do the laundry, occasionally, and put the kids back in school,” says Peg, who chose a life of doing, and regularly took her children out of the classroom for worldwide voyages. “That’s the kind of education I believe in. Kids learn in different ways.”

The Linvills kept quite busy. Between winter skiing and summer camping trips in Vermont, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Colorado, and Cape May, New Jersey, Peg and Paul brought the kids around the world by boat, plane and automobile. “We told them to pack anything they wanted to carry in their backpacks, and each child had a sleeping bag,” says Paul. The original frugal travelers, the Linvills might spend the night under the stars, or rocking gently to sleep on the deck of a boat.

Linvilla is conveniently located just outside of Media, Pennsylvania. We’re about 30 minutes south of downtown Philadelphia. Linvilla  is located in Middletown Township, Delaware County between Routes 352 and 452 and it’s easy to get to from Route 1, I-95, Route 322 or I-476.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?