Twenty years ago Angie Jones and her husband, Eugene, took over Angie's three acre, family vineyard. For years the two worked side-by-side harvesting the grapes and selling them. But last year things changed. Eugene's kidneys started to fail and Angie took almost full responsibility of harvesting the grapes and selling them on their road-side hut.
Now at 81, Angie's suntanned skin and grape-stained fingers tell the tail of many harvests past. The overly energetic lady is starting to feel the weight of the years. And for the first time friends say she's she's noticeably slowing down. But she could still out-pick most 20-year-olds.
With neither of Angie's sons showing considerable interest in taking over the vineyard, thoughts of selling the farm that her parents planted in the 1920s creep into her mind. It's not an option in which she or Eugene think highly. But as the sun sets over the twisting vines for a final time this season, it might be one of their only options. Eugene Jones, 79, left, and Angie Jones, 81, drive back to their country home after putting in an evening's worth of picking grapes in their three-acre vineyard just outside St. James, Mo. Angie and Eugene took over the three-acre vineyard 20 years ago from Angie's parents, who immigrated to Missouri from Italy.
PHOTO BY JOHN HENRY / MPW.60