Dell Rapids Farmers Help Neighbor In-Need

DELL RAPIDS, SD - Farmers in the Dell Rapids area left their fields Wednesday to help a neighbor in need. They combined the soybean crop of a farm family that's seen its share of hardship this year.

A summer clouded by cancer can't delay the fall harvest at the Eulberg farm.

"We don't have all the answers yet, but we're getting there," Nancy Eulberg said.

Nancy Eulberg's husband Charlie started feeling sick just after spring planting.

"He just came in the house on a Friday morning at 9:00 and just told me we needed to talk and thought he might be having a stroke. And Saturday afternoon, he was having brain surgery removing a tumor," Nancy Eulberg said.

Nancy Eulberg cared for her ailing husband following his surgery. But Charlie Eulberg died on July 20th, inside the farm house where he grew up, unable to reap the fruits of his labors.

"I did ask him, out of panic, what do you want me to do? And he just shrugged. Just like, you'll figure it out," Eulberg said.

But Nancy Eulberg didn't figure on so many of her neighbors helping to harvest the soybean crop.

"We know what needs to get done, and so we just do it," neighbor Greg Schnieders said.

A half-dozen combines plus wagons and trucks have flocked to the fields without hesitation, because they know that if the roles had been reversed, Charlie Eulberg would have done the same thing.

"You look out and you help your neighbors because, who knows, maybe tomorrow I might need help," Nancy Eulberg said.

A grateful Nancy Eulberg watches in amazement at the response of so many caring neighbors. After all, this is how they pay-it-forward, on the farm.

"It's overwhelming. It's just overwhelming," Nancy Eulberg said.

This wasn't the first time the Eulberg family needed help from their neighbors. A dozen years ago, Charlie Eulberg broke several bones from a fall off of a grain bin.