Daily Herald: Counting on Tradition

By Lee A. Litas
The Daily Herald

It’s what Karl Marx intended when he envisioned a utopian society, a place in which all give according to their means and take only according to their needs. To the average Joe on the street it’s known as ‘The Honor System,’ a concept that many believe has long since expired in our modern-day, world-weary, perhaps even cynical society.

But not to Virgene Zarnstorff, 81, of Richmond, who has been using the Honor System with remarkable success for more than 64 years. “If I’m not here to wait on the customers or help them, they help themselves.” Virgene and her husband, Frank, 83, have been selling eggs out of their small farm house near Fox Lake for decades. They never invested in heavy advertising, never hired a marketing director or had a website. They just sell eggs, fresh eggs, to the tune of 1000 dozen each month. Their small, white, egg-shaped sign at the mouth of Zarnstorff road says it plain and simple: Fresh Eggs, and that’s just good enough.

Customers fortunate enough to spot the small inscription pull up to their home and walk into their garage which houses three refrigerators full of variously shaped eggs, from small to jumbo. Folks take what they need and leave the money. Virgene trusts that they won’t cheat her.

“We’ve always been trustworthy of people.” Asked if anyone had ever taken advantage of their trustworthiness, Virgene admits there have been a few times, but not many. Of all the years that Virgene and Frank have been selling to the public, she insists there have been only three thefts. “You have a few bad experiences but you don’t let those get the better of you. In actuality, we would have been happy to give it to them if they’d just told us they needed it,” says Virgene who is as good as her word. The Zarnstorffs donate 15 dozen eggs to the St. Charles Food Pantry for the needy every week.

Unfortunately, because of the rapid development that is going on in and around Illinois, small farmers like the Zarnstorffs, who many consider to be the backbone of America, are becoming very nearly extinct. Now retired, Frank and Virgene had to sell off the lion’s share of the land that had been in their family since 1843. “That’s what farmers do. They work their farm for years and then, it’s not like working for a company where you get a pension. You just sell off your land, little by little, and that’s what you live on.”

But Virgene was brought up with a strong work ethic and is not about to give in just yet. “As long as I’m alive, this farm will go on.” And she’s not kidding. After a debilitating machinery accident in the ’60, many thought she wouldn’t survive. “I got caught in a self-unloading wagon,” recalls Virgene. The accident nearly severed her arm, ruptured her spleen, tore her lung and mangled one of her legs. To this day she has minimal use of her right arm, only enough to bend it at the elbow but that doesn’t stop Virgene, it doesn’t even slow her down.

The fact that she can still bend her arm at the elbow allows her to work the mouse on her computer to which her family has rigged a sewing machine. No small feat for an octogenarian. She whizzes around her computer screen with the ease of a professional programmer creating intricate lacework which she sells from a display case along side the eggs.  She also makes home-made fudge and pies for her customers, plays the organ and tends to the chickens, all 350 of them.

“People are just so grateful to get fresh eggs,” says Virgene whose health-conscious customers come from as far away as Rockford and Milwaukee. The Zarnstorff’s reputation for quality and goodness has been passed word-of-mouth since inception. Virgene takes it all in stride, “It’s just been such a pleasure to meet all the different types of people. They’re all like a part of the family.”