At home with Nancy: Decades of columns about family, farming

PLATTEVILLE, Wis. — Nancy Dinelli-Prill was often told by her mother to “write our story,” and that is exactly what she has done for over four decades.

“I went into this with no experience and no education, I just started writing,” explained Nancy, the author of “Nancy’s Notes: The Farmer and I” column that she writes for Illinois AgriNews.

“From the time I was in third or fourth grade when I had to write something, I would write about our family of seven kids,” the columnist explained. “My mother was an immigrant from Italy and my father worked as a groundskeeper at a country club.”

And when Nancy came home from grade school with positive comments on her writing from her teachers, her mom would get quite excited.

“And her Italian would go bananas,” she added. “And later when I wrote something about the family, I’d give it to her to read and she would sit and giggle.”

Nancy got her start in the newspaper business at the Durand Gazette in 1975, where she sold advertising, wrote a column, as well as feature stories about farmers and the farming industry.

“I was hired by Owen Phelps and the company published seven papers in the area,” she recalled.

In 1980, Nancy received a job offer from Illinois AgriNews.

“Lou Lesniak contacted me because he saw that I had a lot of connections with ag companies who were advertising in the paper,” she explained. “Selling is in my blood. I really enjoyed selling advertising.”

The advertising sales representative visited farm equipment dealerships weekly.

“When she started, there were four farm implement dealers in Belvidere alone,” said her husband, Don Prill.

Her weekly visits to companies included feed businesses, sale barns and lending organizations, to name a few.

“I sold advertising for any company related to farming – anybody who had manure on their shoes, I called on,” Nancy noted. “Because the one who calls on them personally is the one who gets the ad.”

Nancy’s column often centered around her family and topics related to agriculture. She has published five “The Farmer and I” books that contain collections of her weekly newspaper columns.

“I can lie awake at nights and write my column and then get up at 2 or 3 in the morning and plunk it out on the computer in 10 minutes,” she said. “Because I’ve lain awake for hours doing it in my head.

“I was raised at Northmoor Country Club in Highland Park, Ill., where my father worked for the golf course,” she said. “Before working at the golf course, he was a coal miner in Centralia and the day that mine collapsed my uncle was not at work because he had broken his arm.”

The columnist’s mom immigrated to the United States as a young child.

“She was from Fanano, Italy, and we went to Italy twice,” Nancy said.

For the first trip, the Prills visited the Tuscany area. In 2006, they spent a week at Fanano, which is about four hours from Milan.

“Fanano is a little town in the mountains. It was very peaceful,” Don said. “Pavarotti, the Italian tenor, is from a neighboring town of Fanano.”

In addition to writing, Nancy’s mother also encouraged her to paint. She has painted barns, landscapes and people.

“I use to have a sketch pad, so I sketched a lot and I did charcoals,” she said. “But I hated doing flowers because they’re so non-descript – they all have petals, leaves and a stem.”

For many years, Nancy attended farm shows across the state of Illinois to assist with the Illinois AgriNews booth. This provided readers an opportunity to meet and share their thoughts with the columnist.

“I liked communicating with people,” she stressed. “There would be lots of people who would come up and say ‘I love your column,’ which was neat for someone who has no education in writing.”

Many people have sent letters to Nancy and not all of them have been positive.

“When I got a letter that was negative, I’d write or call them and I never argued with them,” she said. “I figured if people took the time, then I needed to tell them that I appreciated them even more so when I didn’t agree.”

Periodically the columnist would ask for responses from AgriNews readers and the letters would pour into her mailbox. Last year, she held a “name the calf” contest for her grandson’s Polar Jersey and White Dexter cross heifer calf.

After more than 250 reader responses that suggested a large number of names, the white calf became “Vanelli Bean”, which was a play on both the Dinelli family name and the fact that the cattlemen make ice cream and gelato from the majority of their milk.

This year, around 200 notes have been sent to the Prills after they moved from their home near Winnebago, Illinois, to Platteville, Wisconsin, to be closer to their daughter, Alicia.

“We’re still getting notes. I got three letters last week,” Nancy said.

Nancy retired from selling advertising for Illinois AgriNews in 2006, and now she has decided to retire from writing her weekly The Farmer and I column.

“I will continue to write and I may do a diary,” said the writer, who recently celebrated her 84th birthday. “Because when I get thinking, I have to get it out of my brain.”

For example, she would like to write about apple pears, which is a fruit that has a texture similar to an apple and tastes like a pear.

“It is the most fantastic thing,” she said. “And I want to write about it because I know people don’t know about them so I want to introduce them to apple pears.”

Or, the writer said, she could write a column about her Amish neighbor who tapped on her door a couple days ago.

“She had an envelope of papers that she wanted me to make copies for her,” Nancy said. “She wanted to pay me, but I said no and then Don said, how about an apple pie.”

As a result, Nancy may write her column for AgriNews periodically in the future.

“I could sit down and write one right now,” she said.