rené groom

René Groom volunteered to do dishes at a doll-making class and ended up with a job right off the dream board she’d pasted up two years before. Now she’s the MaryJanesFarm Sisterhood Coordinator and writes the Rural Farmgirl Blog.

“I get to go and meet some of the most amazing, creative women. And then I get to come home, write, and work at the administrative end of things. It’s the perfect combination for me.”

The “get to” says a lot about René and her upbeat, go-for-it attitude. But she wants farmgirls to know right up front that she didn’t accept the position because it’s easy for her.

“When it’s a chance to do what you love, you find a way around obstacles to get to where you need to go.”

René, 46, was born in Modesto, California, to a single mom. She was adopted at the age of 9. She grew up in the Coulee City area of central Washington, and then attended Walla Walla Community College, where she met and married her husband, Thomas.

“I studied Cosmetology and Small Business Management. It was the perfect balance between administrative and creative vocations. And it’s served me well. When our kids were little, we converted our garage into a salon and I kept busy doing people’s hair. As the kids got older, I explored the business end of things and worked as a crop insurance agent and office administrator for a firm in Prosser where we now live.”

After several years of administrative work, René felt like she’d hit a wall and needed to plow under, over, or around it.

“I built a dream board,” she remembers, “where I sat down on the floor and just tore pictures out of magazines and pasted them up on a white board and wrote down what I wanted and wanted my life to be and where I wanted it to be.”

Happily married for 25 years and proud of her first career as mother to four, now aged 13 to 22, she knew her professional life lacked the balance she craved.

“I was already a farmgirl, living on the end of town with four backyard chickens, raised garden beds, and cold frames. And I had posted on the MaryJanesFarm forum what was happening - that I had left my job and was waiting to see what would happen next.”

Next came the doll-making class where, instead of doing dishes, René helped MaryJane coordinate the class.

“The next day, MaryJane e-mailed to ask what my perfect day looked like. I said I was looking for that balance of creative and administrative. And here I am as Sisterhood Coordinator. Now I write the Rural Farmgirl Blog and work with girls within the Sisterhood who have questions about our merit badge program. I help with the online Farmgirl University videos. I write the Sisterhood newsletter, field questions, answer communications, and support chapter organizations with functions. And I help with anything that has to do with farmgirl clubs, Henhouses, any of that.”

On the side, René is redecorating her very own 1967 vintage Aladdin trailer.

“I’m a member of Sisters on the Fly and a group called Farmgirls on the Loose who want to travel. A refurbished trailer is another tool to build events for sisters to earn badges, like the Sleeping Under the Stars badge.”

Doing a little bit of everything suits René to a tee.

“I’ve always said I’m a Jackie of all trades, master of none. Where a lot of my friends and my farmgirl friends are really expert in one area, I know a little about most craft venues. The only exception would be that I do a lot of that primitive redwork kind of stitching, but in purples and beiges and whites. It’s what I call pillow talk, pillows with stitching that’s significant to the people I’m giving them to, like a saying, a favorite scripture, or words to a favorite song.”

And of course, René loves to write.

“For years and years, I didn’t think I could do things like writing or blogging because I have really severe dyslexia,” she says. “I have to work hard at it. But it’s so worth it. I had a really rough first eight years of my life. But I don’t’ believe we have to be the product of our life story. That’s where we were. But it’s not where we have to stay. So one of the things I tell farmgirls is that there are really no limits to what we can do. And the finished product – even the process – doesn’t have to be the same as someone else’s. The differences are what reflect us.”

René has taken down that first dream board because she’s accomplished everything on it. Now she’s working on the next one. She’s including more great big dreams. And she hopes farmgirls everywhere will do the same.