My Vermont Neighbors

Samuel Kaymen, Founder of Stonyfield Farm, was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. Samuel founded Stonyfield Farm in 1983. Samuel, his wife Louise and their six children milked, fed and cared for the small herd of Jersey cows, and made the first batches of Stonyfield FarmYogurt in a little room off their barn. After 17 years in the yogurt-making business, Samuel is going out to pasture with the rest of the cows!
Samuel and Louise are growing their own food, cutting their own firewood and getting their electricity from the sun.


This an interesting biography to me because I knew Mr. Kaymen back when we were all growing up in southern Vermont. He was a very high energy sort of fellow who was always out with his cows and carrying milk pails. Later, when I was in high school at a Waldorf School called, High Mowing School in New Hampshire, Sam's children attended and he worked on the farm there teaching the students basic animal husbandry. It is interesting to contemplate how someone so ahead of his time in the area of organic and sustainable food sources could have built a national brand based on his idea.

At the same time our family lived near the Kaymen family, my parents started a health food store called, The Butler's Pantry in Westminster West, Vermont. The store was one of the first in the state to offer grains, dried peas, lentils and so forth in bulk. Customers could purchase grains by the pound by scooping these from large bins. This was very unusual concept at that time. We ultimately built our own home and heated and cooked with firewood. We had indoor plumbing but there was also a hand pump in the back yard. We had a garden and would drive to a small dairy in Brattleboro with our gallon jars and the farmer would fill these up with fresh milk for us to take home.

Our childhood friends were David and Stephen Major who lived up the road. David started a very successful sheep cheese business and Stephen became a large animal vet. The sheep cheese is an award winning product and is carried in exclusive shops all over the US and in Europe. The cheese is cured in a cave built for this purpose and here is a photo of the actual cave they constructed in Vermont. The following is a brief description of their enterprise;

The Majors have been extremely successful in recent years, receiving numerous awards for their cheese, including the prestigious “Best of Show” award at the 2000 American Cheese Society’s competition at Sonoma, Calif., and best U.S. Sheep Cheese at the 2001 U.S. Championship Cheese Contest.



Another friend and neighbor was Jesse Haas who is a successful and award winning childrens author. Her website is, http://www.jessiehaas.com/


Yet another was Philip Price who is a musician and whose father was a screenwriter for film and television. You can hear his music on: http://www.philipprice.com/


My mother, Ann Johnson emigrated to Israel and became a successful author in her own right. She has written four books and has done book tours and written articles for several publications. She lives on the West Bank in Israel and holds dual citizenship.

Miryam of NazarethWoman of Strength & Wisdom
Author : Ann Johnson
Format: Quality PaperbackPages: 128Dimensions: 6x9ISBN: 0-87061-233-6Published: Jul 2005
2006 Benjamin Franklin Award Winner for "Cover Design: 1-2 Color"
Woman of prayer, faith, and confidence--this is the Mary of Nazareth we meet in Ann Johnson's contemporary portrait of the mother of Jesus. Miryam of Nazareth is told in three parts: prayer reflections on the women of the Old Testament; a collection of Magnificats that use gospels events for personal spiritual enrichment; and a description of Mary's life among the followers of Jesus in Jerusalem after the resurrection of Christ. These three parts combine to reveal new depths for understanding Mary as a Jewish woman and the mother of Jesus.

Summary: The most astounding thing about these people is that we all lived in the same village in Vermont at the same time all within two miles of each other. It was no accident that there seemed to exist this creative pool of artists, writers and craftspeople. Vermont at that time was a sort of mecca for people who wanted to return to a simpler life and create a quality family environment. Westminster West, Vermont is such a tiny village that it has no stop sign and no store. The nearest town is Putney which is famous for it's co operative health food stores, the Putney School, cross country skiing and home to a Nobel Peace Prize winner.