He was 79. When Stephen Gaskin took a good, hard look in the early 1970s at the San Francisco he loved, he knew he couldnt stay. Gaskin died of natural causes at his home in Summertown on Tuesday, according to Gretchen Bates, who grew up on The Farm and is close to Gaskin's family. Purchased for $70 an acre, the fledgling community endured trials that were practically biblical. Marriage, perhaps to the surprise of skeptics, was encouraged. In the 1960s and 70s, hundreds of thousands of people joined them, though most of the communities did not last long. Among the dreams Gaskin never quite realized was a 100-acre retirement community aimed at aging hippies. She and other midwives delivered some 2,300 babies on The Farm, with many expectant mothers coming from outside the community. We started seeing guys in long dark overcoats and brimmed hats who were heroin people. We never let anybody call it a commune because people who live on communes are communist, he told interviewers for the Journal for the Study of Radicalism in 2010. NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) Stephen Gaskin, a counterculture visionary who led a caravan of hippies from California to establish one of the country's longest lasting communes in rural Middle Tennessee and later sought the Green Party nomination for president, has died. Pictured above lecturing at one of his weekly classes before the founding of the Farm, Back to basics: In 1970, Gaskin and a group of 320 hippies moved to a plot of land in Middle Tennessee to start The Farm, He described the difference in an early 1970s essay, saying: 'I'm a teacher, not a leader. After service in the Marine Corps during the Korean War, he studied creative writing at what is now San Francisco State University before beginning his speaking career. It also established an ambulance service in the impoverished South Bronx. By 1980, The Farm was more than $600,000 in debt. I also love science fiction., Stephen Gaskin, Hippie Who Founded an Enduring Commune, Dies at 79, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/03/us/stephen-gaskin-hippie-who-founded-an-enduring-commune-dies-at-79.html. May you, Ina carry on the tradition of your greatness that I will honor for the rest of my days. Our community would not exist, were it not for his bravery and free spirit." For the past few years, Gaskin has remained out of the public eye due to vision and health problems. Stephen Gaskin, a visionary who established one of the country's oldest surviving communes, located in rural Middle Tennessee, died Tuesday at the age of 79. Forty-three years after he bought The Farm, Gaskin died on it. He dropped out of high school to join the Marines in 1952.
Under Mr. Gaskins leadership, the commune did wide-ranging work through its humanitarian organization, Plenty International. They even branched out of farming and into printing, construction and solar power.
He dropped out of junior college, drank heavily and ran coffee houses.
(AP Photo/The Tennessean) (AP). (Cultivation of the plant on the Farm was later abolished.) Bless you Stephen. He was married four times: to Carol Groves (during the late 1950s); Three earlier marriages ended in divorce. Under state law, he lost his right to vote because of the conviction.
He was paroled after one year.
Years later, in an interview with the Chicago Tribune, an early communard recalled the decidedly counter-countercultural aspects of the region where they had settled and compared their arrival to a spaceship landing in Tennessee.. I honestly liked it better when it was a circus. Three previous marriages ended in divorce. In 2000, Mr. Gaskin sought the Green Party nomination for president.
There was hepatitis from a polluted stream, and hunger during a harsh time that came to be called the wheatberry winter. In 1974, Gaskin spent nearly a year in jail for growing marijuana. Mr. Gaskin was born in Denver on Feb. 16, 1935. Shortly after the Farm was founded, Mr. Gaskin was arrested, convicted and imprisoned for the manufacture of marijuana. Farm Heroes Saga, the #4 Game on iTunes. Stephen F. Gaskin, a professed hippie priest and freelance rebel rouser who assembled, preached to and presided over The Farm, one of the largest and longest-lasting communes born of the counterculture era, died July 1 at his home near the settlement in Summertown, Tenn. Mr. Gaskin and his wife, the former Ina May Middleton, developed a free midwifery service for women, communard or not. Were high-tech hippies now, Mr. Gaskin told the Los Angeles Times a decade ago. Were high-tech hippies now.. The prosperity proved fragile, however, as the community incurred debts including medical bills for members who had required outside care. Sometimes called the alternative Nobel Prize, the award is presented by the Swedish Parliament to those who have demonstrated practical and exemplary solutions to the most urgent challenges facing the world today.. Business operations included a publishing house, a soy dairy and, most notably, midwifery. In a 1997 interview with NewsChannel5, Gaskin laughed as he described The Farm was a 'gated community of not-rich people'. He sat cross-legged on a stage, advocated getting high with or without drugs and was given to making pronouncements like Its easier to be God than to see God. He said his skill was an ability to talk intelligently while stoned longer than most people. Mr. Gaskin recalled to The Tennessean in 2013. Now I hope the Queen strips them of their titles, writes CLARE FOGES, Prima ballerina Misty Copeland, 39, reveals she secretly welcomed her first child - a baby boy named Jackson - THREE MONTHS ago, as she shares plans to return to the stage in 2023, Dave has the last laugh! They took vows of poverty and pooled their assets. I was in sync with them for a while, but that changed, and thats all right. This generation moves like a school of fish, he said, and you shouldnt stand in front of it when it moves. Peyote and mushrooms are a matter of personal conscience.. He was 79. Goddess you are loved. Within four years the original settlers had bought the land, erected buildings with salvaged wood, found water supplies and became agriculturally self-sufficient. "You went from everybody holding all things in common to you need your own car, you need your own health insurance you need to pay the rent, you need to join back into the society at large," said Kahan, who lived in the community for about 15 years before moving to Nashville. There are also midwives who practice outside of the community. It was Stephen F. Gaskin.
His campaign platform included peace and the legalization of marijuana. Anyone can read what you share. His father was a builder. Unlike so many of its hippie-era brethren, The Farm is still alive. Douglas Stevenson, who described himself as an unofficial spokesman for the still-extant Farm community, confirmed the death and said he did not know the cause. Stephen Gaskin, a Marine combat veteran and hippie guru who in 1971 led around 300 followers in a caravan of psychedelically painted school buses from San Francisco to Tennessee to start the Farm, a commune that has outlived most of its countercultural counterparts while spreading good works from Guatemala to the South Bronx, died on Tuesday at his home on the commune, in Summertown, Tenn. By 1980, The Farm's population had grown to more than 1,200 in Lewis County near Summertown. It was meant to be an "experiment in sustainable, developmentally progressive human habitat," according to the website. Stephen Gaskin speaking to his followers in 1970 in San Francisco.
Stephen F. Gaskin was born Feb. 16, 1935, in Denver. Reflecting on the Farms changeover, which improved the groups finances but marginalized him as a leader, he seemed sanguine. As the story goes, someone at a meeting blurted out, Lets go to Tennessee where people had been nice to them and get a farm.. When he returned to the farm, he married wife Ina May Middleton, a nationally-recognized midwife. It was great to see you again in Hanover, NH in the 90's during Ina May's visit to Dartmouth Medical School, and at Yasgur Road in Bethel, NY in 2000.
A few years later, Gaskins disillusioned followers stripped him of his leadership. We were a collective, which is scary enough for some people..
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You will be missed but not forgotten. Epstein victim tells how he winked when he boasted of his closeness with billionaire Victoria's Secret boss who sold him Manhattan's biggest townhouse for just $1, Mikhail Gorbachev is dismayed to see his life's work 'destroyed' by Putin as Russia descends into military aggression, close friend reveals, Arizona Cardinals QB Kyler Murray 'agrees to a five-year extension worth $230.5 million' making him the second highest-paid player in the NFL behind Aaron Rodgers at $46 million annually, Georgia makes Kirby Smart the second highest-paid coach in college football with 10-year, $112.5 million extension following his first national title win, Editor, 65, is unmasked as the 'miserable' Brooklyn neighbor who sent anonymous poison pen letter asking mother to stop her toddlers from 'whooping and shouting' outdoors in ritzy neighborhood. He also became a kind of elder statesman for the legalization of marijuana. Asked by a reporter if he had inhaled a reference to future President Bill Clintons assertion that he had not Mr. Gaskin replied: I didnt exhale..
Get the day's top news with our Today's Headlines newsletter, sent every weekday morning. Early years: When the hippies first arrived in Tennessee, they lived out of tents until they could finish building homes, Gathering place: The Farm members gather in one of the commune's buildings in 1976, when about 800 lived in the community, Farm children: An unidentified member of The Farm poses with her child on September 2, 1976. Our community would not exist, were it not for his bravery and free spirit.'. In addition to his wife, Gaskins survivors include two daughters, three sons and five grandchildren. After the literature department declined to renew his contract, he began Monday Night Classes around San Francisco to delve more deeply into spiritual exotica. In 1971, they pooled their money and bought a tract of land in central Tennessee for $70 per acre.
But the Farm, which grew to 1,500 members at its peak in 1979 and has about 200 today, has outlived almost all of them. He was 79. My brother Bob Glass had a wonderful fulfilling life because of the farm. (It now includes a retirement community. Currently, The Farm has about 200 residents. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. The collective bought the land from a local moonshiner who sold it to them for the cheap price of $70 an acre. My main occupations are Hippy Priest, Spiritual Revolutionary, Cannabis Advocate, shade tree mechanic, cultural engineer, tractor driver and community starter. Get email updates about Stephen Gaskin delivered directly to your inbox. With about 175 members, its smaller and more consumer-friendly; it hosts group retreats and sells souvenir tote bags at The Farm website. When liberal Christian ministers attending a conference in San Francisco heard him, they invited him to visit churches around the United States to bring his message minus the drugs to alienated young people in their hometowns. Rest in Peace. Mr. Gaskin was married three times before marrying the former Ina May Middleton, who, along with five children, survives him. What's here is part mine."'.
He first attracted notice in the late 1960s in San Francisco, where he convened weekly seminars called Monday Night Classes. They began, the New York Times reported, with the sounding of a horn and a long om.. Unions of two or three couples were not unheard of, and Gaskin was for a time involved in a marriage of six. Peace be with you. Among its most successful business endeavors is the sale of personal nuclear radiation-detection devices. Bates told The Associated Press that Gaskin had been ill for a while. Emily Langer is a reporter on The Washington Posts obituaries desk. Some said Mr. Gaskin had pushed the community to expand beyond its capacity. He also said, "If you want to throw some seeds in your garden and grow some pot and smoke it yourself, I don't think it's anybody else's business.
After returning to San Francisco, the group was unsure what to do next. Those who joined The Farm had to accept Gaskin as their spiritual guru but he preferred being known as a teacher and not a leader. "We have been freethinkers for generations," Gaskin wrote. They pooled their money and started making decisions by consensus.
And he said her brother helped organize the longshoremen's union on the waterfront in San Francisco in the 1930s and '40s. Artificial birth control was forbidden. Im not a baby boomer; Im a beatnik, he told a reporter. Or purchase a subscription for unlimited access to real news you can count on. Gaskin went to prison in 1974 for marijuana possession and served one year of a three-year sentence. Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. A native of Denver, Colorado, he later lived in San Francisco, California, and ultimately settled in Summertown, Tennessee. The winner, Ralph Nader, received 295. Gaskin denied knowing about the weed, but took responsibility and went to prison.
More than 600 locals signed a petition protesting his three-year sentence, but to no avail. The sheriff called the Farmies a fine bunch of people. Mr. Gaskin was nonetheless arrested and convicted on drug charges after the police found a large marijuana patch on the property, having been alerted by passers-by who had witnessed naked commune members playing flutes to the plants. At San Francisco State University, he became a teaching assistant to S. I. Hayakawa, the semanticist. A caravan of some 60 school buses carrying several hundred followers came with him.
Living on The Farm taught me how to make it in this world, and I am grateful for that. But the 200 people who live at the Farm, he added, have managed to hang on to the hippie spirit., Timothy Miller, a religious studies professor at the University of Kansas who has studied communes, said in an interview that the Farm was the archetypal hippie commune in its commitment to higher consciousness, self-sufficiency, a clean environment and a flamboyant hippie style.. A teacher: Gaskin became a hippie guru in the 1960s when he started teaching at San Francisco State College. He served one year of a three-year sentence, and after being released successfully fought in the Tennessee Supreme Court to have his voting rights restored. No guns. In 1976, Gaskin married Ina May, who became nationally known through her 1977 book Spiritual Midwifery, which sold more than 600,000 copies. Most of them work in nearby towns, while others work within the community for homegrown industries like a book publishing company, soy dairy and solar electronics company. Mr. Gaskins wife, Ina May Gaskin, is a nationally known advocate for home births.
I honestly liked it better when it was a circus. By Mr. Gaskins account, the Farm sprang in part from spiritual revelations he had experienced while using LSD, the details of which he described to thousands of disciples, who gathered in halls around San Francisco to hear his meditations on Buddhism, Jesus and whatever else entered his mind. The Farm community members have not yet announced plans for Gaskin's funeral.
Answering Mr. Gaskins call to change the world, Farmies, as they called themselves, built 1,200 houses for the victims of a 1976 earthquake in Guatemala, set up volunteer ambulance services in the South Bronx and on an Indian reservation in upstate New York, and started a school lunch program in Belize and an agricultural training program in Liberia. Play it now. I haven't seen Stephen since 2003 but I cherish my visits to your home and your Thank-you, Stephen, for having been my spiritual teacher.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. Gaskin told The Associated Press that year he had no problem answering the question on marijuana, "Did you inhale?" And when life became confusing I could always turn to Stephen's books for direction and clarity.
Modern amenities gradually arrived; the phone service was informally known as Beatnik Bell. Plenty of work considered a form of meditation was assigned. Inside newlyweds' $60M seven-bedroom Beverly Hills mansion complete with its own HAIR SALON, I nearly wrote speeches for Meghan and Harry.
But otherwise, news accounts describe a friendly relationship between the commune and the neighboring communities. Its the name of Don Quixotes horse and John Steinbecks pickup truck, he said, so its a vehicle for an incurable idealist.. A message on The Farm's website reads: "We mourn the passing of Stephen Gaskin, our founder and friend. ), The cultural clich has it that the flower children danced at Woodstock, crashed at Altamont, and gradually shed their nave ideals as they made themselves into ice-cream moguls, media magnates and triangulating politicians, Jim Windolf wrote in Vanity Fair in 2007. He died at home on Tuesday, surrounded by family. A former obituary writer, Steve Chawkins joined the Los Angeles Times in 1987 after working as a reporter and editor at the Santa Fe Reporter in New Mexico and the Rocky Mountain News in Denver. Men were expected to treat women with knightly chivalry, he said. Gaskin was a Korean War veteran who became a hippie guru in the late 60s, teaching English at San Francisco State College. We dont do acid on the Farm, he told the San Francisco Chronicle. In 1980, Plenty International, a charitable organization Mr. Gaskin started, was awarded one of the first Right Livelihood Awards. Stephen Gaskin and his wife, Ina May, at the Farm in Summertown, Tenn., in July 2013. It also spurned insularity for outreach. All rights reserved. At its population peak in the late 1970s, some 1,500 people called The Farm home, living in tents, buses and ramshackle houses with as many as 60 people sharing close quarters. Im not a baby boomer; Im a beatnik. He graduated in 1969 from Trinity College in Hartford, Conn. Chawkins left The Times in 2015. Our condolences to Ina May and family.There were a lot of gurus to choose from out there back then but Stephen Gaskin was by far the most American of the bunch and that felt real and a little like home. In 1970, he embarked on a national speaking tour.
Mr. Gaskin served as a spiritual guide, preaching a philosophy that combined elements of Christianity with tenets of Eastern faiths. "I didn't exhale," he said. It was an honor to have known you, and to have helped produce the first edition of Spiritual Midwifery in the print shop at The Farm. His campaign statement declared: I want it to be understood that we are a bunch of tree-huggers and mystics and peaceniks. 'And I said, "We're a collective. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Here is all you want to know, and more!
By 1980, The Farm's population soared to more than 1,200 and they were finally breaking even. She previously worked for the Outlook and Local Living sections. Thanks Steven for the vision in welcoming all to the community. Domestically, the group founded an ambulance service for poor communities in the Bronx and did relief work after Hurricane Katrina. Above, workers on the farm pictures in December 1971, Spiritual guide: In order to live on The Farm you had to accept Gaskin as spiritual leader, but he preferred to be known as a teacher, All together: Members of the commune pooled resources and worked jobs to keep The Farm running, 'The cops said, "Whose pot is this?"' But a financial crisis a few years later led to a reorganization in which members began paying monthly dues. We started seeing meththat was skinny guys sleeping in doorwaysyou could tell the meth. Most of them work in nearby towns, while others work within the community for homegrown industries like a book publishing company and soy dairy. All for one, one for all, love thy neighbor, and meditate frequently. Businesses on The Farm include a publishing company and a firm that makes radiation detectors used by law enforcement agencies worldwide. It was going decadent, he said years later. Sometimes called the Technicolor Amish, the commune residents worked the land and eschewed material wealth. She described him as a visionary and spiritual guide who advocated being responsible and giving back to the community. The community became a nearly self-contained society, with an accredited K-12 school and a clinic with medical doctors. What great minds you and Ina Mae. Keep supporting great journalism by turning off your ad blocker. Taking his class on the road with the blessing of the American Academy of Religion, he traveled to churches in 42 states over four months as did several hundred supporters in colorfully painted buses, vans and campers. Today, the Farm has about 200 residents. Gaskin said his grandmother, who drove a covered wagon from Tennessee to Texas, was a freethinker and a suffragette who marched in the streets for the right of women to vote. In addition to his work on The Farm, Gaskin ran an unsuccessful campaign in 2000 to become presidential nominee for the Green Party. As the commune grew, families moved out of tents and into newly built houses.
I have passed my philosophical and religious ways on to my children, who are very proud of their heritage and ancestors." In 2000, Gaskin unsuccessfully sought the Green Partys presidential nomination, losing to Ralph Nader by a wide margin. Most residents, who pay The Farm a monthly fee, have jobs elsewhere and, unlike their early counterparts, manage their own money. They pursued ecological sustainability, adopting vegan diets and rigorous recycling practices. In the early 1980s, the group underwent the event known as the changeover. They transitioned from commune status into a collective living arrangement, in which members earned money and paid dues to the community for group needs.
The psychedelic testimony of the saints, he called it. It was all part of life in what he called liberated territory., We have our own school, bank, motor pool, medical clinic, and ambulance service, Gaskin told Mother Earth News in 1977. By Associated Press and Daily Mail Reporter, Published: 13:51 EDT, 2 July 2014 | Updated: 17:04 EDT, 2 July 2014, The death of a leader: Stephen Gaskin, founder of The Farm, died on Tuesday at his home on the commune, surrounded by family. Mr. Gaskin banned alcohol, tobacco and, to the surprise of many, LSD, though not marijuana. By 1979, The Washington Post reported, the Farm was the biggest and most prosperous commune in the United States, with its population peaking at more than 1,200. In 2004, he was inducted into High Times magazines Counterculture Hall of Fame. Vegetarianism was mandatory.