Sow She Grows in Frankfort, Michigan

Charla Burgess has had dirt under her fingernails her entire life—and she wouldn’t have it any other way. She grew up in Woodstock, a farming town in northern Illinois, and one of her first jobs as a child was helping out on a local dairy farm.

She later developed a deep love of gardening and eventually moved from Illinois to Northern Michigan with her then-husband. “It just felt like home,” she says.

Burgess’s life in the North began in Traverse City – she worked at Northwestern Michigan College and lived in a farmhouse on the Old Mission Peninsula – and began tinkering with a commercial business that revolved around growing fruits and vegetables and baking bread and other treats. She also became a mother to her daughter Willa and son Simon.

Burgess’ family moved to Benzie County in 2009 and bought a farm – The Farm at Echo Bend – where she planned to raise her children and put down roots. But four years later, her world was turned upside down when she lost the farm in her divorce.

“She took a hopeless situation and rebuilt her life from scratch,” says her close friend Christina Ryan-Stoltz. “She strengthened her roots, cultivated her soil and her soul, and used her story to move herself and her children forward.”