Sanders Orchard History Collection

Autumn was born in Jackson and her mother was Donna Sanders Stanley and she grew up in Jackson. She was an only child and never married. Autumn currently lives in California and has published 5 books. Autumn decided in 2009 to compile a biography of her Family's history, mainly about her grandfather's farm and the history of how it began, flourished and ended. Her grandfather, Lorenzo Dow Sanders, and Grandmother, Eva Sanders, owned a Farm near Albany in Athens County bought in 1919.It was an ordinary farm at first, her grandfather payed no attention to the "old orchard up on the hill", but in 1920 after Dow allowed the Albany High agriculture teacher and his students to care for his orchard for a project, Dow began focusing more on the orchard. Dow had 25 different kinds of apples as well as peaches, plums, pears, cherries, grapes and boysenberries. It became a very popular destination for apples with costumers coming all the way from Kentucky and Indiana. In the mid-1940s it won many local contests for variety and beauty, the orchard peaked around 1940. Unfortunately, Dow died in 1950 and Eva, his spouse, was unable to continue caring for the orchard and unable to sell it. Nowadays, the land is filled with houses and the only original record of the once very popular Dow apple Orchard are the Orchard Spraying Journals Dow kept back in the 1940s.