As Mary Pat Sass’ social media shows glimpses of life from the seat of the tractor, it’s not the view she envisioned for her life even a decade ago.
“I grew up on a dairy farm, loved everything about it, but I just didn’t see a place for me to come back,” says Sass, who was raised on her family’s dairy farm in Wisconsin.
With an older brother who was more involved on the dairy, she wanted to get into the ag industry, but not necessarily farm. She went to college, first majoring in dairy genetics, but that quickly changed and she switched to crops.
“I could never sit still,” she says. “That’s why I kind of got into the field work more, and where my passion continued to grow. But then I got my dream job for a corporation, and I worked in their ag technology department.”
Her dream job put her on the road, which eventually led her to Illinois.
“I had never planned to live here. Honestly, I would have avoided it,” says the Wisconsin native. “But then met my husband while I was working in the area, and he just stole my heart. So, I moved to Illinois with him after we got married.”
Mary Pat and her husband Josh are celebrating seven years of marriage this weekend, tackling life hand in hand on Sass’ family farm in northern Wisconsin.
“We are fifth-generation farmers,” says Josh. “My grandpa came out from the Chicago area as a vegetable farmer and started farming grain. And my dad continued on, and us three boys are continuing from there.”
Even after Josh and Mary Pat got married, she was still living the corporate job life, which kept her constantly on the road.
“I loved the job, because I got to work with farmers. I got to help them with technology and utilizing technology, and I really did feel like that was a job where I was able to make a difference for farmers.”
She still loved her job, but it was then that life produced a different calling.
“My dream has changed,” says Mary Pat.
Five years ago, after just becoming a mom to her son, Mary Pat describes it as experiencing a “light bulb moment.”
“I was holding my new baby, and I just realized the job was important, but this [family] is the most important,” she says. “So, that’s kind of where I totally took a 180 on what I wanted to do and who I wanted to become.”
With a realization her dream had changed, she took a big risk and decided to leave her full-time corporate career to focus on her family full-time.
Five years later, she says it’s the best decision she and Josh could have made at that moment. Josh says he loves seeing his wife, and mother of their two children, so happy.
“He’s always been so supportive of whatever I feel like is going to be the right route,” she says.
“I kind of told her to do whatever makes her happy,” adds Josh. “And whatever she wanted to do was what I would support her in.”
Even when she left her job, Mary Pat says she didn’t think she would be so involved on the farm. Her plan was to be a mom full-time, which she is, to her 5-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter. And while working on the farm isn’t her full-time job today, her role has changed, getting more involved. During the busy season you’ll find her in the field and behind the wheel of a tractor, helping out the family farm she married into seven years ago.
“I’m mostly on tillage,” she says. “And most of the time I have my daughter with me. She’s the 2-year-old. We’ve been kind of the dynamic duo out there in the tractors getting some tillage work done.”
Not only does she help on the farm, Josh says Mary Pat is willing to hop in and help in other areas and is constantly learning new things.
“She’s amazingly supportive in what we’re doing here,” says Josh. “Whatever I need to do on the farm, she’s game for it. Whatever she needs to do, she’s game for that, too.”
Josh says one of the things he also admires about his wife is her work ethic. Even he admits that’s also a credit to her upbringing and dairy farming roots.
“Dairy farmers put in a lot of work, and my father-in-law gives me a hard time about that sometimes, but we probably don’t work as hard as dairy farmers,” says Josh with a smile.
Mary Pat shares glimpses of life around the farm and with her immediate family on social media, which started more than four years ago with a funny moment on the farm.
“She had packed this really nice lunch for me, and I had to call her about an hour later and say, ‘Hey, I ran over my lunchbox,’” Josh remembers.
“It was one of those things that happened where I thought about how this kind of stuff happens all the time to us, just random stuff like this. And I feel like people get entertainment from it,” says Mary Pat.
In just four years, her social media following has grown more than she imagined, with more than 104,000 followers on Instagram, 253,000 on TikTok, and 39,000 on Facebook.
“I had been feeling a pull to help support agriculture as I had been in my prior role, just in a different way,” says Mary Pat. “And now as a mom and supporting the farm here with my family, I would love to be a voice for more and try to connect with other farm families and maybe some consumers, as well.”
She tries to reach other farm wives by sharing stories — and precious moments — on the farm. By doing so, Mary Pat hopes it helps other women who may want to be more involved in their own farm.
“I try to share in an approachable way to help people understand what we do, and kind of create this relatable, farm mom content and help other farm wives and moms feel like they’re not alone in what they’re doing,” says Mary Pat.
Josh was reluctant to expose the farm and family to social media at first, thinking it would only bring out critics. But to his surprise, Mary Pat’s social media has opened doors for them to meet new friends. When Josh does appear in one of his wife’s videos, Mary Pat says he’s definitely a fan favorite.
“He is so supportive. He just doesn’t like to be on camera, and I’m okay with that,” says Mary Pat. “I would never want to put him in a position where he’s like feeling pressured to do it all the time. But when he does show up it’s in in his true colors, because he is a very charismatic person, and my audience really likes that.”
One of the ventures she’s the most proud of is Grounded Journals, her most recent business venture.
“I’ve tried to make an easy way for us to keep our memories on the farm,” says Mary Pat. “And it’s really born out of kind of the history of our own farm and having conversations with my grandmother-in-law after she told me she wished she would have written more down through the years.”
In that moment, she knew it was the right time to start writing about her and Josh’s own legacy.
“So, I created these journals to make a simple way for farmers to write about their experiences, and also for the past generations to recollect back on their farming experience so we can keep their stories, too,” says Mary Pat.
With questions to prompt farmers and ranchers along the way, her goal is to make it easier for them to capture memorable moments.
“This is really a cup filling business for me,” she says. “I get a lot of feedback on how thankful people are that these have been created as a way for them to keep their family’s memories and an easy way, too.”
While Mary Pat’s life may seem busy, that’s not her goal.
“I’ll tell you, I don’t take pride in being busy,” she says. “So, it may look like I do a lot of things, but I just do a lot of different things, and my main focus is always my family and my kids.”
Mary Pat says she’s developed a strong conviction to be an extremely present parent, which means when she’s home with her kids, she puts electronics and distractions aside.
When asked how she balances it all, she says she doesn’t view it as a balance, instead, it’s more about seasons of focus.
“I think there are seasons where I work three days, and then I can take two days and put my best mom hat on,” says Mary Pat.
And even as she latches onto more roles on the farm, her family is still her focus.
“If anything, the place that I’ve been leaning in the most more recently is being more involved on the farm and getting involved more operationally while bringing my kids along. I’ve been developing that side of me, because honestly, when I quit my job, I would never have thought that I would be this involved,” she says. “And, really, I’m not proud, I’m grateful for the opportunity to be a part of it the way I have been.”
