When we first began dating in 1996, one afternoon during a visit with Ralph's daughter, Jessica, from a previous marriage, we embarked on a painting project. Ralph was a commercial seafood harvester and wanted his daughter to put her handprints on his dingy (small boat, for you non-sea-faring folks). We also had Jessica make large paintings of both her handprints and foot prints which, we later framed. Not paying attention to a child with paint on her hands, a set of little green and orange handprints ended up on the tailgate of Sandra's pick-up truck.
Due to circumstances beyond our control, we were unable to speak to or see Jessica after February 19, 1998. When we moved to Pennsylvania in 2000, she continued to be in our hearts and thoughts every day.
We tossed around a number of ideas for a farm name, Cherry Hill being one of them until we found out this old farm wasn't the old cherry orchard despite the two huge cherry trees in front of the house--it was the farm down the road.
One day we looked at the hand prints on the back of the truck and said to ourselves, "Painted Hand Farm". It was a way we could include Jessica in our daily lives despite our loss of her.
In the fall of 2004, we were contacted by an old friend of Ralph's in the Santa Barbara Harbor who told us he had spoken to Jessica and she was asking about her father. Sadly, her biological mother had been telling Jessica that Ralph was dead. After several days of telephone calls to his ex-wife and her family, Ralph made contact with Jessica and was able to communicate with her via email for a few weeks until all communication stopped as suddenly as it had begun.
He made numerous attempts to contact his daughter by telephone over the next few weeks, until we received an ominous email telling us that Jessica had been hospitalized as well as taken from the custody of her biological mother after being physically abused. We were devastated, even more so when reports from Social Services revealed allegations of abuse dating back several years.
While Jessica was in an emergency shelter, we spoke with her every day over the telephone until Ralph could make arrangements to travel to California and resolve the situation. She seemed genuinely happy to hear from us, but was still very guarded toward us and about the prospect of coming to Pennsylvania to live. In an effort to show her some of our life here, we asked the foster parents if they would show her our web site.
When we gave her the web address, Jessica became very quiet. When she finally spoke she asked, "Why did you name the farm 'Painted Hand'?"
"We named it after you, sweetheart. We named the farm after you because there hasn't been a day gone by that we haven't thought of you," was our reply.
From that moment on, Jessica knew that over the years we had never forgotten her and that she would have a place to soon call home with us.
On Christmas Day, 2004, Jessica came home to live with us on the farm. The following summer, she added a fresh set of hand prints above the ones she put on Sandra's truck all those years ago.
And that is how Painted Hand Farm got its name.
