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MEMBER PROFILE: TAMMY MOSSER KIPFER
Tammy Mosser Kipfer grew up in the tiny town of Greenwood Lake, NY. Located in the foothills of the Catskill Mountains, the area is in the middle of the 650,000 acre black dirt farm region of Orange County. Onions are the primary crop but there are other vegetables, orchards, vineyards and dairy farms throughout the region.
An idyllic setting but not such an idyllic life for Tammy’s family which included three boys and three girls. Making ends meet was difficult for the family and as soon as they were old enough, the kids helped by working when not in school. Tammy and her sister delivered the local newspaper, the Greenwood Lake News every week for six years along with other odd jobs.
She considers her first real job as a cook at a German restaurant in town. She was 16 years old, and that experience started her interest in cooking for other people. She believes her accent developed from listening to many older immigrants from various countries who lived in the community. The immigrants from Russia, Germany and Poland who spoke with accents and broken English influenced Tammy’s way of speaking.
Tammy calls herself a “backwoods girl” who had dreams of becoming a nurse or a veterinarian. Although she never received formal training in those areas, she has nursed many a sick animal and even a few people through the years.
As a young girl Tammy loved singing in the school choir and playing softball. She credits her years in Girls Scouts for helping her develop character and confidence.
After she graduated from high school, she married and raised a son and daughter. She now has three grandchildren who live up north who she visits when she can.
She worked a variety of jobs one of which was caring and training racehorses. She even took a course at the local vo-tech which taught her that skill.
After her marriage ended, she still stayed in New York until 2007 when she was called to care for her mother who had remarried and moved to Batesville. Her mom passed away in 2009 with cancer.
For the first time in her life, Tammy was no one’s caregiver. No parents, no kids, no significant other to be responsible for just her sister Tara who is more like a best friend. She was content with the situation and with her job in food service at White River Medical Center cooking and directing the program. She had begun attending St. Paul’s about that time and enjoyed singing in the choir.
Soon after her mom’s passing, she met Junior Kipfer, at first as the “guy who could work on cars” but soon they were a couple and married in 2012. Junior is a disabled veteran having fought in Vietnam.
The Kipfers bought 40 acres of land near Melbourne with hills, bluffs, creeks and a waterfall. They raise and sell meat and dairy goats, poultry, ducks, geese chickens and turkeys.
Although the property included a three-bedroom fixer-upper, they choose to make their home in a customized Bald Eagle Barn, one bedroom, one bath, “off the grid” (no electrical hookup). They supply their power with a generator which uses about 4 gallons of gasoline a day and cook with propane.
Tammy has filled a role at St. Paul’s by heading up a cooking team for Wednesday suppers but she hasn’t stopped there. She prepares food for special events at church and often delivers meals to various groups such as the Family Violence Prevention clients. She learned how to make the best use of food from the story of Jesus feeding the multitudes with five loaves and five fishes.
Tammy says she feels called to make her mission feeding the hungry “because I too was once hungry.”
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