The Gift of Health

Dar­lene and Mar­i­on ​“Butch” Augspurg own and oper­ate a Christ­mas tree farm, The Branch Ranch, in Philadel­phia, MO. They love to share the Christ­mas spir­it and have been able to do that through their farm for a quar­ter of a cen­tu­ry after retir­ing. They attribute their health and abil­i­ty to keep going strong to the great care they receive from Quin­cy Med­ical Group.

Dar­lene and Mar­i­on ​“Butch” Augspurg’s sto­ry start­ed over 60 years ago. Both are from small towns in Mis­souri. They got mar­ried and went on to raise three chil­dren. They share many things, includ­ing a love for Christ­mas. They nev­er could have imag­ined where that love would take them.

Sev­er­al years ago, the cou­ple was on one of their fre­quent trips from their Philadel­phia, MO, home to Colum­bia, MO, where Darlene’s father was in the hos­pi­tal. On their path one day, some­thing caught their eye.

“On the way there, we would always dri­ve by a Christ­mas tree farm. I looked at Butch and said we should do that. I just love Christ­mas and thought it would be fun,” Dar­lene said.

The cou­ple was ready for their next adven­ture. Dar­lene had retired after work­ing for 38 years as a bus dri­ver and 25 years as a real­tor, while Butch retired from his career as a kitchen and bath design­er. Nei­ther had expe­ri­ence in the Christ­mas tree busi­ness, and the learn­ing curve was steep.

“We plant­ed 500 trees in the spring of 1990. Con­sid­er­ing it takes rough­ly sev­en to eight years for a Christ­mas tree to grow to be five to six feet, the first trees were sold in 1997,” Butch said.

That first year, they sold 25 trees.

“That’s all the fam­i­ly we had,” he said with a laugh.

“We had no idea what we were doing, so we had to learn every­thing from scratch. We reached out to the Mis­souri Christ­mas Tree Asso­ci­a­tion for help, and we were so grate­ful for them,” said Darlene.

For 27 years now, the Branch Ranch has been going strong. This past sea­son, they sold over 650 trees — a big change from that very first year, and they hope to keep the busi­ness strong for years to come.

For the Augspurgs, the hard work has been worth it because, while The Branch Ranch is cer­tain­ly in the Christ­mas tree-sell­ing busi­ness, it’s always been more about giv­ing their com­mu­ni­ty a lit­tle bit of the Christ­mas spirit.

“I get asked a lot how much longer we’re going to do this and I always say, ​‘It depends,’,” Dar­lene said. ​“I hope I’m out here doing this when I’m 100. That would be great.”

Home Is Where the Health Is

They said they’ve been blessed with their health to keep them going strong and say Quin­cy Med­ical Group (QMG) has a lot to do with that. They’ve been patients of the clin­ic for over 30 years. Before QMG opened its 1025 Maine St. build­ing, the cou­ple saw their doc­tor at the for­mer loca­tion at 14^th and Maine St., now home to the Quin­cy Pub­lic Schools Board of Edu­ca­tion office.

For years, they were patients of retired QMG Inter­nal Med­i­cine Physi­cian Dr. John Scott. They now see his col­league Dr. Gre­go­ry Andrews.

“We were patients of Dr. Scott’s for over 30 years. We start­ed see­ing him his first year at the clin­ic. We hat­ed to see him go, but we became patients of Dr. Andrews and he’s great,” shared Darlene.

Through the years, they’ve got­ten to see many of the QMG physi­cians. In fact, when they need a spe­cial­ist, they don’t look any­where else.

“We’re from this area and it’s nice to have a clin­ic with­in dri­ving dis­tance that has good doc­tors,” Dar­lene said. ​“As far as going to St. Louis or anoth­er place, no way. We have good doc­tors right here. We’re just well pleased.”

From pri­ma­ry care to walk-in care to spe­cial­ty care, they’ve come to know many of the QMG team. Their doc­tors include Dr. George Crickard, III, ortho­pe­dic surgery; Dr. Wis­sam Der­ian, car­di­ol­o­gy; Dr. Sumul Gand­hi, der­ma­tol­ogy; Dr. Kevin Hilton, ortho­pe­dic surgery; Dr. Anna Levin, der­ma­tol­ogy; Dr. David Phillips, oph­thal­mol­o­gy; Dr. Eric Sieck, oph­thal­mol­o­gy; Dr. Paul Tra­cy, optom­e­try; and Dr. Deb­o­rah Woodard, gynecology.

They recall one sto­ry about Dr. Sieck that high­lights the lev­el of care and com­mit­ment they receive at QMG.

“On a Sat­ur­day morn­ing, my hus­band got up and he wasn’t able to see. Every­thing was blur­ry and it real­ly upset me. I said, ​‘I’m going to call the clin­ic,’ and he said, There’s no one there on Sat­ur­day morn­ing.’ I said, ​‘You don’t know that.’ I called and Dr. Sieck was there see­ing surgery patients. When I told them what was going on, they told me to bring him right in,” she shared. ​“Dr. Sieck saw him right away. Butch had a detached reti­na and Dr. Sieck sent him to St. Louis to the Reti­na Cen­ter. He said, ​“You have to be there by six and this was 10 in the morn­ing. So we took off to St. Louis. They did surgery on him that night and we stayed overnight and came home the next day and he’s per­fect. We’ve nev­er for­got­ten that and what Dr. Sieck did for us.”

The kind­ness and care are felt through­out the clin­ic, they said, they feel wel­comed as soon as they walk in the door.

“When we come in, we’re greet­ed right away. I’ve formed a rela­tion­ship with the greeter. She shared peach pre­serves with me and I shared maple syrup with her,” Dar­lene said. ​“When I come in for my der­ma­tol­ogy appoint­ment, I can walk in and they give me a thumbs up and they already have me checked in. They know me. I’m clear at the back the room, they just give me a thumbs up. It makes me feel good.”

That wel­com­ing feel­ing that means so much to them is some­thing they extend to their vis­i­tors at The Branch Ranch. Those first 25 trees sold are now up to 650. On top of that, they served, this sea­son alone, 58 gal­lons of hot choco­late, 12 gal­lons of cider, and 2500 cook­ies — all made by the cou­ple and served in their small gray barn where their love for Christ­mas is on full dis­play. Lin­ing the walls and along the floor are hol­i­day knick­knacks. As Dar­lene point to each of them, she shares their sto­ry — from the art­work cre­at­ed in school by their now grown chil­dren to the dec­o­ra­tions hand­ed down by their parents.

To them, the lit­tle touch­es mat­ter, and the joy The Branch Ranch brings to the thou­sands who vis­it their farm each year fills their hearts.

“It’s been won­der­ful to see fam­i­lies come out and make mem­o­ries. We have a set of twins who first came out when they were two weeks old and now they’re 14,” said Darlene.

Butch added, ​“This place turns into a win­ter won­der­land each year and that’s not because of us; that’s because of the hun­dreds who come to see us each year. It’s a lot of fun.”