‘Just his time.’ Longtime Prosser dairy farmer who lost his home to wildfire has died
When a wildfire destroyed Jim and LaVonne Boogerd’s home over Labor Day, they relied on their faith and their family.
The owners of Spring Creek Dairy watched as fires near Prosser sent a spark into their yard that started a blaze in their manufactured home not even firefighters could squelch. And although they lost everything, the couple told the Herald at the time that they knew they would be OK.
Just two months later, the Boogerd family is facing another devastating loss. Their patriarch Jim Boogerd died Thursday in Prosser after suffering a heart attack. He was 60.
“The stress of the fire did not do it. It was just his time,” his wife of 37 years told the Herald.
His ties to the dairy industry run deep. The father of three had lived in the home since 2008 when he took over Spring Creek Dairy. He and his wife also previously owned Circle B Dairy.
”One of the best parts was having our kids out here doing chores with me every day,” wrote the couple on a Dairy Farmers of Washington Facebook post in 2018. “It’s even better now to have our daughter working with us and raising her kids on the farm. Doing all this as a family just makes it feel a little more rewarding.”
After the fire, which also destroyed a nearly 100-year-old train trestle over the Yakima River, the Boogerds stayed in a trailer home near their daughter, Alyssa, who ran the dairy with her father.
And the couple was in the process of getting a new manufactured home. “The house was his last plan of taking care of me,” said LaVonne.
She said she’s been clinging to her faith in recent days and receiving an outpouring of support from neighbors, their church and the dairy industry. They are longtime members of the Grandview Nazarene Church.
“When you’re a part of a community and you’re working with a community, and you’re a part of a church, you’re never alone,” Jim Boogerd said after the fire in September.
“We shed more tears of what people did for us and gave to us after the fire, than for the fire itself,” LaVonne said on Saturday. She said it feels the same way now.
A graveside service is planned Tuesday at 10 a.m. at the East Prosser Cemetery, with a celebration of life at 11:30 a.m. at the Grandview Nazarene Church.
Smith Funeral Home in Sunnyside is handling his services.