Meet Wayne Fortna, a Pennsylvania teacher who kept one white pumpkin alive for nearly 40 years just for Thanksgiving pie; gardeners can still buy its seeds today

Wayne Fortna grew the same pumpkin from the same seed lineage for nearly 40 years, so he could make his family a pie every Thanksgiving, according to Seed Savers Exchange, the nonprofit seed-preservation group that now lists the variety in its catalog. The tradition had no special meaning for the Gettysburg, Pa., schoolteacher beyond the fact that he kept it faithfully until he died in 1990. An oral history project by the Seed Savers Exchange gathered stories about Old Mr. Fortna's pumpkin, including quotes from his daughter and the volunteer growers who now tend the plant. This nonprofit organization documents how American families have kept certain crops thriving.

Coming home from war and finding his way back to the soil

Before becoming a pumpkin celebrity, Wayne Fortna served in World War II. After returning from the war, it was not easy for him to adjust to the "normal" life. His daughter, Sue Ellen Majer, said her father had PTSD and was unable to return to teaching because of it, a detail she shared as part of Seed Savers Exchange's oral history project on the family. The only thing that helped him was returning to the soil. Fortna was not alone; many veterans experienced similar difficulties after the war. Battle stress reaction, or battle fatigue, was not officially recognized as PTSD until 1980, when the American Psychiatric Association published DSM-III. As a result, veterans from earlier conflicts often did not receive the treatment and support now associated with PTSD. The only thing that could help was a personal approach to alleviate his symptoms, like Fortna and his beloved gardens.


One aunt, one handful of seeds, and a lifelong habit

His aunt, Carrie Stayman, raised Wayne and gave him a small supply of white pumpkin seeds after noticing his interest in gardening. Fortna never forgot those seeds, and for nearly 40 years he grew the same pumpkin, saving its seeds each year so he would always have white pumpkins. He never intended to sell the seeds or exhibit the pumpkins. It was simply a pie made from a pumpkin that had been growing in the family yard for years.

The near miss that almost erased his pumpkin for good

Wayne Fortna passed away in 1990, leaving a small window of opportunity for the Fortna White pumpkin, an heirloom variety. After his death, his daughter, Sue Ellen Majer, saw a flyer from Landis Valley Village and Farm Museum's Heirloom Seed Project and sent the family's seeds there for safekeeping, according to Seed Savers Exchange's oral history project. Landis Valley Village and Farm Museum is a state historic site in Pennsylvania. According to the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, the site preserves historic buildings, landscapes, animals, and plants tied to Pennsylvania Dutch rural life. Volunteers helped regrow the heirloom pumpkin variety, which the museum finally added to its Landis Valley collection of heirloom plant cultivars. About 25 years later, Sue Ellen grew a pumpkin of her own and let its seeds mold, so she ordered replacement seeds from the Landis Valley catalog, not realizing at first that she was ordering back the same seeds her family had donated a quarter-century earlier, according to a Landis Valley Heirloom Seed Project volunteer's own written account of tracing the seed's history.

One family's pumpkin and the national effort to save crop diversity

Heirloom vegetables are often associated with amateur gardeners, but seed saving is also a major federal effort. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service, the National Plant Germplasm System holds more than 593,000 germplasm accessions representing nearly 15,900 plant species, preserved to safeguard crop genetic diversity. Preserving one variety helps preserve diversity more broadly, so when Fortna chose to keep growing his heirloom white pumpkin, he helped preserve genetic diversity. That diversity may be what saved the variety, since Sue Ellen's decision to contact Landis Valley may have been the only thing that kept the pumpkin from disappearing like so many family heirlooms.

Growing the same pumpkin Wayne Fortna grew, right in your own backyard

Landis Valley's Heirloom Seed Project preserves and distributes the crop, and gardeners can request or purchase the seeds to grow the same variety Fortna cultivated for decades, according to the project's own seed listing for the Fortna White pumpkin. Fortna did not set out to become known for seed saving; by his daughter's account, he wanted pie every November. It took nearly four decades of patient tending, as Seed Savers Exchange has documented, and a small group of growers has helped ensure that the white pumpkin and the tradition it represents continue in homes across America.