Max & Edna Sontheim celebrate 50 years

Max and Edna Sontheim say farming is good for your health and married life. The long-time Lyons residents have lived on and operated the 200-plus acre Sontheim Fruit Farm on Gansz Road since they were married 50 years ago. They celebrated their Golden Anniversary recently with a private dinner at the Springside Inn in Auburn. At the dinner were their immediate family, including their three children, daughter Bonnie Brazis of Lyons, and sons Ken of Colorado and Mike of Lyons. They have four grandchildren.

It was surely destiny that they would become life-long farmers. Max, whose father bought the farm in 1924, and the former Edna Goosen of Palmyra, met at a 4-H Club meeting in 1945. Two years later they were married and moved into the family farm they would never leave.

She is a graduate of Newark High School; he is a Lyons High School grad. In his youth he was well known as independent team basketball player competing against some of the world's best professional and amateur teams, including the Rochester Royals of the National Basketball Association and the touring Harlem Globetrotters.

The Sontheims remain active in community affairs, with Max having served in various high positions with the state and local Elks Club.

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