Charles Brosius, the grandson of a mushroom grower with the same name, had his eyes focused on a future as a professional engineer during his years as a Unionville High School student.

As time went by, however, the events he encountered during his life balked at his aspirations so heavily that he followed a path into farming and became a legend not just in the local agricultural community, but in the entire state of Pennsylvania.

Brosius, 93, said that, in the 1940s, while he was one of 42 members of the school’s class of 1948, the society around them was changing. People were moving into the area to work for companies like DuPont in Wilmington, and they had desires for their kids to go on to college and pursue their own prosperous lives through a good education.

Although he was a member of a farm family, Brosius eschewed the agriculture curriculum at the school and stuck with college prep courses. At that time, there was a segment of the male students who were engaged in the Ag science curriculum, while many of the girls took the secretarial course.

Brosius said he had his eye on a professional future as an engineer because he was fairly handy with tools and technical instruments, and the professional life had its benefits—like a good paycheck, weekends off and two weeks of vacation during the year.

Farmers don’t have that luxury, he said, because the crops arrive every day, even on the holidays or weekends.

In a picture taken circa 1924, Charles Brosius’ grandfather with the same name is shown on his 1924 Model T Ford taking mushrooms to market.

He said he told himself as he engaged in the college life at Millersville State College, “If I never walk inside a mushroom house again in m life, it will be too soon.”

The academic life was difficult for Brosius, however, because he found it hard to compete with the urban classmates who had a leg up on the ins and outs of education.

And yet, this difficulty was the beginning of his road back to the heights of agriculture that would take Brosius to the West Marlborough Board of Supervisors, the rank of Master Farmer, the Pennsylvania Secretary of Agriculture and trusteeship of Penn State, among other positions.

Early on, he took on menial jobs – even kitchen dish-washing -- to help pay his way for college. Almost as a foreshadowing of his future, he would somehow connect with higher positions each time that provided him with a few more dollars here and there.

Even as he worked in his menial kitchen job, an associate told him of a position cleaning out calf stalls on weekends that would almost double what he was making.

Brosius said he took that job for the financial benefits on weekends, even as his friends were going off to see football games. But part way through that calf job, he inadvertently reconnected a milking machine to the utters of a cow that had tipped over a bucket of milk.

That action didn’t go unnoticed by his superiors, who concluded this man was a farmer.

Additionally, early on in his pursuit of an education for engineering, he was told by a college dean, “What else do you want to do ‘cuz you’re going to fail engineering.”

He went on to major in dairy science at Penn State, and later took over the management of his father’s farm. The transition from a dairy operation to mushrooms came, he said, because the winters were ideal conditions for growing and it was a profitable thing to do in a season when the duties of running the dairy herd was lessened.

Brosius shows himself to be characteristically an individual who faces adversity and opportunities head on. While he said, “I’m the luckiest guy,” the truth is that the events of past history -- if they could talk -- have been lucky to encounter him.

Throughout his life he appeared to embrace whatever situations fate threw at him.

During the attack on mushroom growing industrywide by a disease referred to as “X-Disease,” a friend suggested that the cause might be somehow related to something in the air.

Even though his investment in the mushroom-growing had been cut by lack of production, he borrowed money to design and build an air handling/filtering machine. He installed it in one mushroom house and left the other unprotected. Shortly afterward, the house with the machine produced mushrooms and the unprotected house did not.

Another time, the company that purchased and distributed his fresh mushrooms in New York City informed him that the weight of his mushrooms he declared was inaccurately high. He found out that the containers in which he had packed them were porous and had absorbed moisture – and thus weight – from the contents.

He developed a blue plastic container that was not only attractive but waterproof. The moisture weight stayed in the mushrooms.

To this day he retains the rights to the blue, plastic containers.

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge, who was elected in 1994, tapped Brosius for state Secretary of Agriculture. That was a high point in his career and his life.

But there have been challenges, too.

This past February, fate threw another challenge at Brosius. The garage on his home property caught fire and destroyed many of his antique cars as well as his beloved calliope (or “band organ”) that sat on one of his old Fords.

The garage on the Brosius property, destroyed by fire in February, is already in the process of being rebuilt.

In recent years he has found joy in showing up at local events and playing the merry-go-round music for visitors as well as driving his old cars in parades.

Watching the remains after the fire, he said, “I cried for three days.”

However, as he has in the past, he shortly began to rebuild the garage and find a replacement for the calliope.

His search for a new calliope has taken him nationwide to find the machine, a person willing to sell one, and a roll of merry-go-round music to install. He has also engaged in investigating speakers to increase the sound. He has been successful, and he believes the vehicle and the calliope will be fully ready for showing off soon.

In recent months, Charles and his wife, Jane, have moved to Jenner’s Pond Retirement Community in Penn Township. They still retain ownership of the West Marlborough home, and he drives there each day to oversee the repairs, tend to the lawn and feed Molly, his dog.

Molly is also cared for by a tenant on the property.

The Brosius farm, Marlboro Mushrooms, is still in operation and is owned and managed by his two sons. It is run on renewable energy and has been honored as the oldest farm in Chester County.

Charles Brosius, whose great-grandfather tried growing mushrooms in a converted chicken coop and pig barn on an apparent whim, remains a legend in Chester County. He still treads those rural grounds daily and delights in trimming the grass on his new lawn tractor and fine-tuning his new calliope.