I. Farm, Family, Formation of a Practical Mind

Josephine Snyder was born into a farm family in Cherry Valley outside Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. Her daughter, Abigail Porter’s, oral history states that her grandfather [Josephine’s father] bought it in 1910 from his great grandmother’s estate, originally identified in a 1700s grant as “Land grant for ancestors' service in French and Indian war.” These are family-history statements; neither the deed nor the original land-grant record has been independently reviewed. The farm was multigenerational and diversified, with dairy cows, crops, gardens, and a retail milk route. (A. Porter oral history, p. 1; A. Porter, written clarifications, 2026; Bio-Dynamics no. 152, Fall 1984, p. 76; James Silverthorne oral history, pp. 3–5.)

Josie was one of five children. Abigail Porter remembers a family in which education, work, and mutual obligation linked tightly, imprinting on how they interacted with each other. Josie’s mother insisted that her daughters have sufficient education to be able to make real choices in the world rather than slip into marriages that might not fit them well; Josie delayed college for two years so that a younger sister could attend with her and both young women studied at Blackburn College in Illinois where, Abigail recalls, “the tuition was very low, and the students worked.” Abigail dates her mother’s attendance from 1934-1936, with graduation in 1936: “At that time Blackburn was a liberal arts college and offered 2-year programs.” [college records have not been reviewed here]. (Applied Biodynamics no. 4, Summer 1993, p. 1; A. Porter oral history, pp. 2–4; A. Porter, written clarifications, 2026.)

Early on, Josie had demonstrated unusual academic ability, having skipped two grades at the one-room Cherry Valley school and finishing Stroudsburg High School in 1932, just after her sixteenth birthday. People who knew Josie later on in her life, consistently described her as having a quick, searching intelligence. Her sister, Millie Crider, recalled that she had an acute ear and a gift for writing. Courtney also emphasized her perceptiveness, while Silverthorne remembered that her answers to agricultural questions were clear, sensible, and grounded in observation. Other friends often recalled her sparkling eyes, especially when she smiled. (Applied Biodynamics no. 4, Summer 1993, p. 1; Bio-Dynamics no. 152, Fall 1984, pp. 76–78; Silverthorne oral history, pp. 6–10.)

The 1993 profile adds: “During the Depression she made an effort to deliver milk to families with children, whether or not they could pay.” The profile calls her “the milk lady” and states: “During the 1940's she was the inspiration for a popular recorded song, "Queen of the Poconos."” Abigail’s 2026 clarification is more specific: “The Queen of the Pocono song was indeed specifically written about her, the ‘red head in Cherry Valley,’ and was used as tourist promotion.” Family materials include a vinyl copy that identifies George Coward as the recorded singer; the lyrics were written by Lee Smith who worked for the tourist industry. (Applied Biodynamics no. 4, Summer 1993, p. 1; A. Porter, written clarifications, 2026.)

Porter became interested in osteopathic medicine after she met Dr. Max Gerson, a physician who treated her mother. Abigail's oral history states: “...her mother [J. Porter’s mother] had become ill. She was originally diagnosed with cancer locally, and my mother sought out a nutritional doctor, Doctor Max Gerson, who was known for his treatment of cancer with raw juice, a lot of raw juices [Gerson Therapy]. He did further testing, and she didn’t have cancer after all, but she did have cirrhosis, liver disease.” Abigail’s 2026 clarification adds: “My mother was taking my grandmother to Max Gerson in the 1940s into the 1950s until her death in spring of 1954 . . . my mother prepared all the special raw foods and injections for her, including grinding up raw liver and pressing out the juice.” (A. Porter oral history, p. 2; A. Porter, written clarifications, 2026.)

Although Porter could have followed and pursued her interest in medicine–and, indeed, had saved money to do so–she found something that spoke to her more deeply when she discovered biodynamics and met Ehrenfried Pfeiffer. Her discovery of biodynamics caused her to follow the question that had drawn her to medicine back to the beginning of what she considered the source of illness: before the medical clinic is the person who isn’t well; before the person is the food; before the food is the plant or animal; and beneath them all is the soil. Biodynamics gave her a way to work on health at its roots. While this impulse was finding its way to conscious application, she returned to the farm after college graduation to deliver milk, intending to raise money to continue her education. (Applied Biodynamics no. 4, Summer 1993, p. 1; Bio-Dynamics no. 152, Fall 1984, p. 78.)

II. I Have Found It: Health at the Roots

Josie’s April 1946 letter to her sister begins: “I have found it - the Bio-Dynamic method of farming and gardening.” She wrote that she had “for a long time been interested in health which depends upon healthy plants, animals and soil life,” and that she had been attending the biodynamic conference in Spring Valley. Impressed by Dr Pfeiffer, she found herself changing course. In this new field of endeavor, she met her destiny and truly began her life’s work.The April 1946 letter is the strongest contemporary evidence for her entry into biodynamics. (Bio-Dynamics no. 152, Fall 1984, p. 78.)

Abigail Porter’s 2026 clarification states: “She wrote the letter to her sister in 1946, saying she had ‘just’ returned from the biodynamic conference in Spring Valley NY.” The 1947 Spring Valley photograph documents her continued participation, not attendance at her first conference. (Bio-Dynamics no. 152, Fall 1984, pp. 78–79; A. Porter oral history, pp. 3–5; A. Porter, written clarifications, 2026.)

At the time, American biodynamics was small and personally interconnected. Evelyn Speiden (Gregg) studied in Dornach in 1933–34 and worked under Pfeiffer at Kimberton in the early 1940s. Gregg recognized Porter’s interest in preparation making “so we worked together for a year or two and about 1955 she took over the whole job.” Abigail’s 2026 clarification adds: “After my mother went to her first biodynamic conference in 1946, Pfeiffer came to the family farm at least once to look at the farm, soil, and likely advise her on best places for preparation burial and perhaps some soil management consulting.” She also records Pfeiffer’s later response to a preparation question: “keep on doing whatever she was doing” as the results were good. These statements document Gregg’s practical teaching and direct Pfeiffer–Porter consultation, without establishing a formally dated apprenticeship under Pfeiffer. (Bio-Dynamics no. 152, Fall 1984, pp. 78–79; Applied Biodynamics no. 31, Winter 2000–2001, p. 4; A. Porter, written clarifications, 2026.)

Her work in the field was acknowledged by Helen Philbrick, a BDA board member and its accountant, who later referred to Josephine as a strong association member until 1984. (Bio-Dynamics no. 152, Fall 1984, p. 80.)

III. Between Farms, Family, and the Movement

In August of 1953, Josie married Harris Porter, a Cape Cod farmer and biodynamic preparation enthusiast. Abigail was born the following year in September 1954. (A. Porter oral history, pp. 1–2; A. Porter, written clarifications, 2026.)

For a while, family and biodynamic movement work shifted back and forth between Pennsylvania and New York. From 1956 to 1958, the Porters lived in the Gregg home adjoining Pfeiffer’s farm in Chester, New York, while the Greggs traveled to India. The family later spent time in Dover Plains, New York. These moves placed Josie close to Pfeiffer and the active circle around the Biodynamic Farming and Gardening Association [future BDA]. They also show how the biodynamic movement actually functioned. The office, the farm, the family, and the movement shared the same rooms. (A. Porter oral history, p. 2; Bio-Dynamics no. 152, Fall 1984, p. 79.)

When Josephine Porter’s marriage ended, she returned to the Pennsylvania farm in spring 1964. Abigail clarifies: “my mother moved back to the family homestead in PA when I was nine. (spring 1964)” (Applied Biodynamics no. 4, Summer 1993, p. 1; A. Porter oral history, p. 6; A. Porter, written clarifications, 2026.)

IV. The Letters and Shipments That Held U.S. Biodynamics Together

The Person at the Other End of the Letter

Porter’s 1993 profile states: “In 1956, Porter became secretary-treasurer of the Bio-Dynamic Farming & Gardening Association.” Her daughter, Abigail’s oral history adds: “she took over the secretary[-treasurer] job then and continued to hold that until ’73, and was also on the board for many years until her death in 1984” She recalled: “My mother was sending out the publication, answering questions. She would set up [a table] at conferences, Natural Food and Farming conferences, representing the Biodynamic Association, selling books and preparations.” (Applied Biodynamics no. 4, Summer 1993, p. 1; A. Porter oral history, p. 3.)

Managing correspondence was an important part of her work. Before websites, online courses, or a strong network of regional groups, someone curious about biodynamics might find a small journal, meet a farmer, or stop at a conference table—and then write a letter. Josephine was often the person who received and answered the inquiry. She explained methods, sent information, filled orders, and let an isolated grower know others were attempting the same work. Her farm kitchen and living room became, in effect, a national biodynamic office. (Applied Biodynamics no. 4, Summer 1993, p. 1; A. Porter oral history, pp. 3, 7.)

Joe Francis, a biodynamic farmer, remembered meeting her at biodynamic and natural-food conferences beginning in 1956. She staffed the association’s book table and spoke about the preparations in a way he reminisced as reserved, sweet, and wholly dedicated. Heinz Grotzke, a BDA board member and herb garden owner in Rhode Island, also recalled her gentle, helpful presence at Golden Acres and Spring Valley conferences—someone willing to give anyone the answer to a practical question. Josephine led by being useful, and she usually did this with kindness and a smile, as if no inquiry was too inconsequential or burdensome. (Applied Biodynamics no. 40, Spring 2003, p. 5; no. 41, Summer 2003, pp. 7–9.)

When the Work Became Her Own

Abigail’s oral history states: “my mother had asked for a raise from the Biodynamic Association to help pay my college expenses. . . The Biodynamic Association basically said they didn’t have the money, and they ended up splitting up [her] job between three or four volunteers . . . after that, it [making BD preparations] was a private enterprise on her part. The preparation-making was no longer under the auspices of the Biodynamic Association.” Hugh Courtney independently wrote that preparation making and distribution became Porter’s “private enterprise” after she requested a “modest increase in her salary.” Abigail’s 2026 clarification dates the physical transfer of Association materials to late 1972 or 1973. (A. Porter oral history, p. 7; Applied Biodynamics no. 31, Winter 2000–2001, pp. 4–5; A. Porter, written clarifications, 2026.)

Courtney wrote that “toward the end of her life, Josephine Porter was sending out preparation orders which cost her personally not less than fifty cents per order above what was being paid by the person ordering.” He added: “for the last several years of her life, she subsidized the preparations work out of her own meager resources, leaving a much-encumbered estate for her heirs.” (Applied Biodynamics no. 31, Winter 2000–2001, p. 6.)

V. One Farm, Many Burdens

A Farm That Had to Pay Its Way

As a working homestead, the Porter farm needed to produce income. Goats became central to that goal. Her daughter, Abigail Porter, remembers Marjorie Spock, another important figure in American biodynamics, as the source of her mother’s first goats, purchased from Spock when the family lived in Dover Plains, NY. She eventually increased the herd numbers until they totaled around one hundred, with approximately sixty animals milked twice a day.. Porter sold raw goat milk under a farm license locally, and wholesaled milk to Pure Goat Products in Boyertown, PA, more than 50 miles away. She also made cheese. In addition, she tended cattle, chickens, and bees, and offered beef, eggs, hay, field crops, seedlings (now called micro-greens), mung-bean sprouts, and other items for sale. (A. Porter oral history, pp. 6–13; Silverthorne oral history, pp. 2–12; Applied Biodynamics no. 4, Summer 1993, p. 1.)

Kate Shelley Du Vivier, an intern in 1972, remembered the heavy work involved to complete all these tasks: dozens of goats to milk, the other animals to care for, hay to prepare, and a large garden to tend, as well as the creamery and its customers to see to, plus association responsibilities, and preparation work. In spite of Porter’s physical slightness, her apparently inexhaustible sense of purpose and commitment kept the work going. (Bio-Dynamics no. 152, Fall 1984, pp. 80–81.)

Silverthorne’s comments show that some sacrifices had to be made: “The special sprays, the 500 and the 501, the horn silica, the two horn sprays, they weren’t accomplished so much. I think she didn’t have the help to do that.” He added: “we didn’t get it on all the acreage. Got it on most of her home acreage, but not on the rented acreage.” He also distinguished this from compost use: “there was more than a little bit of biodynamically made compost applied.” Thus prepared compost was used extensively, while field-spray usage was incomplete. (James Silverthorne oral history, p. 7.)

The 1993 profile states: “Although Josie's dream of having her farm become a model biodynamic farm and training center was never fully realized, it served to plant the seeds for future biodynamic farmers.” Abigail Porter’s 2026 clarification attributes the limits to insufficient labor and finances. (Applied Biodynamics no. 4, Summer 1993, p. 1; A. Porter, written clarifications, 2026.)

The Cost of Agricultural Independence

Abigail remembers her mother searching for financing to expand the goat dairy after her Biodynamic Association employment ended. The Farm Credit System refused to approve a loan because Josephine would not adopt chemical farming, according to her family. A local bank finally extended credit. (A. Porter oral history, pp. 8–10.)

Porter also participated in organizations other than those associated with biodynamics, including raw-milk advocacy, the National Health Federation, and the local Grange; affording her the opportunity to share her thoughts on food quality, agricultural law, farm livelihoods, and human health. (A. Porter oral history, pp. 10–13.)

VI. The Preparations by Sight, Touch, and Smell

More Than a Recipe

Biodynamic preparations are small amounts of specially transformed mineral, plant, and animal materials used in compost, on the soil, and on growing plants. Practitioners of biodynamics understood them as remedies that help stimulate the biological and formative life of the farm. The philosophy underlying the power of these preparations may sound extraordinary but making them is very concrete, precise work that has to be well timed in order to be successful. Transformed preparations require the right materials buried in healthy sheaths [containers such as cow horns], the right season in which to mature them, a suitable location and burial area in the earth, protection from drying and contamination, and a great deal of patient observation. The more practiced the preparation maker the better the product.

Courtney wrote: “She was justifiably pleased that Dr. Pfeiffer during his lifetime regarded her preparations as the yardstick against which he could measure the quality of B-D preparations made by others, but she was never prideful of her efforts.” [After Josephine’s death, scientist Chris Stern was working at the Pfeiffer Foundation. He made chromatograms, a tool determining preparation quality, of her three-year old 500 (horn manure) preparation, comparing it with a recent supply from Europe. Porter’s showed much better quality even though it was older than its European counterparts.] Helen Philbrick, who used the preparations, described their “ precision and the exquisite packaging and the fine quality.” Similarly Jim Barausky, who also learned from Porter, said she taught that “if one did it right, then you could tell [preparation quality] by sight, feel and smell.” (Bio-Dynamics no. 152, Fall 1984, pp. 78–80.)

Courtney added that she “operated from the most practical level, ‘in the direct perception’ of things”—the ability to recognize whether the material was alive, mature, properly transformed, or spoiled. (Bio-Dynamics no. 152, Fall 1984, pp. 77–78.)

Later JPI [Josephine Porter Institute] publications identified several practices explicitly transmitted from Porter directly to Hugh Courtney and the Institute he founded:

• JPI’s valerian preparation (507) method was described in 2000 as unchanged from the instructions Porter gave in 1984, which she in turn attributed to Pfeiffer. The method included applying fermented valerian flower juice not merely within the pile but over it, a feature presented as characteristic of the American Pfeiffer lineage. (Applied Biodynamics no. 29/30, Spring/Fall 2000, pp. 8–10.)
• Courtney inherited a one-page set of “Brief Directions for the Use of the Biodynamic Sprays” in 1984. He believed it probably originated with Pfeiffer and continued to regard it as an accurate, concise guide decades later. (Applied Biodynamics no. 68, Spring 2010, pp. 1, 4.)
• When Courtney assumed distribution, he found very little demand for horn silica (501) or horsetail preparation (508), reflecting the limits of American practice as he had encountered it after Porter’s death. JPI’s later educational work deliberately addressed that neglect. (Applied Biodynamics no. 68, Spring 2010, pp. 1, 4.)
• A 2020–21 remembrance states: “Although Josephine Porter custom made ‘Prepared 500’ [developed by Alex Podolinsky, an Australian biodynamic farmer] for large cattle farms in the late 1970s, Courtney later brought it to national attention.” The preparation helped “prevent spring bloat in cattle when they go out on their first pasture of the season.” (Applied Biodynamics no. 98, Fall 2020/Winter 2021, p. 9.)

Silverthorne remembers how carefully she chose a wet place with moving water for the animal skull used to make oak-bark preparation (505), and how patiently she explained why the place mattered. That small scene contains her method of teaching: the work itself, the right place, and the idea behind it, all held together. (Silverthorne oral history, pp. 6–9.)

Quality as a Form of Responsibility

For Porter, quality was more than a production standard. She sent the preparations to growers she might never meet, to be used in the healing of farms she would never see. Sending poor material would fail those from whom she originally learned preparation making, as well as the farmer, and the land. (Bio-Dynamics no. 152, Fall 1984, pp. 78–80.)

Courtney remembered her as discerning rather than dogmatic, while remaining uncompromising about the quality of the result. She knew the difference between adapting a method after close observation and taking a shortcut because it was easier. (Bio-Dynamics no. 152, Fall 1984, pp. 76–78.)

VII. The Fence Before the Preparations: Her Way of Teaching

When instructing students, Porter did not begin with an explanation of anthroposophy. Du Vivier and Silverthorne both remember that she did not proselytize. She answered questions if they noticed something and then asked. Silverthorne indicated he was more interested in practical and natural farming than in esoteric doctrine, so he found her explanations intelligent, clear, and usable. (Bio-Dynamics no. 152, Fall 1984, pp. 80–81; Silverthorne oral history, pp. 6–11.)

Courtney recalled attending the August 1976 gathering where attendees complained about the secrecy associated with preparation making. Porter explained that the work was not secret and invited anyone interested to come to her farm. Many people signed up, but, as previously noted, Courtney was the only one who followed through. As his first assignment, Porter told him to build a fence. He later understood she was testing him to see if he could follow directions and finish a job. His assignment was also a typical Josephine Porter initiation for an internship: before the special work, attend to what the farm actually needs. (Applied Biodynamics no. 31, Winter 2000–2001, pp. 4–6; Biodynamic Association, “Passing It On”.)

Courtney “made visits to Josephine’s farm as many as two or three times a year, for up to ten days or more at a time . . . to further my own education in learning to make the preparations under her tutelage.” A later remembrance says he apprenticed for seven years, coming to her farm periodically from the fall of 1976 until the fall of 1983, with many phone consultations in between.” (Applied Biodynamics no. 31, Winter 2000–2001, pp. 5–6; no. 98, Fall 2020/Winter 2021, p. 6.)

Porter also hosted students on work-study from Antioch and Goddard colleges, along with a looser circle of young people drawn to organic food and alternative agriculture. She did not offer them a formal school environment. Rather, they learned by working on a lively, crowded, demanding farm. She invited students to come, gave them first the necessary work to do, answered the questions the work awoke in them, and, if they returned the next season, she slowly entrusted them with more responsibility. (Applied Biodynamics no. 4, Summer 1993, p. 1; Applied Biodynamics no. 31, Winter 2000–2001, pp. 5–6.)

Those who met and worked with her described her as small, modest, remarkably energetic, perceptive, kind, and direct. Her sister, Millie Snyder Crider, emphasized her Christianity, her availability to others, and her habit of forgetting herself. Du Vivier remembered determination joined with kindness and wisdom. Francis and Grotzke remembered warmth without self-display. Silverthorne remembered a professional, organized woman with tremendous physical drive. (Bio-Dynamics no. 152, Fall 1984, pp. 76–81; Applied Biodynamics no. 40, Spring 2003, p. 5; no. 41, Summer 2003, pp. 7–9; Silverthorne oral history, pp. 5–11.)

In a personal communication with Abigail Porter in June 2026, Deborah Forrester, Josephine Porter’s student and friend, remembered:

I basically consider your Mother to have been the most important mentor for me in my life. . . . as a young mother, I helped her with the evening milking on a pretty much daily basis. I wanted to get a goat and she [traded] me a goat for my help. I also got raw goat’s milk from her as I was weaning my one-year old son. . . As our relationship developed she taught me not only about biodynamic farming, the body of formative forces, herbology, and the gathering of wild herbs, but also animal husbandry, gardening, composting, natural healing, and homeopathy. On many occasions I helped her gather dandelions for the biodynamic preparations she always made for the BD Farming Association, and one year, she put up a greenhouse and we started seedling plants for bedding out. . .She lived in a beautiful old stone house on a picturesque farm with a stream running through it in Cherry Valley, northeastern Pennsylvania, a few miles from the Delaware Water Gap: the same valley that my grandmother and grandfather grew up in. [Teaching me] these deeply spiritual ways of living, [she] grounded my interest in Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophy, which naturally led me into Waldorf Education. Now, at 75 years of age, I look back on the richness of my life . . . and to Josie (as she was called) who first introduced me to this path.

VII. The Work History Often Fails to See

We cannot understand Porter’s life without considering the position of women in her time. Joel Morrow’s 1984 memorial observed that she lived in an era that barely took a woman’s work seriously. Much of the labor that kept biodynamics alive would have been dismissed as secretarial, domestic, supportive, or merely practical: typing letters, packing orders at the kitchen table, feeding visitors, hosting students, caring for a child and an elderly parent, tending the garden, milking, cleaning, and remembering what had to be done with each preparation as the seasons turned. (Bio-Dynamics no. 152, Fall 1984, p. 76.)

This kind of work disappears easily from institutional history because it produces continuity rather than a celebrated event. Throughout Porter’s life, administration and spiritual work were not separate, nor were domestic labor and agricultural innovation. The same woman who could judge the maturity of a preparation also made numerous heart-centered decisions that allowed families who needed milk to have it, whether or not they could pay. Porter mingled practicality and compassion without compromising her steadfast commitment to Biodynamics. (Applied Biodynamics no. 4, Summer 1993, p. 1; Bio-Dynamics no. 152, Fall 1984, pp. 79–81.)

Unfortunately, low prices, inadequate institutional pay, illness, exhaustion, and an encumbered estate were also burdens she carried. In doing so, she accepted more than her share of responsibility without making herself the center of the story. Perhaps that is why she was essential to the development of biodynamic practices in the United States and yet less visible than its other writers and lecturers. (Applied Biodynamics no. 31, Winter 2000–2001, p. 4-6; Bio-Dynamics no. 152, Fall 1984, pp. 76–80.)

VIII. Illness, Final Years, and an Unfinished Handoff

Josephine Porter lived with poor health for twelve years before her death. Her daughter remembers her “packaging preps at the kitchen table the evening she went into the hospital . . .” She later died at home on May 3, 1984 “surrounded by her two sisters, her daughter and two farm helpers. She had gone into a coma during the night.” (Bio-Dynamics no. 152, Fall 1984, p. 76; Applied Biodynamics no. 31, Winter 2000–2001, p. 6; Abigail Porter oral history, pp. 13–15; Abigail Porter, written clarifications, 2026.)

The May 3, 1984, date appears in some of the documentation. Abigail Porter explains that the date of May 4 is sometimes cited because: “At her Christian Community funeral service, the priest inadvertently said May 4 and for a while that got embedded in people's minds.” (Bio-Dynamics no. 152, Fall 1984, p. 76; Applied Biodynamics no. 98, Fall 2020/Winter 2021, p. 6; A. Porter, written clarifications, 2026.)

About a week before her death, Abigail asked her mother if she thought Hugh Courtney would take over making the preparations. Porter said she “thought he would.” And he did. But there was no funded transition, no transferred business plan, and no stable institutional home, as organizations currently expect to have. Courtney had acquired the knowledge and felt the obligation. He still had to find a way to ensure continuance of the process. (Applied Biodynamics no. 98, Fall 2020/Winter 2021, pp. 5–7.)

IX. The Work Passes to Hugh Courtney

Hugh Courtney began filling orders after Josephine’s death, drawing on what he had learned. Porter’s generosity and diligence—continuing through illness and supporting the preparation service from her own pocket—spoke to him more forcefully than abstract teaching could have. (Applied Biodynamics no. 31, Winter 2000–2001, pp. 6–7.)

He chartered Josephine Porter Institute (JPI) on October 22, 1985, about a year and a half after his mentor’s death. The name honored Porter, but the institute also tried to fix a weakness her death had exposed: such important work could not safely depend on one person’s uncompensated endurance. JPI gave preparation making and distribution a home, taught the craft, published practical material, and carried the work beyond one person and one farm. (Applied Biodynamics no. 31, Winter 2000–2001, p. 4; JPI, “About”.)

The Biodynamic Association referred to “the thousands of gallons of preparations he [Courtney] . . . made and used with hundreds of individuals and groups over the years.” His own apprenticeship had helped him link the practical and the spiritual, and he kept Josephine’s open-door approach to teaching. When JPI launched Applied Biodynamics in 1992, the spoken and practical tradition gained a written life as well. (JPI, “Our History”; Biodynamic Association, “Hugh Courtney”.)

The land she worked with and lived on also carried her name forward in another way. Josie Porter Farm began in 2007 on part of the historic Snyder property, now protected as open space. It is institutionally separate from JPI, but her name remains attached to an active farm. That seems fitting. (Josie Porter Farm, “About Us”.)

X. From the Preparation Cellar to the Research Plot

Porter wanted Biodynamics to be investigated seriously. Her daughter remembered a final BDA board meeting where Porter urged research focused on the preparations and their application. Her preparations had already entered formal research pathways before her death. In describing the Washington State field experiment conducted from 1982 to 1985, research scientists Goldstein, Koepf, and Koopmans state: “All biodynamic preparations were obtained from Josephine Porter (Stroudsburg, PA).” (A. Porter oral history, pp. 13–15; A. Porter, written clarifications, 2026; Goldstein, Koepf, and Koopmans 2019, pp. 189–194.)

Using Porter’s preparations, the authors identified: “Greater root production and root health were associated with the use of biodynamic preparations. . . . The limitations of the experiments . . . were that they were small plot trials, replicated on a few sites.” The paper continues: “Due to the significance of these root findings it is important that elements of this research are reduplicated by others to confirm whether the effects of preparations documented here are valid and applicable in other regions and whether increased root growth is the cause of greater stress resistance, soil carbon accumulation, and soil quality found in long term trials with biodynamic management.” (Goldstein, Koepf, and Koopmans, 2019, pp. 190, 201.)

XI. What She Kept Alive

After Pfeiffer’s death in 1961, American Biodynamics lost its most prominent experimental and organizational leader. Josephine Porter, the red head of Cherry Valley as the song in her honor labels her, became the bridge that kept preparation knowledge in the United States alive. Unostentaciously, she ensured that Pfeiffer’s work would not become merely a set of written instructions or scattered local customs known only to a few.

Porter shared the seasonal practices, the material standards, the habits of storage and packing, the directions for use, and all the small variations that would never fit neatly into a manual. She also ensured that these precious practices she had learned went out to others through letters and conference attendance. In these ways she brought people together who might otherwise have remained alone and, through such links, helped Biodynamics grow. What she shared reached institutions and researchers as well as farmers and backyard gardeners–not only as healthful practices but also as beneficial resources for the Earth. Pioneer, milk lady, secretary, farmer, preparation maker, teacher—each name describes her, but no one title says it all. Josephine Porter kept the continuity and built community. Because she did, the work remained alive long enough to be handed on.

When Hugh Courtney established JPI in her honor, he took all the jobs that Porter had carried and shared them among the volunteers that he too attracted to biodynamics. JPI’s founding was, in part, an effort to turn personal sacrifice into shared work, succession, education, and memory. No nonprofit can solve that problem totally, however. It must be faced again in every generation. (Applied Biodynamics no. 4, Summer 1993, p. 1, also no. 31, Winter 2000–2001, pp. 5–7 ; A. Porter oral history, pp. 3–7; Bio-Dynamics no. 152, Fall 1984, pp. 78–80.)