The news of the troubles at Bergey's Dairy tears at my heart. I don't pretend to know the details - the regulations that govern milk production, for instance - but I know the Bergey family members involved.

They are good, hard-working people.

I work hard and you work hard, but I believe few of us work as hard as Leonard and Elsa Bergey, the third generation of this family to run the farm on Mt. Peasant Road in Chesapeake. Leonard Bergey was up before dawn to milk the cows and fell into bed long after the rest of us were sound asleep.

He was determined to keep the legacy of this family farm alive. His wife, Elsa, often baked in the middle of the night, after a full day in the retail stores, devoted to the farm itself and her husband's dream of keeping it viable.

What we need to realize is how valuable the farmland must be and how easy it would be for whomever in the family it is who owns the land to develop that property. They want to keep the farm going, seemingly at all costs.

A family business becomes part of the family. I know how I feel about my business. It is a part of me, a part of my family, and I can't imagine how I would feel if my grandparents had founded it and I might not be able to keep it going. How would I stop doing it if it were not my choice?

There are no bad guys here. There may be someone who could not let go. I don't know the particulars. I wish I could help. We probably all wish we could help.

I really believe Bergey's Dairy Farm is a regional, even a national, treasure. Maybe it is not too late to turn it into a tourist attraction, a working farm as it is now, with funding added to take the burden off the good people who have shouldered it too long.

Regardless of what lies ahead, offering words of encouragement, inquiring as to how we can help, and saying prayers for these good people could be a beginning.

Jean Loxley-Barnard has been a writer all her life and studied both sociology and psychology at George Washington University where she earned a B.A. Her company, The Shopper, Inc., encompasses all the Loxley-Barnard family publications - The Shopper Magazines and Doctor to Doctor Magazine. She has been in the advertising, consulting and publishing business for 39 years.