John grew up in the Depression, bought a farm sixty years ago with his wife, and converted to organic production after being hospitalized for chemical poisoning. In the late 1960s, he helped to run a summer exchange program started by the Freedom Riders between families in Wisconsin and Mississippi. He was instrumental in the fight against rBGH (bovine growth hormone), initially drawing attention to the issue by protesting alone in front of the University of Wisconsin Madison dining hall with a hand-lettered sign. John founded Family Farm Defenders in 1994, and was a proud member of La Via Campesina, the international peasant organization, traveling the world to protests and meetings, to work for justice by building relationships and solidarity.

Beyond his biography, there were his stories. I only met John in 2009, and so most of what I knew about his life was through his telling of it, through his incredible, hilarious and inspiring stories.

He had stories of sometimes dangerous moments in the civil rights era in Mississippi; of travels with José Bové, the well-known French farmer and activist; of farm visits with peasants on every continent; of moonshine; of bus rides in Africa; of the great generosity of his Amish neighbors. His stories were of prejudice turned on its head; ofpigeonholing politicians to make them listen; of unlikely tactics succeeding. These would often end with a punchline and a mischievous, delighted laugh at how justice had unexpectedly prevailed or how the improbable had worked out, whether it was an acknowledgement from the buttonholed politician or the free community meal his town’s churches had recently pulled off from entirely local foods–in Wisconsin in February.

His stories–and his life, it seemed to me–were bound by a common thread of humanity. John saw the humanity in his fellow person more than anyone I’ve ever known. Every new meeting was an opportunity to share and learn, to discover commonalities–whether or not that included language. John’s friend and former WhyHunger staff Christina Schiavoni wrote today about being with him at Nyeleni, the 2007 international forum on food sovereignty in Mali. “He could have the most in-depth, profound, heart-to-heart conversations with others in the struggle, even without single word of common language,” she wrote, recalling him miming milking udders in the air and saying “I’m a dairy farmer.” Family Farm Defenders Vice President and fellow dairy farmer Joel Greeno told me, “John would go off to Indonesia or someplace and we’d ask, ‘Were there translators?’ He’d say, ‘Oh, sometimes.’ ‘Sometimes?! How’d you communicate the rest of the time?’ And John would laugh and say, ‘It’s easy–laughter and beer.’”