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https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/6c729b5aec44637ef889f3972dbe9156.pdf
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Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
Fidencio Vasquez Jr. Interview
Interviewed by Norma Gonzalez-Buenrostro
June 18, 2016
Transcript
NG: This is Norma Gonzales, and I'm here today with Fidencio Vasquez Jr., the Second, at the Hart
Library in Hart, Michigan, on this day, June 18, 2016. This oral history is being collected as part of the
Growing Community Project, which is supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the
Humanities Common Heritage Program.
Thank you for taking the time to talk with me today. I am interested to learn more about your family
history and your experiences living and working in Oceana County. Can you please tell me your full name
and spell it?
FV: Fidencio Vasquez Jr. the Second. F-i-d-e-n-c-i-o V-a-s-q-u-e-z, no middle name, J-r, the Second.
NG: Do you use any accents when spelling your name?
FV: No.
NG: Okay, thank you. Alright, so let's get started. Can you tell me where you grew up?
FV: Can I tell you where I was born first?
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
NG: Yeah, definitely. You can tell me whatever you like.
FV: I was born in Edinburg, Texas.
NG: Alright.
FV: My parents came across from Mexico and I was ten days old when I moved to Hart, Michigan.
NG: Alright, what year was that?
FV: 1955.
NG: Nice. And you came to Hart when you were ten days old?
FV: Yes, I lived in Crystal Lake.
NG: Oh okay, is it far from Oceana County?
FV: Right outside of Hart. It'd be north of Hart about three miles by Crystal Lake.
NG: Alright.
FV: I live down the road from there.
NG: So why did your parents move to Hart?
FV: Back to where we came… that’s when my parents left Texas - Edinburg - we moved to Hart. I lived
outside of Hart until grade school there.
NG: Did your parents have a reason to move to Hart? Were they seasonal workers? Did they have- did
they pick any...?
FV: Well, they started working at a farm right near the area where we lived, which was like a half a mile
from Crystal Lake in that area. They worked for a farm that had cherries and that's where they started.
And my parents bought a house right there, just a little ways from Crystal Lake.
NG: Alright. Do you remember going to the farm yourself at all as a child or was it just your parents that
went?
FV: No, I remember. I have some pictures. I forgot to bring them other pictures of me and my brother
getting new bikes, my second older brother. I had another brother. My first brother was named Fidencio
Vasquez, Junior. He was born in 1946, or ‘48, one of the two. And he died at two months from a tumor
in his mouth. I never got to meet him. And then in 1952, my second brother was born. He was named
Fernando Jesus Vasquez. And then they had me and they named me after my first brother. It's kind of
different because I wished that they would name my second brother Fidencio.
NG: You got that opportunity.
FV: Yeah, I got the opportunity.
NG: That's good.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
FV: Yes. And I remember, I have a picture at home that me and my brother are sitting on bikes. I was
probably seven, eight. And I knew what kind of place we were living at and what my parents were doing.
They worked for farmers right in that area- for one farmer.
NG: Do you remember the name of the farmer or the name of the...?
FV: The name was Mr. Hare. And that's the only farmer that I know that owned that area land was
cherries, apples, that they, whatever, picked or planted. It's pretty much what I can remember of that.
NG: Did you ever pick yourself? Did your parents ever bring you to the farms and...?
FV: Well, my dad's mother, she used to take us with her two daughters and her son. I remember being
there and this picture right here, that's my dad's mom. My grandmother, I grew up with her, too. She
used to take me with her son and me. We used to go to different states like Ohio to pick strawberries.
NG: No way!
FV: When I was little.
NG: Oh, did you like going to the farms with your grandma? Was it fun?
FV: Yes.
NG: Yeah?
FV: Because I just wanted to go, so she took me.
NG: That's good. So, can you tell me more about what your parents did for the farmer? Did they go
ahead and till the land or did they just pick? Did they stay with that farmer every year or did your
parents move on eventually?
FV: Oh, they probably planted trees by hand and picked cherries and apples and peaches, probably.
Those are probably the only three kinds of fruit that I can remember being around that area when I grew
up. And then I walked back and forth to grade school every day, my brother and me, Fernando.
NG: Did you go to school here in Hart?
FV: After the school...the school burned down. It was made out of stone. You know, all grades went to
this school. There was a basement and an upstairs. And I think it burned and then they were building.
So, my parents bought... we moved to Hart when I was twelve on State Street in front of the
fairgrounds.
NG: Yeah, right around here.
FV: Yeah, I was twelve years old when my parents bought a house in…
[music begins]
NG: Oh, I can go ahead and pause it.
FV: Okay.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
EB: So, we were talking about the house that your parents bought on State Street. What year was that
when you guys bought the house?
FV: It would have been [nineteen] fifty-five, sixty-two.
NG: And it was very close to the fairgrounds you mentioned, right?
FV: Yes.
NG: So, you saw the whole fair, and every year you saw how it built from there. Can you tell me a little
bit more about that? How the fairs progressed?
FV: Yeah, I used to go there all the time and I loved the fair. I was a regular, kind of. And I played all the
games that were cheap. And when I was old enough, I don't know when, maybe when I was anywhere
between twelve and fifteen, I helped put up some rides.
NG: So, you worked for the fair?
FV: Yes.
NG: Is it run by the city or is it an outside organization?
FV: It was run through the- what’s it called? Agricultural Council or something, you know?
NG: Right, yeah.
FV: There's a name for it.
NG: Alrighty. So, it's like the Agricultural Organization...
FV: ...Organization, yeah, and they would set up all the rides and I would go. It was… things were really
cheap back then. I had so much fun.
NG: How cheap? Do you remember any prices from back then? Like ten cents?
FV: Ten cents, maybe five cents - real cheap.
NG: So what kind of rides did they have back then?
FV: Scrambler fairgrounds, Tilt-A-Whirl, the carousel with horses...
NG: The merry-go-round?
FV: The merry-go-round. Different kinds of rides, I don't know what all the names of them are but...
NG: That's alright. So, you said that the agricultural organization put that together. Was there any of the
produce that they would showcase at the fair?
FV: Yes, they had different buildings for different things. Horses, rabbits, pigs, lambs, cows. And they had
a commercial building with a lot of the fruits that people grew. They had different farmers come in, put
up their own little displays of everything, and arts and crafts kind of with their kids. How the kids learned
in 4-H. How the kids learn how to bring up their animals. And everybody had their own little animals. It's
very neat.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
NG: Did you ever join the 4-H?
FV: Never did, no. I just enjoyed going to it every day.
NG: That's good. So what else can you tell me about growing up in your… you mention your teenage
years. Did you go into the farm working yourself, or did you move away from that?
FV: No, I went into the farm work. I was, well, as it says in that paper. My mother worked for a nursery
called Hawley’s Nursery. This is very important for you to look at, too. This is... I made this in nineteen...
this gentleman picked me in nineteen ninety-eight. His name is right there. He was introduced to me
through one of my cousins out of Muskegon; he worked for the Muskegon Chronicle.
NG: Okay.
FV: He made the story on how I preferred the farm work. Between when I was ten and fifteen… well, I
was a newborn. Because, well, it says in the paper: I was ten days old, even though I moved here, my
mom worked for this nursery named Hawley’s Nursery. They grafted trees to produce fruit. And my
mother carried me in a basket when I was a newborn. You know, I still lived out of town. They'd quit
working for that farmer and my dad went into truck driving, or working in a factory… working in a basket
factory in Shelby Basket factory. I remember going with him. He worked at night. He ran a machine that
made different blueberry boxes, strawberry boxes. And I remember as a kid going with my dad to work
and then later… well, when I was born, I guess my mom carried me first before I went to work with my
dad. And my mom worked there for forty-five years. And I think I worked for… there was an area farmer
right next to the nursery I was working on. His name was Monroe Piegels [?]. He had the land just down
the street. I worked on the farm doing disking, mowing grass, learned how to trim trees, and worked at
Hawley’s Nursery. The whole Vasquez family pretty much ran this Hawley’s Nursery. He had great big
orchards of trees and all my aunts and uncles were grafters. And then after you graft a tree, on your
hands and knees. You know, you're on your hands and knees, my mom was a grafter. You know you
use… they cut up… my uncle used to go cut off these limbs like this and cut the leaves off where the bud
would produce the fruit tree.
NG: Right.
FV: And my mom would cut the line like this and cut that little butt off with a knife and slip it into the
tree, and then the person behind her would tie it with a rubber band really fast. And I would go behind
with this little bucket and this little lantern in it... kerosene lantern with a bow on top and you put wax in
it and you carry it with a paintbrush. After you graft them, put tape on them, you have to seal them. So,
I did that until I was fifteen.
NG: And after that, did you move on from there and go to a factory or another farmer?
FV: I have a history of working with farmers. On the west side of Oceana County, I started out at
Hawley’s Nursery and then Bob Ryder [?], Jack Hare [?], Lewis Claudie [?], Richie Rider [?], and on and
off now for the last seven, eight years for Joe Daley. I learned how to drive a cherry rollout. It’s a long
machine.
NG: Okay.
FV: And the tarps, you pull the tarps out, they're maybe twenty feet wide, each one. Twenty, twentyfive feet. The machine was probably fifty feet long, the machine was. And I would drive it with a tractor
5
�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
up to the tree to the center of it, and I'd release the levers so the tower would come out and they'd put
it around the trunk of the tree. And then there's another man with a machine that would drive up to the
tree and shake the tree so the cherries would fall off, and I would reel it in with a conveyor belt going,
and the tank was in the back. So, I learned how to do that for seven years, on and off lately, and I still
work there. But after I was fifteen, I started working for Gale’s IGA.
NG: Oh, okay. That one right here. No way!
FV: Uh huh, yeah.
NG: How was it back then?
FZ: It was pretty neat, yeah.
NG: What did you do at IGA?
FZ: Well, I worked in the grocery department.
NG: Okay.
FZ: And I worked for Mr. Gale - Mr. Gale's father - to help him unload the truck. I'd be in the back
working with him alone. They had rollers for the man up in the truck, putting stuff on the rollers, and
we'd stack it in piles, empty the truck, and open boxes and price them. Priced everything and hauled out
to the aisles and we'd stock. And I did a little bit of everything there. I even learned how to work in
produce. They had a freezer storage there where people would come in, rent lockers. And I worked in
the produce department and I helped clean floors. And well, I don't know what year it was… where the
laundromat is right now, that was the grocery store and Gale’s insurance agency was next to it, this little
office. And then down the road, Mr. Gale bought...there was houses on that property. He bought most
of the houses and little by little, he built a new grocery store. I think it was ten years later, maybe?
Somewhere in there? Or maybe not even ten years later, maybe five years later, he built a new grocery
store.
NG: Is that the new one that we have now?
FV: Yes. That whole place was the store. That whole building was the grocery store. And they had the
meat department in the back, our stockroom was in the back, and the freezer department had storage
where people come and rent lockers to put their… buy meats and, you know, or they buy like cows or
something. And then it came in packages and they'd bring it there and put them in a storage room in the
freezer. And then little by little as that store was getting built, I was helping in there, once in a while.
And then I worked in the grocery store and then when the shelves were up, they moved all the
groceries. We did it by cart, carrying anything that was on the shelves and go to stock them in the new
store. So, it was kind of neat, you know. Work here, work here and make sure to bring over here. So,
when the store was... as they were working on it, we were stocking shelves, little by little before they
opened it.
NG: Right.
FV: And I also helped work inside, do some different jobs when they were building floor with Irwin
Gale's son, Dennis Gale. And it went from there. And I worked there ten years. I was twenty-five. And
then I wanted to go to Texas with these friends of mine that were almost like my family, my other mom
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
and dad. So, I went to Texas for a year to Lubbock, Texas, and I worked there at a gas station and I
worked in a garage changing tires and running U-Haul trucks and trailers. I worked there for one year.
NG: And then you came back to Oceana…?
FV: Because I missed my parents. So, my dad and my uncle were working for Oceana Canning of Shelby,
they were truck drivers and they were coming to Lubbock, Texas, to bring a load of canned cherries. And
I asked my dad, can you go ask Mr. Gale if I can have my job back? Then he called me and he said, “Yeah,
you can.” And so, I was excited to come back home. I missed my parents.
NG: That's good.
FV: Yeah, yeah.
NG: So, when you came back you got your old job back?
FV: I got my old job back.
NG: That's great.
FV: And I worked there until 1990. Twenty years.
NG: That's good!
FV: And then I went… okay, let me see. Yeah, after that, I worked for Bob Ryder [?], who was a fruit
farmer. He had many different kinds of fruits: apple, all different kinds of cross-breed apples, peaches,
apricots, nectarines, which you don't find much around that apricots… maybe nectarine trees, now
they're getting more popular. And I would pick every other day and go to the farmer's market every
other day. We had two markets, one in Grand Rapids and one in Muskegon. I worked at both of them.
NG: You would sell the produce that you picked the day before?
FV: Yeah, we'd spot pick the trees. Spot pick, get the good stuff, number one grade and then we had a
number two basket. You know, you buy, you can buy expensive stuff or you can buy cheaper stuff. I
learned how to do that.
NG: That's good. So, you have a lot of skills with agriculture and you're very educated on how to run
farms and stuff.
FV: Yeah.
NG: That's great!
FV: Yeah. And I resigned in 1990. And, I had a friend that was living in Grand Rapids after he got out of
college. And I needed a job and I didn't want to do any more fruit farming or anything, I wanted to get
some kind of... something different. He was a hotel manager for… he worked at, like, a Holiday Inn when
he started and then he was working for another hotel when I went down there from 1990 to ‘95. I was
working in the summer for Mr. Ryder [?]. He's in here, too. His article is in here with mine. [paper
ruffles] There he is right there. This is a truck, it was like a beer truck with the sliding doors and we put
shelves in it to put all our fruit in. We could put four hundred and fifty baskets on both sides. And these
apples were already sorted.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
NG: Okay, for like the grade A?
FV: And we'd take them from the orchard onto the flatbed truck and we'd put them right on the truck
and get more baskets and go get some other stuff, other kind of fruit, and load up the truck. Every other
day we did that and the front. That's...
NG: Yeah, that's my uncle!
FV: …your uncle! I talked to him about this paper the other day.
NG: Yeah.
FV: I said, “Do you have that paper?” He goes, “I don't think so, but I remember it.” And I was going to
bring it down and show it to him.
NG: Yeah, maybe we can have a copy of that, too. This is really cool. I recognized him for a second.
FV: Yeah, he was my dad's friend.
NG: Really?
FV: Yeah.
NG: Small town. [Laughter]
FV: And in the front of the article, this brings down what I did. This is when I started working for him.
That was me. I had long hair. That's my mom. I worked there, too, even before I went to IGA. They
turned...they sold the nursery to four buyers that bought all this acreage and they turned it into a golf
course as my mom was still working there.
NG: Oh, okay.
FV: You can see in the background that they were making grass parts and it was getting smaller and
smaller and smaller and the smallest orchard was the field, or they were doing grafting still. It was
getting smaller and smaller and smaller. And then it just...everybody just...there was no more work.
NG: Is this golfing field the golf…?
FV: The Colonial Golf Course. That whole nursery, that whole area goes all the way back to the highway
and all the way back to McDonald's. That was all fruit, all fields.
NG: Really? No way.
FV: And he had fields out by Round Lake. Big, long fields, almost a half mile long and all my aunts...
twenty-seven hundred trees in each row and by knee, on their hands and knees doing all this grafting.
And then later, they would take them out of the ground and put them in great big containers and bring
them into a nursery, and they'd size them with a grater, the trunks, and then tie them in bundles and
then they’d bury them in the ground in rows, side by side. And people would come buy them in the
spring when it was time to plant them.
NG: Okay.
8
�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
FV: Yep, long story short, from there to there. So, let's go back. This is what I preferred after I got out of
working at Gale's IGA in 1990. I worked for Bob Ryder [?].
NG: And then when did you finally stop going to the… you said you still continue to...
FV: Yeah, I continue. I was working for my friend. He hired me. He worked in like a... he was a clerk but
he moved to another hotel. He was a banquet manager. Rent banquets… had sliding doors and this
great big, it's like a hall, you know, sliding doors. And I started working in the restaurant as a busboy.
NG: Okay.
FV: And then I moved up into the banquets department and I learned a lot there. I worked a half a year
there in the winter, and then I come back, work half a year on the farm for five years. I went back and
forth.
NG: That's good. And you continue… you mentioned before that you continue to do that now. So, do
you do that currently right now or are you…?
FV: No. I worked for Bob Ryder [?] until 2000.
NG: Okay, so sixteen years ago.
FV: I was there from 1990, I worked for him for ten years until 2000. And then I did a little bit of farm
work on the side, a little bit, you know, until I got a real job. I got into laborers union. My office was out
of Battle Creek. One of my friends was Fernando's best buddy. He was working for the paper mill in
Muskegon, as I recall. It's not there no more. But that's where I started working as a laborer, working in
a power plant. My brother and me did. He's like twelve, fifteen years younger than me and we got jobs
there. And we're so excited, you know, I was working for a job that was paying eight dollars an hour
when I left. Well, when I was working in Grand Rapids, you know, they paid a little more over there and
more than farming of course, and then I got into the laborer’s union, which I worked for part of West
Michigan from top to bottom. The office would call me and tell me to go, well, you got to go to the
paper mill for so many weeks, or you work for different contractors and you do different things and you
go there and work depending how many days, weeks or months. And after you finish one job, they can
relocate you to another one to a different place.
NG: Did you like that moving around?
FV: Yes!
NG: It was fun.
FV: Because I worked and there was a power plant in Muskegon - that one with a big tower. I worked
there [loud noise] and then one at a paper plant in Manistee. I worked way down in Irons, Michigan in a
generating plant they were building. I worked for different contractors and did different types of work. I
did scaffolding. For people to get up on, to do their work, I had to put everything together. So that was
really exciting. I did that for… I resigned four years ago.
NG: Wow, so what do you do right now?
FV: I just work, I'm disabled and I work for farmers. One farmer and I work for a friend - handyman
service.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
NG: Okay.
FV: I paint, we do odd jobs, and I work for the fairgrounds - Parking Supervisor - with my friend that was
working there. Well I was even working there for a while. I was a maintenance man. Then I wanted to
quit so I gave the job to one of my friends. He's been there fifteen years and I've been helping park cars
for seven years and now I'm pretty much just a volunteer. I want to get out and do things for the
community.
NG: That's good. That's really good.
FV: Yeah.
NG: So, you work so much with… did you start a family of your own at some time?
FV: Never been married, never had any kids.
NG: Alright. Well, I think...is there anything else you'd like us to share with the research program? I
mean, we got a lot, but is there anything else you'd like to mention?
FV: Well, like…?
NG: Any advice for a young person who might listen to this recording who lives in Oceana County?
FV: Well, if you like to work, just keep working. Do what you want to do. And if you can do it, do it.
NG: Definitely.
FV: And I know I'm getting a little older now. I can't work as hard as I used to, but I still keep on moving
and I keep busy and, you know, whatever you'd like to do, keep doing it or just change from job to job.
Don't stop, just…
NG: Definitely.
FV: ...keep yourself happy. [Laughter]
NG: Thank you so much! Well, thank you so much for your time and for sharing your memories with me.
And I believe this concludes our interview.
FV: Okay, thank you.
NG: Thank you!
10
�
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f380cbb2234dde816be2e5ae8987261d.mp3
07cbf47fee293cb84448c0ca531f3516
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Oceana County Migrant Labor History Collection
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Shell-Weiss, Melanie
Description
An account of the resource
Collection contains images and documents digitized and collected through the project "Growing Community: A Century of Migration in Oceana County." This project was a collaboration between El Centro Hispano de Oceana, the Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society, and Grand Valley State University funded by a Common Heritage grant from the United States National Endowment for the Humanities. The materials in this collection document the history of communities in Hart, Shelby, and Walkerville and explore themes of migration, labor, religion, family, belonging, national and cultural identities, regional, national, and international connections, and citizenship.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Oceana County (Mich.)
Source
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Grand Valley State University. Kutsche Office of Local History
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
El Centro Hispano de Oceana; Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society
Relation
A related resource
Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage project)
Identifier
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DC-06
Format
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application/pdf
image/jpeg
audio/mp3
Type
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Text
Image
Sound recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
spa
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oceana County (Mich.)
Hart (Mich.)
Shelby (Mich.)
Farms
Farmers
Migrant agricultural laborers
Hispanic Americans
Account books
Diaries
Oral history
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
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DC-06_Vasquez_Fidencio
Creator
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Vasquez, Fidencio
Date
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2016-06-18
Title
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Vasquez, Fidencio (audio interview and transcript)
Description
An account of the resource
Oral history interview with Fidencio Vasquez, Jr., the second. Interviewed by Norma Gonzalez Buenrostro on June 18, 2016 in Hart, Michigan. English language. Fidencio Vasquez, Jr., the second, was born in Edinburg, Texas in 1955. The son of two Mexican immigrants, Fidencio and his family moved to Hart, Michigan when Fidencio was ten days old. Throughout his life, Fidencio worked for many different businesses throughout Michigan, including the local Hart fair, many fruit farms, grocery stores, and labor services.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Gonzalez Buenrostro, Norma (interviewer)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oceana County (Mich.)
Hart (Mich.)
Farms
Fruit growers
Agricultural exhibitions
Grocery trade
Audio recordings
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Rights
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Text
Format
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audio/mp3
application/pdf
Language
A language of the resource
eng
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/71e9632e1b150334afa77bc6e2bbb15f.pdf
b3abd0bec030a9575c347b5a35931039
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Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
Larry VanSickle Interview
Interviewed by Walter Urick
June 18, 2016
Transcript
WU: My name is Walter Urick, and I'm here today with Larry VanSickle and I'm in the Hart Library in
Hart, Michigan on this Saturday, June 18th, 2016, for the purpose of obtaining the oral history of the
VanSickle family. This oral history is being collected as part of the Growing Community Project, which is
supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage
Program.
Larry, I want to thank you for taking the time to talk with me today, and I'm interested to learn more
about your family history and your experiences living and working in Oceana County. So why don’t we
just start out by you stating your full legal name.
LV: My name's Larry Kent VanSickle.
WU: And when were you born and where were you born?
LV: I was born right here in Hart on January 10th, 1943.
WU: And your parents' names?
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
LV: My parents were Lloyd and Maxine VanSickle.
WU: And Lloyd VanSickle, at the time of your birth, was about how old?
LV: I'm thinking, twenty-five, probably somewhere in there.
WU: And your mom, Maxine?
LV: She was three, four years younger, so she was twenty-one, twenty-two.
WU: And what was your mother's maiden name?
LV: Maxine May.
WU: M-a-y?
LV: M-a-y. Her parents were Max and Maude May… Maude (Weirich) May.
WU: Okay, and in terms of siblings?
LV: I have two brothers: one older, Norman, and one younger, Garth.
WU: And Norman was born…?
LV: Norman was born on January 27, 1941 - he's the oldest one. And Garth was born on June 27, 1944.
WU: Okay, and in terms of your parents’ background and education and work… your father, what type
of work did he do?
LV: Well, he did carpenter work here, there, and yonder. And he was a… he had an electrician's license.
He did most of that work part-time; he liked that kind of work. His full-time job, he worked for Michigan
Employment Security Commission as a Farm Labor Specialist. He did that for thirty, thirty-five years;
that's what he retired from, so that was his main employment.
WU: In terms of growing up, physically, where was your household?
LV: Where I grew up?
WU: Yes.
LV: I'm living in the same house where I was born.
WU: Alright, describe it.
LV: Our address is 2491 East Polk Road. It’s in Elbridge Township, right kitty-corner across from the
Elbridge Community Church. And my dad bought that piece of property in 1941.
WU: How large a piece of property is it… acreage?
LV: At the time... there were one hundred and twenty acres at the time… is what he bought it that time.
WU: Okay.
LV: Since then, I bought that, you know, after we got married in 1965, I bought that from him.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
WU: Alright.
WU: Now that acreage and I'm taking you back to when you were a kid, you know, you're growing up,
were there farming activities on that acreage?
LV: Yes.
WU: Okay.
LV: And not to the extent they are nowadays, where when I was a kid, we had probably ten cows and we
milked them cows and we didn't sell the milk, sold the cream, had a cream separator separating the
cream and the skim milk. We had some hogs and fed that to the hogs. Almost everybody back then had
animals.
WU: So, you had hogs. You had, obviously, dairy cows. Any other animals that…?
LV: We grew up with a couple of horses, we had a couple horses.
WU: You didn’t have chickens or things like that?
LV: Well, I think we might have had just once in a while there was a chicken or two around, but nothing
that... it was all, basically, you know, we had chickens if you needed to have chicken for Sunday dinner.
He was outside waiting for you. [Laughter]
WU: But, so as a youngster, you've got cows. I assume you had various farm chores that you had to do
as you were growing up.
LV: We did.
WU: Just sort of describe what life was like.
LV: Well, we had one after we got rid of the cows that was milking, we kept one cow so we could have
our own milk. And course, it was us boys’ job to milk that cow. Twice a day we had to milk that cow and
take the milk up to the house and Ma put it in the refrigerator. And that was the milk that we drank. And
then in the summertime, we’d take that cow and lead her out someplace where there's grass and tie her
up and she can sit there all day...
WU: That was your lawn mower. [Laughter]
LV: And make a circle and eat the grass. And I remember, I didn't think my brothers were sharing
enough in the milking chores, and so I barked and I argued with Dad a little bit about maybe they ought
to do more milking. That probably wasn't the right thing to do because then I was one hundred percent
milker [laughter]; because I barked, then I got the job. [Laughter]
WU: So, before you review… sized down to one cow, how old were you...
LV: When that happened?
WU: ...when the downsizing occurred?
LV: I probably was… probably ten.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
WU: Okay, what I'm trying to understand here is, say, between ages of four to ten, when you have ten
cows, what was your role with those ten cows... if any?
LV: I think as I remember, we had to feed them and, of course, clean the barn.
WU: Alright, so you remember cleaning, you remember feeding
LV: Yep, we had to do that and at that time Dad had a milking machine. So, them cows were milked with
a milking machine.
WU: Alright, so you did have a milking machine at that point?
LV: Yep.
WU: And that milking machine… were you able to operate that machine?
LV: I don't think so, no. I don’t recall.
WU: Okay, so as a seven or eight-year-old kid, they didn't ask you to do anything like that?
LV: No, we was good pooper scoopers and we could do the feeding. And we had to climb up in the silo
and throw some silage out.
WU: Now, in terms of getting rid of the waste and so on or the manure, were you able to sell that to
other farmers or use it for fertilizer
LV: We used it for fertilizer.
WU: On your own farm?
LV: Yep, and we got, you know, at a pretty young age, we learned how to drive the tractor.
WU: Well, that's where I was leading to… trying to understand: what did you do as a kid, to make that
work?
LV: At that age… and then, of course, we had to make hay and we did that. We didn't have bale hay; we
did it all loose hay. And so, we had hay loaders - the people behind the wagon - and they would gather
the hay up and put it on the wagon. And Dad usually had the job on the wagon, so one of us guys had to
drive the tractor. And I remember driving the tractor when nowadays it wouldn't be acceptable.
WU: Right.
LV: But we had to stand on the clutch with both feet in order to even stop the thing…
WU: [Laughter]
LV: ...we weren’t heavy enough. [Laughter]
WU: Those were the good old days! [Laughter]
LV: [Laughter] So it wasn't...no, it wasn’t very safe, if you look back at it. Sometimes Dad had to jump
down off of the wagon and come up and get the tractor stopped, if we needed to have it stop. But he
was, you know, we didn't get into situations that we were going to get in trouble, but still, it was
something you [?].
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
WU: Well, your father clearly is working outside the home, I mean, he's working… so really, he’s a part
time farmer…
LV: Yeah.
WU: ...almost a hobby farm.
LV: Yeah, he was part-time most of the time. He was... that was evenings and weekends. I think his
intent was to be more full-time. But sometimes you’ve got to have a job someplace to generate some
revenue. And so, he got into that job that he ended up retiring from and it turned out to be a pretty
good job. And so, all of his hobbies and farming and stuff… and of course, once we got old enough so we
could do something, then we would have a list of duties in the morning when he went to work,
especially in the summertime. And we could accomplish that in the daytime while he was gone.
WU: Oh, from a family history standpoint, your dad's parents - your grandparents - do you recall their…?
LV: I recall the ones on my mother's side a little bit better because on my dad's side, I was only three
years old when his dad died…
WU: Okay.
LV: ...and I was only maybe ten when his mother died. And of course, back then, everybody was
somehow tangled up in agriculture of some description. And on my mother's side, her dad, that's what
he did was farming.
WU: Now your father and his… your grandfather. Do you know what country they came from or how
they got here, so to speak?
LV: Well, it's Pennsylvania Dutch, is what it is supposedly. And the VanSickles came from Marengo, Ohio,
up here. Now, I'm not sure what foreign country their ancestors come from.
WU: Well, they're Dutch, they're probably from the Netherlands or something.
LV: They’re from the Netherlands, but supposedly the heritage is Pennsylvania Dutch. Now, technically, I
don't know what that means, but that's basically… yeah.
WU: Yeah, but they settled, I mean, your grandfather was not... was he an immigrant? I guess that's
what I was trying to understand or was he a first generation American?
LV: I'm thinking he probably... I don't think he was an immigrant.
WU: Okay.
LV: I think he was probably first generation American. That would be my guess. And I don't know, I don't
remember any of them talking about that.
WU: Now, did your mom work outside the home?
LV: She did not work outside other than she was a licensed beautician.
WU: Oh, she was?
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
LV: And so, she... actually, she did it right in the house. I can remember somebody getting a permanent
one over suppertime and we’d be there fixing hair and just having supper. But then the rules that
regulate that kind of stuff didn't allow that anymore.
WU: Sure.
LV: And so, when we got married, they built a new house and Dad made a special beautician parlor in
the basement for her…
WU: So, she could...
LV: ...so she could do that. And they added its own entrance and so they could grow. They could do that.
So, she... I don't know if she ever did that full-time. You know, it was always kind of off again and again.
WU: Well, in terms of your childhood, you grew up out in Elbridge Township, I assume.
LV: Yep.
WU: And you went to, what, the Elbridge School?
LV: No, back then it was Elbridge Township had six rural schools. And so, I went to...
WU: Wait, stop. You’re telling me Elbridge Township had how many rural one-room schoolhouses?
LV: Six.
WU: Really? Boy, that's throwing me a little bit. I would not have guessed that. So, there's six one-room
schoolhouses within that six acres… or six square miles?
LV: Yep.
WU: Okay, well...
LV: I think I can name them! There was the Shaw [?] School, which was on the corner of 144th and Polk.
Sales [?] School was on Harrison Road part way toward Walkerville. Zeder [?] School was on the corner
of 128th and Tyler. May School was on 144th and Filmore. Houcks [?] School was on 128th south of
Tyler and Sackurader [?] School was on 116th and Polk.
WU: So which school did you have?
LV: I went to Shaw [?]. It was a mile away from my house.
WU: And so, you got to school, walked back and forth?
LV: Walked most of the time, yep. When we was... I graduated in eighth grade from that school. The
following year, they opened up the new Elbridge School. In 1957, the Elbridge School opened…
WU: That consolidated…
LV: ...that consolidated all six of them schools, so they had one Elbridge School…
WU: Basically, across the street from you.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
LV: Yeah, almost. Just kitty-corner, yeah. But I never got to go there because I come to town the year
that they opened that and I never got to go to the new high school in town because our class was the
last class to graduate from the old high school.
WU: Well, you did the last semester.
LV: No, no, I never got in there. My brother did. Garth got in there because the class of ‘62 with the first
class to graduate from the new high school.
WU: I'm getting you mixed up with Garth right now.
LV: Yeah [laughter].
WU: Mainly because…
LV: Garth was in with John.
WU: Yes. And that's why I'm confused, because my brother graduated that year. Well, now when you're
a kid...let's keep you in the Elbridge area for a little bit before we get you into high school. Do you
remember any of the kids other than your own siblings that you hung out with and the things that you
did or any stories that you care to…?
LV: Well, we used to play with Jack and Lane Tate. They grew up right across the street from us and then
the Amstutz boys were kind of kitty-corner across the field. Buzzy Amstutz - I’ll call him, Ken - or his
name is Ken, they called him Buzzy. And then Larry Amstutz, who passed away a year or so ago. And,
yeah, we would get together with them mostly and once in a while south of us were Melvin and
Raymond Burmer [?]. And they were all part of our school down there, so we used to play with them
once in a while.
WU: Is there anything that you'd like to share, for the record, any humorous things that have happened
or something? Some childhood memory that comes to mind?
LV: Well, I don’t know if it’s humorous or not, but we used to go down in the woods and have BB gun
fights and play cops and robbers, and we had a BB gun, you know, and lucky somebody didn't…
WU: Get hurt!
LV: ...get hurt. And Buzzy Amstutz had a real good arm on him. And so, there were some guineas they’re like a duck or turkey - but something like that. And so, he figured, by golly, we’ll... maybe we can
get one of them, cook it up to eat it. So, he threw a rock at them, knocked it out of the tree, and so we
had a little fire and cooked that guinea. [Laughter]
WU: That had to be an unusual experience!
LV: Just normal stuff that kids do, I guess.
WU: So, you finish your elementary school and they opened the Shaw [?] one-room schoolhouse. Any
special memories of teachers during your elementary years and one that really stands out in your mind?
LV: We had June McClellan who was the teacher for a while and she lived just north of us. And in the
wintertime, we’d walk… she'd walk to school and the roads would have too much snow on them and
she'd walk to school with us, we’d all walk to school. Once you got to school, you had to build the fire,
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
because at that time when we were smaller, there was no fuel furnace or nothing in that area, there was
a wood pot-bellied stove that you had to… it was a teacher’s job to build the fire. And there was
probably fifteen kids in the whole school, all grades. And so, for the most part, there was only one
person in my grade with me and some kids were in the grade all by themselves. And but, I know she...
several times in the wintertime, she’d walk with us, and teachers got paid peanuts, you know, back then,
dedicated to it anyway.
WU: Right, and I suppose as you got older, you might even have to help build the fire...
LV: Oh, yeah. Yep.
WU: ...and carry the wood in.
LV: We had to do that.
WU: And maybe even make sure things were okay before you left the building so it wouldn’t burn down.
LV: Well, that was basically the teacher's responsibility, but she would ask for somebody to help and
we’d do that.
WU: Okay. Now, as a kid, I'm getting you in the twelve-year-old area or so, did you work on any other
farms besides your own, harvesting crops or anything like that?
LV: Well, we did. When we got to be old enough that somebody could think we could pick up a bale of
hay. We had some neighbors, they was...[?] was their name. The [?] neighbors, they were Barbara and
Elsie, and they was there by themselves and they was farming for their brother was going to do the
farming but he drowned up at School Section Lake. His name was Frankie [?]. And so, we’d go down and
help them haul hay. And, you know, just a seasonal deal… two, three days a week kind of deal. We’d
help them with that and then when we got a little bit older, my uncle was Keith Clark, and I can
remember hauling hay for him for a month when he got sick of it because he made a lot of hay.
WU: And that was a long job.
LV: That was.
WU: A hard job.
LV: Yep, that was. And then we’d get all dirty and sweaty and then at night we'd go down to Evans Lake.
There was a little spot there where you could get in there and get cooled off. It seemed to be fun,
anyway.
WU: Did you ever get involved in harvesting, like cherries or some of the crops? Pickles? As a kid?
LV: We didn't have to harvest them ourselves. Well, we had… Dad had five acres of cherries…
WU: Oh, did he?
LV: ...and a couple acres of peaches. And so, as a kid, we had to pick them peaches and help… we had to
thin them. And then when the cherries come around, we had to pick.
WU: And that's back in the handpicking days.
LV: Yep.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
WU: Okay, were you able to pick... how many acres of cherries did you say?
LV: He had five acres of cherries.
WU: Were you able to just do that, pick that?
LV: No.
WU: Or did you have to bring in people?
LV: He brought in people to help.
WU: Okay, and the type of people that showed up?
LV: Well, back then, as I recall, all the while I was growing up, my dad would grow a few pickles and the
help we had were... I don't know what the right terminology is, they were colored people.
WU: Alright.
LV: From Arkansas.
WU: Okay, so they were African-American people from Arkansas.
LV: Yeah.
WU: Would this be several families?
LV: No, there would be maybe one family or five or six people. There was one man in particular that I
know my dad had sent him a bus ticket to get him up here. And he helped because Dad grew a few
potatoes, too. So, he’d help pick pickles and then he helped us when we was hauling hay. We needed
somebody up in the haymow, to move it all around because it was all loose hay, and he would do that.
WU: But he had no family? He just came up by himself?
LV: Well, he had some friends. He had a girlfriend, I think, in Arkansas, because he could not read or
write, and so at whatever age I was - ten, twelve, thirteen, somewhere in there - I would write these
letters for him. He would tell me what he wanted to say and I’d write a letter and send it to the lady in
Arkansas. And then when she’d write back, I’d read it to him because he couldn't read or write. In fact,
there was a time there when he was probably when I first got in high school, he didn't come anymore.
He was getting old. Well, prior to that, my dad worked on trying to get him social security and couldn't
even prove he was born, you know, he was…
WU: There was no record of him.
LV: So finally, they just picked a spot and said, we think you’re so old and so they sent him a check.
WU: He finally managed to get into the system.
LV: Yeah, he got his Social Security. Probably never paid anything in, I don't imagine. I don't know. But
no, he wasn't. He was born in Bogalusa, Louisiana - I think is what it was. They tracked that somehow or
another. He was... his parents were slaves. But he was... I got along good with him, you know.
WU: And apparently he was a good worker.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
LV: He was a good worker. And we had an old house right across the driveway - we’ve since tore it down
- from where we lived. And I know every night after supper, Ma would fix a plate of stuff and we would
take it over to him. He could cook himself, but she felt sorry for him, so she’d always fix a plate.
WU: Get him some home cooking so he didn’t have to do it himself. Well, that's got to be a vivid
memory, especially writing a letter for a fellow.
LV: Yeah, that was... I thought it was kind of neat at the time. I was probably twelve or thirteen and, not
to get off on the subject, but when I was in high school - I think I might have graduated - right after I
graduated high school, I made up my mind I wanted to find that guy.
WU: Oh, did you?
LV: So Butch [?] and I, Butch was a good friend of mine.
WU: Sure.
LV: So, we got in the car and went to Arkansas and like that we found him.
WU: Oh, did you?
LV: We found him, he was still alive. We had some addresses from… I don’ t know where I got the
addresses. We followed somebody else first. And Butch, he didn't want to get out of the car, you know,
because we were right downtown. Everybody was black. And so, I would start knocking on doors looking
for this guy.
WU: What city in Arkansas?
LV: West Memphis.
WU: Yeah, you're just in the state of Arkansas, but you’re in West Memphis, which is a tough area.
LV: Yeah, sure. But this, of course, had been fifty years ago now. But I found him and when I asked him if
he'd ever been to Michigan, he looked at me and he recognized me, you know, and I had changed a lot.
WU: Sure.
LV: He sat there in the chair. He sat there and he always smoked a pipe. He just wasn’t doing nothing.
But we just took him a whole truckload of old clothes and I don’t know what all. So, we gave him all that
stuff. And so that really made my day…
WU: That’s great.
LV: ...because he was...I really liked him. And I was at an age, you know, where we were friends and I
helped him. He has since passed away.
WU: Well, I'm going to move you into high school now. Obviously, you're still living at the farm, but now
you're coming into Hart, Hart High School. And what year did you graduate from Hart, then?
LV: ‘61.
WU: So, you're with the class in 1961 and during high school, are there any special activities that you
recall that you enjoyed or were involved in?
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
LV: Well, I was in the band. That was something that I was in.
WU: What instrument did you play?
LV: I played the trombone.
WU: You were a trombone player, okay.
LV: But of course, you never did any of that. Well, we took lessons, I guess, maybe a couple of years
before we came to high school. But back then, because we was out there, you know, you come to high
school, no money, and so I always dreamt about playing football. And so, I went out for football and, of
course, I didn't know nothing about what they was doing. You know, the kids in Hart, they knew the
coach. And I was just an outsider and so I didn't do very good at that. I went out for, I think, one year.
And then I didn't do it anymore.
WU: Okay, so you played a little football. You got involved in band.
LV: Yep, band. And my senior year I ran track and I wish I had done that sooner because I kind of liked
that and I could run!
WU: Are we talking distances or sprints?
LV: No, like the quarter mile.
WU: The quarter mile.
LV: Yeah, I could do all right with that.
WU: Well good. And so, in high school, you graduated in 1961 and from there what was your next step?
In education or work or whatever?
LV: Well, I was, of course, working all the time. But I went to Michigan State, short course. Back then
they had... there were just eight weeks, eight weeks in the fall, eight weeks in the wintertime - that was
your short course and you do that for two years. And then you got a certificate and you could pick
whatever you want. You can study horticulture or you could study pigs or you could study cattle or just
all kinds of different things. I don't think they even have that program anymore. They’ve got ag.
[agriculture] tech or something; it's kind of a four-year deal. So, I just took that short course.
WU: Alright. So, you took the short course and were you working during that period of time?
LV: Well, I was starting to farm a little bit on my own. And then summers right after I got out of high
school, I had a job working in the pickle station in Shelby. Heinz had a pickle station down by the sawmill
and so during pickle season, which, you know, lasted July through middle of September, I would work
down there helping. We had to grate pickles and handle bushel crates of pickles and that kind of stuff,
so I did that.
WU: Now you graduate, you finish your short course. And what year would that have been?
LV: Let me see. I think I actually took three years to do it. The first year I only took one eight-weeks in
the middle of winter. The next year I took eight weeks and then the following year I took the total to
finish it. So, I think it must have been sixty-three or four.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
WU: Somewhere along the way you got married.
LV: That was ‘65.
WU: Alright, so after you finish the short course, you get married. Your wife's maiden name was?
LV: Scofield.
WU: Okay, and just talk about your family a little bit. You have how many children?
LV: We've got four kids.
WU: That's what I thought.
LV: Yep.
WU: Just name them.
LV: Well, Lon’s the oldest one. And then Lance is the second one. Lynn is a boy - he's the third one. And
then Carma’s the last one. Lon was born in ‘67, Lance in ‘68, Lynn in ‘72, and Carma in ‘74.
WU: And your wife's first name is?
LV: Carla.
WU: And it's spelled?
LV: C-a-r-l-a.
WU: Okay, and she worked outside the home for a period of time, did she not?
LV: Yeah, she was all about nursing.
WU: That’s what I thought.
LV: And she did that right out of high school. She worked over here at the Oceana hospital; most of the
years that she worked was over there. And then when that closed, she worked for Mercy Hospital in
Muskegon, and she worked a little bit up at Ludington, and then she did home health through the
Health Department. District Ten Health Department or District Five Health Department at that time had
home health. And so, she worked doing that until she retired.
WU: Well, now we have you married. I'm trying to take you through this maybe ten, fifteen-year period
of your life from ‘65 to ‘70… or that being, what, ‘65 to ‘80, a fifteen-year period. You became a full-time
farmer eventually, is that correct?
LV: Yeah.
WU: And just for the historical part, help me understand: where you started it and how did it expand
and what you got into, in terms of the type of crops and so forth?
LV: Well, when we started, I took over what Dad had.
WU: That's what I thought.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
LV: And we had a little piece of asparagus, not very much. And we had five acres of cherries and he had
some cattle.
WU: Cattle, not cows?
LV: No, they were beef cattle. And, you know, they’re something to sell for meat. And so, I expanded
that a little bit. I remodeled the barn and put up a silo and I made kind of a feedlot so I could feed more
cattle. And so, we did that. And then we planted more asparagus. We ended up… we planted more
cherries, too. But we ended up in… I don't remember the year now, it might’ve even been up to ‘90.
That cherry market wasn't any good, for several years there it wasn't any good and so we got out of
that.
WU: But did you do all this on the… how many acres did you...?
LV: I bought one hundred twenty-eight acres from my dad.
WU: Alright. So, you have one hundred twenty-eight-acre farm and all the activities are on that hundred
and twenty-eight acres?
LV: Well, in ‘72 I bought small crop.
WU: Okay.
LV: In ‘72, I bought... actually I bought one hundred sixty acres. I bought what the neighbors had across
the road. They had two forties and then east of the old Shaw School. I bought what Edmond [?] used to
be down there and he had seventy-nine acres and so we bought that.
WU: So basically, you bought two eighties. There’s your hundred sixty and you had a hundred twentyeight or so to start with. So, with those new purchases, did any crops come with it?
LV: No, there were no permanent crops on there.
WU: Okay. No orchards and things of that nature?
LV: No. But in about 1974, Jerry Brandel talked me into growing pickles and we had grew up growing a
few pickles so it wasn’t foreign to me, I knew something about it.
WU: Now, how many... did you have a couple of acres of pickles?
LV: When we grew up?
WU: Yeah.
LV: Well, I think Dad maybe had ten acres.
WU: Oh, really?
LV: And then these people that came from Arkansas, they picked the pickles, too.
WU: They picked the cherries and they picked the pickles.
LV: And part of our job was at the end of the day, go out and gather up the pickles. And then there was a
pickle station. Jack Liebovitz had a pickle station by Twin Bridges. Bob Blackmer… Abe Rafelson was
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
buying pickles at the Blackmer store. And at that time, Stokeley’s was even buying pickles over on Taylor
Road. [?] was buying for Stokeley’s; he was buying pickles back then.
WU: So, there's a good market for pickles. You decided maybe you ought to go that route.
LV: Well, and then Jerry Brandel was... he had hooked himself up with Heinz with some pickles. And so,
we tried that and we did that for...
WU: Well, when you say tried that, give me an idea, what type of acreage did you…?
LV: I think the first go around we planted twenty, twenty-five acres.
WU: Alright.
LV: And then, of course, you got to get help, gather up the help, you know, to pick it. So, we did that and
then we...
WU: Well, let's talk about that. How… where did you get your help?
LV: Well, I think we got them out of the employment office or Jerry Brandel might’ve had an extra
family. I'm not sure.
WU: We’re talking about migrant type folks would come up?
LV: Migrant type people, yep. And at that time, we did not have any housing and so we rented a [?]
house right next to us. It was migrant housing. And so, we rented that from them for the pickle season.
They didn't need it until later for the Christmas trees.
WU: Pickle season starts about when? The picking part of it.
LV: It's usually the last week of July.
WU: Okay, and it runs until?
LV: It runs until the middle of September, probably.
WU: Okay, so you’ve got…
LV: Six weeks.
WU: ...five, six, seven weeks of… maybe eight.
LV: Depending on the weather, yep.
WU: And it's all hand harvested?
LV: All hand harvested, yep.
WU: And in terms of putting together pickles, obviously you need the ground that can support pickles.
And the mechanics of getting a pickle crop in? Why don’t you just describe it briefly.
LV: Well, you got to have a planter to plant the seed. So, you’ve got to have a planter that'll do that. And
then back then, there was no chemical weed control for them. So, we had to make sure you cultivated
and then we used the same migrate people to do them and hoe them, usually twice. And so that’s not a
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
cheap task to do that. And pickles grow pretty fast because from the time you plant them until you start
harvesting them, it’s usually forty-five to fifty days. So, it happens pretty fast. But you got to, you know,
depending on the year we didn't have any irrigation. So, you’ve got to depend on Mother Nature to give
you the water you need. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t, so that's the way that works.
But we did eventually expand as we got into the late ‘70s. In ‘78, we built our first migrant camp, and so
then we had housing that we could use and so we grew more pickles. And then in ‘82, we built another
building. And so now we've got housing for seventy people. And so, we expanded the pickles; at one
time we had one hundred and fifty acres when we were going at it.
WU: Alright, so at the peak of the pickle part of your career as a pickle farmer, so to speak, you had a
hundred and fifty acres.
LV: Yeah, and that was probably mid ‘80s, somewhere in there.
WU: Now, during that period of time, you needed how many people to help you harvest the crop?
LV: Well, we staggered our plantings when we got into it awhile so we could actually… and the seed
changed so we ended up with some seed that don't last as long. So, then we started picking them
maybe only five times and that would be done. And then we’d go to the next field. And so, I think the
most people we ever had probably was around eighty that were picking. We housed some and then we
had some that we didn't house that were coming to work.
WU: Sure, and how did you get these pickers?
LV: It was mostly word of mouth, you know, people that had been there. And of course, when the
pickles were in their heyday, we didn't have the volume of asparagus in the area that we have now.
WU: Okay.
LV: And so, pickles were the crop that the migrants were waiting for and that was where they were
going to make their money for the summer. That whole thing has changed now. So that was... and then
back then, we gave the people half the crop and, of course, that was it. And of course, as you well know,
there was a lawsuit over that kind of activity. And so now you've got to pay all of these benefits on
everybody and so it's not economically feasible anymore.
WU: So, basically, the rules and regulations of the IRS and government authorities pretty much put that
kind of business out.
LV: And there's machines now that do most of it.
WU: So, you need a lot of capital to buy the machine.
LV: Oh, yeah. But you don't need the physical labor to do it. And I'm not sure that the generation of
people we have now would want to do… you know, that’s just terribly hard work.
WU: Yeah.
LV: And I don't think the generation of people we have now would buy into that.
WU: So, besides pickles and some cherries, any other crops? Of course, you talked about beef already.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
LV: Well, we’ve always grown corn and we grew it sometimes to sell some. And we had corn. We've
pretty much always had some beef around there.
WU: So, you needed hay, so I assume you had some of that.
LV: We had a little bit of hay and corn. And then in the middle, I think in the ‘80s somewhere we started
growing cabbage and cauliflower. And that was in conjunction with the pickles. And it kind of fit because
most of the labor needs for that were after the pickles were done and we had labor and so we could
harvest the cauliflower and the cabbage after that.
WU: You were basically the administrator of all the farm activities.
LV: Yeah.
WU: And I assume you had to do a certain amount of the physical labor, too?
LV: Yeah, I did.
WU: What other… did any of your family follow in your footsteps and help you with the...?
LV: Well, while our kids were growing up, they all helped. That was part of living there and that's what
you do. And they all picked asparagus. Our daughter was not very happy about doing that, but she did.
And then, a few years there when we didn't have many cherries, but we had equipment to harvest them
and then we did some custom harvesting. And so, the boys all helped.
WU: So, this would be you and the boys would go out and…?
LV: Well, we had to hire some people besides, but me and the boys could run the machinery and it took
some, you know, some labor. We had a harvester - you had to put a tarp out under a tree and somebody
had to do that. So, we did that for a few years and then we…
WU: So, that’s custom harvesting, basically.
LV: Yep, we did that.
WU: Would you do that just in Oceana County or did you go outside the county?
LV: No, pretty much Oceana County. We went up to Ludington once and did some, but no, we didn’t get
any farther away than that. Some guys did. Some guys used to go all over the place. But now we… well,
we had as soon as the cherries got down, we had the pickles and sometimes they overlapped. And I
know there was a couple times that we were shaking cherries and they were picking pickles at the same
time and we had to go after the shaken cherries. We had to go and gather up all the pickles and do
something with them.
WU: This is sort of an open-ended question, but what are some of the best things about being a farmer?
If you had to talk about some of the positive things about being a farmer, what would you say?
LV: Well, I think the one that comes up first is that you’re kind of your own boss, the lifestyle of just
being outside and out and about - that's attractive to some. I think being your own boss, I guess, you can
go and come as you please and you can watch whatever you do, make that you’re growing something
and you get self-satisfaction that “hey look here, this is what I did and now it's working.” And of course,
the contrary, if it didn't work, so you're trying to sort out why it didn't work. But that's probably that and
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
it's an awful good place to raise kids. And I know that even any people looking for help, if the kid shows
up there and says they've been on a farm, he’ll get the job before somebody else does just because they
learn how to work by being there.
WU: The work ethic that you're able to pass on to your…
LV: Well, and I can have a twelve or thirteen-year-old do something for me. Nobody else can hire
anybody that age. You’ve got to be family or you can't do it. So, there's knowledge, responsibility, and all
kinds of stuff that you learn when you're able to start doing that. If you've got to wait till you're eighteen
before you can do that, you know, that's tough. Some of the mold has already been made. [Laughter]
WU: Well, that's an interesting comment. And it says a lot about our culture of today and how we got
there.
LV: Oh, yeah.
WU: Well, being a farmer, bring me up to date with your activities now. Have you sold off some of this
acreage or are you still quite active?
LV: We aren’t growing pickles anymore. All we have now is we're concentrating more on asparagus.
WU: How many acres of asparagus?
LV: We've got about a hundred and twenty-five acres of asparagus.
WU: Okay.
LV: We've got about thirty acres right where I live that we're going to replant. We took it out here a
couple of years ago. And so, our goal is to hover around a hundred and fifty if we can get there.
WU: So that's your goal, to have all one hundred and fifty acres of asparagus.
LV: Four years ago, we formed an LLC with my son, Lance.
WU: Okay, so you and your son.
LV: And so, that started out me eighty percent, him twenty. Every year, we're changing that, so this
particular year we're fifty/fifty. Next year, he’ll be fifty-one, I'll be forty-nine, and that's the way it will
continue.
WU: So, he eventually is going to end up owning it.
LV: Yeah, he's working into it, except for my wife and I still own all the property.
WU: Okay.
LV: The LLC just owns the equivalent.
WU: It’s sort of the operating company…
LV: ...operating entity.
WU: And so, you can still charge rent to the operating entity to get...to keep...
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
LV: So, I can generate some revenue because in the type of work that I've done all my life, the part that's
missing is a big pot of retirement funds. And quite often in agriculture, that happens unless you once in
a while - another plus to being farmers - once in a while, maybe once in your lifetime or twice, it'll hit
and you'll have something that'll be worth something.
WU: Yeah. You're talking oil or gas?
LV: Well or even a crop of cherries. A lot of guys around have had a crop of cherries and they was worth
something and it kind of yield them up. And asparagus has done that for some people, too. And of
course, you've got to be sharp enough to know it when it happens and not squander it all. Anyway, so I
don't have much of a retirement package, so I need to generate some rent off the land or do something,
you know, so I can.
WU: But your comments are very typical of a lot of growers and farmers in our area.
LV: Yeah, I’d have a good retirement package if I sold out.
WU: Well yeah - you’re land rich.
LV: Yeah, if I sold out I... you know, I'd be good. But then my son wants the farm and of course he can't
afford to pay what I could get for it if I sold it to somebody else.
WU: Sure. That’s the way it is.
LV: That’s just the way it is.
WU: And so, the only way they are able to keep the farm going is to work out a program like you have
with your son. So, encourage them to get involved and then eventually they'll be taking your place.
LV: Yeah, that's kind of what the idea is.
WU: Well, maybe this is too personal, but I'll throw it out anyway. What do you like to do to relax? Are
there any special activities?
LV: You know, that's another weak point for me. You know, I don't really have any hobbies. And I guess
the part that I've done for several years - it's relaxing to me - is I participated in community. I was on the
School Board for twenty years. That kind of gets your thought process to be on to something else. I was
a County Commissioner for sixteen years; I really enjoyed that. That kind of gets your mind doing
something different than what you've been doing. But I don't golf, I don’t…
WU: You’re not a hunter necessarily or a fisherman?
LV: Are you wondering, as kids we used to do that stuff, but no, I could fish, I suppose.
WU: But it isn't anything on your bucket list necessarily to do.
LV: No, uh uh.
WU: As a farmer, I don’t know if you're able to do much traveling?
LV: Well, we don't. What we've done here for I think three or four years now is I've got two brothers and
so we try and spend a week or two together every summer and do something. A couple of years ago we
went to Branson, spent a week in Branson. And last year we went down to Nashville and spent a week
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
down there. And so that's kind of enjoyable to do that. But I'm not… we have a cabin up across the
straits that my dad and his brother built way back in the late ‘50s. And of course, both of them are gone
and so it's the next generation that has ownership of it. And so, it's our family and my dad’s brother's
family are the owners of the cabin. And my brother Norman keeps track of the cabin as to who is going
when. And so, you know, once a year we try to go up there.
WU: What's it nearby? What town is it nearby?
LV: It's about twenty miles west of St. Ignes, little town of Brevort.
WU: What’s the name of it?
LV: Brevort. It's just a little bitty town. If you know where the Cut River Bridge is on US-2, it's back east
of that.
WU: Okay.
LV: It’s right out in the woods. My dad used to go up there hunting when he was young and his brother
did, too. And so, they bought an acre. And in 1957, ‘58, they built a little cabin. And for several years it
didn't even have inside plumbing or bathroom, had an outside thing. And so, they fixed it up now so that
it's more convenient. And so that's kind of fun to go up there and used to be the place to go and the
phone wouldn’t ring while you’re there. Well, now these darn cell phones! [Laughter]
WU: I know it. You can't have the peace and quiet you used to be able to enjoy. Well, from your
perspective: farming has changed a lot during your lifetime.
LV: Oh yeah, for sure.
WU: And how would you describe the changes? What have you seen that's different in farming today
than what it was when you were eighteen years old and twenty years old?
LV: Well, the onset of electronics. You know, computers and cell phones and all that stuff. And then a lot
of farmers are hooked up on... they’re doing GPS mapping of their fields. So, you can… if you got one
spot that needs something extra, you can treat it that way; there's all of the suppliers of farm chemicals
and fertilizer have people that are capable of coming to do that for you. And then you've got to have
specialized equipment to buy fertilizer and it'll only apply it where you need it. It won't apply it... so
everything's all GPS soaked in. So that's the technology that has really changed.
The public's demands for where their food comes from has changed. Because we take fresh asparagus
to Todd Greiner [?] to pack, he sells it to Meijer, Wal-Mart, wherever it goes. And so, then buyers
require what we call a gap audit, generally accepted practices from a third party that have to come in
and perform an audit. And they look at everything that we do, how we manage the land, how we
manage manure, how we deal with our water and just what the source of the water is. And we have to
have the water analyzed to make sure it's fit for what we're using it on and how we handle our
chemicals and make sure that we don't put down more fertilizer than we need, make sure we're testing
and doing all that stuff. And then every field has to be named, numbered, or something for traceability.
So, if I take some asparagus down to Todd Greiner [?], he ships it to Walmart in Ohio someplace, and
then if somebody gets something bad, they can track it right back to my place or anybody else. And so
that's the public demands for stuff. And that's not all done yet. There’s more sophisticated audits and
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
then a voluntary deal that we do as Michigan Environmental Assurance Program, which they call MEAP,
that we go through an audit by somebody from the conservation district. They'll come out and then we
get a sign to put it in the front yard that says we’re MEAP verified, which tells everybody that, yes, we're
paying attention...
WU: ...to all these details and regulations.
LV: All these details and all these regulations we’re abiding by them. And when I first started doing any
of that, you know, I was more of a person that kept stuff in my head and you can't do that anymore.
Everything is you’ve got to document, document, document and for the gap certification that we have,
we've got a manual that's about that thick. We bought the manual from somebody that knew how to
put one together, because when this first came about, wow, what are we going to do here? And so, we
bought one from a guy that does auditing and you’ve got policies for everything that happens. There's a
policy if somebody cuts their finger, there's a policy in there as to how you deal with it. And if you're out
in an asparagus patch and you come up to where a deer has been out there and defecated, you've got
a… there's a policy as to what you do with that.
WU: That’s amazing, okay.
LV: And so that's how more complicated it is now than what it used to be, because they're so concerned
about E. coli, salmonella, all of these kinds of things. And I think, it's just my thought that, you know, the
kids are being raised too clean. You know, we were raised playing out in the dirt and we’d have a
sandwich - we never washed our hands - we were playing in the barnyard. We're doing all that stuff.
And so, I think we built some immunities.
WU: Okay.
LV: I don't think people are building immunities now because they're… they won't let their system have
a chance.
WU: They’re too sanitized.
LV: Too sanitized, I think. And so, the minute that something comes along that can cause them a
problem, it does. And more so than when we were growing up.
WU: That's an interesting observation.
LV: But I may not be right.
WU: Yeah.
LV: But it just seems like, you know, every place you go, there's a sanitizer, you know, to keep you clean.
But anyway, its consumer driven. Most everything that farmers do now is consumer driven. Animal
rights people, they're all around, you know, where they’re growing these confined chickens in a cage.
Well, the animal rights people got a hold of that and now they've got to redo it and make the cages
bigger because the chickens are too crowded. And yeah, there's a lot of regulations and concerns that
show up that are... I don't know if they're in the best interest of anybody.
WU: Well, the technology and the social media out there is just a different world.
LV: Yep.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
WU: And so, you know what's going on in all these different states and places through that medium.
LV: Oh yeah.
WU: Well, I want to wrap this up in just a few minutes, but you have... do you belong to any
organizations that speak for farmers?
LV: I belong to the Farm Bureau.
WU: So, Farm Bureau is...
LV: That's the only one that I…
WU: ...that you belong to at least and you work with them or that represent agriculture. And of course,
you've already talked about that you’ve been a County Commissioner, you've been involved in a lot of
community affairs; as a result, you’re on all kinds of subcommittees and task forces. And I applaud you
for all that activity. When someone listens to this tape or reads the transcript that eventually will be
made of this twenty-five, thirty years from now. What would you most like them to know about your life
and our community right now? So, anything special?
LV: You know, I've always had trouble with goals. You know, setting something, and then when you get…
and working towards it and then happy, happy, happy when you get there. And I guess maybe I'm not
that good of a visionary to know where that ought to be. I kind of stumble through as I go. So, I don't
know. I probably if I was to go through life again, I might do some things different. You know, you're
always... hindsight is always twenty/twenty, but I'm pretty happy with what I've done. I'm proud of
myself for my participation and the activities that I've participated in, the community service. And I'm
confident that I've done a good job of it. But I guess history will have to determine whether that was
correct or not.
WU: Well, you've played a big role in the history of this community, and I'm sure it's well documented
through our local papers and in all other types of public publications, so to speak. Is there anything that
you would like to say, the part of this interview that I may not have even asked you about? Was there
anything special you'd like to say?
LV: I think you've pretty much covered, you know, our family history and what we've done as a farm. I
think that's... I can't think of anything that you haven't covered.
WU: Well, thank you for your time, Larry, and for sharing your memories with me. And this concludes
our interview. Thank you very much.
21
�
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a03819dca95f2477d8104b8e1e8f823b.mp3
db5486b30c6b4ed1911836bdd8fdea5b
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Oceana County Migrant Labor History Collection
Creator
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Shell-Weiss, Melanie
Description
An account of the resource
Collection contains images and documents digitized and collected through the project "Growing Community: A Century of Migration in Oceana County." This project was a collaboration between El Centro Hispano de Oceana, the Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society, and Grand Valley State University funded by a Common Heritage grant from the United States National Endowment for the Humanities. The materials in this collection document the history of communities in Hart, Shelby, and Walkerville and explore themes of migration, labor, religion, family, belonging, national and cultural identities, regional, national, and international connections, and citizenship.
Coverage
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Oceana County (Mich.)
Source
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Grand Valley State University. Kutsche Office of Local History
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives
Contributor
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El Centro Hispano de Oceana; Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society
Relation
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Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage project)
Identifier
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DC-06
Format
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application/pdf
image/jpeg
audio/mp3
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Text
Image
Sound recording
Language
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eng
spa
Date
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2016
Subject
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Oceana County (Mich.)
Hart (Mich.)
Shelby (Mich.)
Farms
Farmers
Migrant agricultural laborers
Hispanic Americans
Account books
Diaries
Oral history
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
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DC-06_VanSickle_Larry
Creator
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VanSickle, Larry
Date
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2016-06-18
Title
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VanSickle, Larry (audio interview and transcript)
Description
An account of the resource
Oral history interview with Lawrence (Larry) VanSickle. Interviewed by Walter Urick on June 18, 2016 in Hart, Michigan. English language. Larry VanSickle was born in Hart, Michigan in 1943 and grew up on a one hundred and twenty acre farm located on East Polk Road, which he later purchased from his father upon getting married in 1965. His family is of Pennsylvania Dutch heritage and each of the generations were involved with agriculture. Larry graduated from Hart High School in 1961 and then attended Michigan State University. After marrying his wife in 1965, he became a full-time farmer by taking over his father’s farm, and later focused on farming his one hundred and twenty-five acres of asparagus that will one day be taken over by his son.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Urick, Walter (interviewer)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oceana County (Mich.)
Hart (Mich.)
Farms
Farmers
Dairy farmers
Pennsylvania Dutch
Michigan State University
Audio recordings
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Type
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Sound
Text
Format
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audio/mp3
application/pdf
Language
A language of the resource
eng
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https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c722ea729681a3aef4d6402c0f781069.pdf
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Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
Jerry Spencer Interview
Interviewed by Walter Urick
June 18, 2016
Transcript
WU: My name is Walter Urick, and I am here today with Jerry Spencer at the City of Hart Community
Center in Hart, Michigan on June 18th, 2016, for the purpose of attaining the oral histories of the
Spencer family. The oral history is being collected as part of the Growing Community Project, which is
supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage
Program.
Jerry, thank you for taking the time to talk to me today. I am interested to learn more about your family
history and your experiences living and working in Oceana County. So, let's just start out with some easy
questions. State your full name, Jerry.
JS: Jerry Gene Spencer.
WU: And Spencer is spelled how?
JS: S-p-e-n-c-e-r.
WU: Now, when were you born, Jerry?
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
JS: April 9th, 1932.
WU: And where were you born?
JS: In Hart.
WU: And your father's name?
JS: Eugene.
WU: Spencer?
JS: Spencer.
WU: And your mother's name?
JS: Leona McKee.
WU: Alright, Leona McKee. McKee was her maiden name, is that what you’re telling me?
JS: McKee was her father's name. And then her mother moved her up from Grand Rapids and she
married Charley Schultz.
WU: Okay. When you use the name McKee, is that part of the McKee family of Pentwater? No relation?
JS: No relation to my knowledge.
WU: Well, your dad at the time of your birth was about how old?
JS: I would guess about twenty, twenty-two, maybe.
WU: Okay, and let's talk a little bit about... well, before we talk about your parents, did you have
siblings?
JS: No, I was the only child.
WU: Okay, well, let's back up then to your parents. Start with your dad, in terms of what he did for a
living. Describe it as best you can.
JS: He, my dad, farmed his whole life on our farm. That is still... not farming anymore, but it's still located
just outside of Hart.
WU: And that's part of the industrial park now?
JS: Right.
WU: When your dad was farming it, can you describe the acreage, for example?
JS: The base farm only had thirty-six acres, but my grandfather - his dad - had purchased probably farms
in the county that probably they had two to three hundred acres altogether.
WU: Alright, well, then you're taking me back to another generation - your grandfather - and what was
his name?
JS: Edward.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
WU: So, we have Edward Spencer and you grew up on a thirty-six-acre farm, is that what you're telling
me?
JS: Yes.
WU: Okay, well, let's just talk about that thirty- six acres for a little bit. What type of farm was it? What
type of crops or activity was it?
JS: It started out when my dad was a child - it was a dairy farm, kind of.
WU: Really?
JS: Back then they didn't have many, maybe ten or twelve cows that they milked and then they
eventually turned into all fruit.
WU: And when you say fruit, what type of fruit?
JS: We had a little bit of everything. We had sweet and sour cherries, apples, plums, peaches, pears.
WU: How many acres do you think were in an orchard situation?
JS: The whole farm was an orchard.
WU: Really? Except, obviously, for the house and the barn.
JS: Except for the house and the barn and what used to be the barnyard and stuff like that.
WU: So out of the thirty-six acres, would it be fair to say you probably had at least thirty-two, thirtythree?
JS: I would guess, in that area.
WU: Of tillable or producing land.
JS: Of tillable property, producing land.
WU: Now, talking about your father. I know that he died relatively...
JS: At forty-nine.
WU: So, when he was forty-nine, he died. What were the circumstances?
JS: Heart attack.
WU: That's what I thought.
JS: He had one when he was forty-four, another one when he was forty-six, and one when he was fortynine. And that got him and he... back then they couldn't do anything.
WU: Right.
JS: He was on a blood thinner and that was all. He couldn't work, he couldn't do anything those five
years.
WU: Alright, so the last five years of his life he basically was disabled.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
JS: He just sat in the house.
WU: Oh my. Well, it must have put a little pressure on you and the rest of the family.
JS: I was going to college and just got out of college at that time. So, I never went to the service because
right at the time I got a call to go for my army physical, my dad had a heart attack and I was the only
breadwinner of the family at that time. So, I got a farm deferment... what they called a farm deferment
at that time.
WU: We’ll revisit that in a moment. Right now, trying to get a feeling for your dad, what he did. When
he was healthy, basically, he was a farmer, that’s what you're telling me?
JS: Yes, that’s all he did.
WU: And he did the dairy farm and the yearly part?
JS: Yes, and then it switched to just beef cattle.
WU: To beef cattle?
JS: For a while and then they eliminated all the livestock and just went strictly fruit farming.
WU: Now, was he in partnership with his dad, your granddad?
JS: Yes, he was in partnership with my grandfather, Edward, and they had leased - oh my gosh, I don't
know - outside of our farm, they had bought a farm up a road called the Sturge Farm, and that was
twenty acres, I think. And they had a farm over to Mears on Round Lake and they farmed all of them.
WU: So, your dad... was Marshall Spencer a part of that or was…?
JS: He was...no, he was... Marshall was my dad's brother.
WU: Right.
JS: Younger brother and Marshall went to New York and farmed for a few years and then came back to
Michigan and bought a farm out east of Hart.
WU: Okay, so that was separate…
JS: Separate, yep.
WU: That wasn’t part of…
JS: My dad was the only… they had, my grandfather, they had four boys and three girls. And my dad was
the only one that stayed at home and farmed.
WU: Okay.
JS: So, when my grandfather died, when my dad got the home farm and then that's still there.
WU: Now, your mom, did she at least in your formative years, your early years, did she work outside the
home?
JS: She worked at Stokely’s [?].
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
WU: Okay, seasonal work?
JS: Yeah, in Fruitland [?], that they had in Hart.
WU: And if this may be a hard question to answer, but when you think of your dad, what do you think
he was most proud of having done in his life?
JS: I don't know, except I know he was a very generous person and trusted everybody. My dad said if
there is somebody - and him and my mother, I know, used to get in big growls [?] over it because he
would loan anybody anything that they wanted. And so, my mom would say, well, you're never going to
get that back. And my dad would say, well, maybe not. We don't need to worry about it. And so, I would
think that, you know, I looked at him as for that, that he was…
WU: Very generous.
JS: Very generous and very trusting. And I know he always told me, he said, “if there's somebody that
don't trust people, then he can't be trusted.” My dad always went in that philosophy so…
WU: That's a good line. That's a good philosophy, really.
JS: So, my dad was easygoing; my mother not quite as much.
WU: Well, speaking of your mom, I'll ask you the same question I asked about your dad. Is there
anything special in her life that she was very proud of?
JS: I can't think…. I know she did a lot of work with the church and at [?], you know, they... well, you're
familiar with the congregators that they had…
WU: Yes.
JS: And that probably was something that she would be proud of…
WU: Being a part of that women's society group in the church.
JS: Yeah.
WU: Well, I’m going to back up now and take you through your childhood, your education, and so on.
You've already told me you were born in, what, ‘32?
JS: Thirty-two in Hart Hospital.
WU: Thirty-two in Hart… in the old Hart Hospital. Actually, that was the real old Hart Hospital, before
the new one was built.
JS: Correct.
WU: And so, I am assuming your education was all through the Hart Public School system?
JS: Hart Public Schools and then I went to Michigan State.
WU: Well, let's back up and keep you on Hart schools for a little bit. So, you went through the Hart
schools. You graduated with the class of?
JS: Fifty. Nineteen fifty.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
WU: Nineteen fifty from the Hart… and at the time you were living at the home place here, just west of
the fairgrounds, more or less.
JS: Correct.
WU: And let's talk about your childhood a little bit. Do you have any real vivid memories from your
childhood concerning maybe the friends that you had or the activities that you participated in?
JS: Oh, I had friends. You know, Jack Osten-Sacken, back in elementary school, was out at our place
almost every weekend. And of course, he didn't… his father lived in New York, so he kind of adopted my
dad as his dad.
WU: Sure.
JS: And he always talked about that. And in high school, I didn't go for sports because I was too small.
So, I was what they called the manager then and I got to wash all the football uniforms and polish the
footballs, pack them for the games and stuff like that. And so anyway, it was a lot of fun. At the time,
you don't think so, but when you look back on it, it was a lot of fun and good times.
WU: And made you part of the teams and the coaches.
JS: Oh, yeah.
WU: In those years, as I recall, as a young boy, those were some real good athletic teams for Hart.
JS: It was, yeah. We went to the quarterfinals in state when my junior year and we won the conference,
I think, all four years that I was in high school.
WU: I think it was the semifinals, wasn't it?
JS: Was it the semifinals?
WU: Yeah, you got beat by Kalamazoo, St. Augustine.
JS: St. Augustine, an all-boys school.
WU: An all-boys school before they changed the rules.
JS: Yeah.
WU: So, I think that school had something like three hundred boys and...
JS: We had like one hundred and fifty.
WU: And you had one hundred and fifty. See, so basically what they started doing, any school that had
three hundred boys would be treated as if they had six hundred kids and they would not be playing in
class C. But that's an aside to this interview. [Laughter] That’s something that even upsets me as I think
about…
JS: Back then, yeah.
WU: But you mentioned Jack Osten-Sacken. Did you have any other reasonably close friends as a kid, so
to speak?
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
JS: I had Don McLennon and Dick Curtis. Dick and I probably was real close; Dick lived with his
grandparents and we did a lot together all through high school and after high school, even, until we both
got married.
WU: Yeah, unfortunately, Dick, was...
JS: Yeah, got killed with a freak accident.
WU: Freak accident, yeah. I'm sorry. I remember reading about that, hearing about that.
JS: Working for the city and a utility pole, well, that's when they were building the new hospital.
WU: Right.
JS: And he had climbed up on a pole and it wasn't planted in the ground and it fell and killed him.
WU: Now, as a child, I assume you have a lot of farm-type chores. Is that a correct assumption on my
part or…?
JS: Yes, when you grow up on a farm, you’ve got to go home after school and do some things. And back
when we had cattle, I’d just feed them the grain and stuff. And then, of course, after we got rid of the
cattle, it was spraying. And I had to drive for the sprayers when I could, when I was home on Saturdays.
Every Saturday we were spraying and I got a nickel a tank, I can remember, for driving the tractor. And I
was so little at that time, when I first started, I don't know, probably five, six years old that I couldn't
turn corners. So, my dad... but I could keep it straight down the rows. So, when we would come to a
corner, my dad would climb down off the sprayer, between the sprayer and tractor, and grab the wheels
and turn the corner and hit it back, then jump back up on the spare.
WU: So, your dad would be doing the spraying. You were basically driving the tractor that pulled the
sprayers, is that what you're telling me?
JS: Right.
WU: And you're spraying all kinds of, what, cherries?
JS: Cherries, apples, peaches, plums, pears.
WU: Well, at that point, you…
JS: At that time, they sprayed by hand. They didn't have power sprayers.
WU: Sure, so that's why it was a two-person job, is what you’re telling me. But even taking you back into
maybe junior high or maybe fifth, sixth grade, did you have cattle that you had to deal with in those
early years?
JS: I never had to do much with the cattle.
WU: You didn't have to. You didn't have to worry about getting up and milking them?
JS: Oh no, I didn't have to do that.
WU: Well, you got lucky then. Alright, so your orchard experiences and the orchards came along, about
what stage of life were you? Were you in junior high or…?
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
JS: Let me see. I can remember, we were all in orchards in… ‘44...that would be ‘54… probably about the
time I was in high school.
WU: That's when you switched...
JS: From cattle to fruit farming.
WU: Cattle to fruit farming. Okay, and of course, that takes a while to get the trees planted and get
them turning [?] and producing. But when you use the language fruit farm, you know, are we talking not
only your thirty-odd acres and some of these other properties as well?
JS: Yeah, most all the other properties we had were properties that had orchards on, that the people
that owned them didn't have the equipment and couldn't take care of them. So, like, we would maybe
take care of it, spray it and harvest it and get half or…
WU: Get a percentage of the crop.
JS: ...a third or a percentage of the crop.
WU: Okay.
JS: Yeah, that's how that worked.
WU: So, you would end up helping out on these leased places.
JS: Right.
WU: And the farm, the other farm that you and your dad, well, your dad and his father purchased also.
JS: Yeah.
WU: Well, backing now into your educational background. You've obviously graduated from Hart High in
1950. Let's go forward. I know you went to college. Just indicate what was going on in your life and
what... where you went on to school and what type of program you've gone into.
JS: Well, I went to Michigan State the first year. First year I was there, I had picked Pomology, which is
the study of fruit, because I was familiar with that. And I didn't feel it was challenging enough, so I
switched to Ag. [agricultural] engineering and I don't know if that was too challenging or what. And then
I switched back to Ag. mechanics. And then my last year - I went five years - my last year, I taught labs
and in some of the Ag. courses for professor, as well as going to school.
WU: You were a teaching assistant then?
JS: Yes, just an assistant in the labs, yeah, helping out. And then I graduated in ‘55.
WU: From Michigan State with a degree in?
JS: A B.S.
WU: A B.S. degree, a Bachelor of Science degree. In what field? Agriculture? General…?
JS: My degree was in...it come from the School of Natural Science and Resources and I came home then
and farmed and I farmed probably for...
8
�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
WU: I'll get to that in a little bit.
JS: Okay.
WU: I want to keep you sort of in the educational part because, in fact, I even want to take you back to
Hart High. Was there any particular teacher that helped you, that you were really close to or had some
real fond memories of? Let's do it at either the elementary or high school level, either one.
JS: Oh, in elementary, I can remember Mrs. Northrup. Well, I don't know.
WU: That would have been about the third grade.
JS: Yeah, third or fourth grade. Fourth grade, nope, fourth grade I was in the Critic [?] Room, which was
where the... back then, they taught kids to teach school. They didn't have to go to college.
WU: Oh, that's right.
JS: And they had a Critic Room… they had fourth and sixth graders.
WU: This is called Oceana Normal or something like that in order to get country school teachers
certified.
JS: And so, they taught us, they took kids out of the fourth grade and the sixth grade and put them in
what they called the Critic Room. And then those young people wanting to be teachers would teach us…
WU: ...would practice on...
JS: Yeah, would practice.
WU: Well, that's interesting. I hadn't heard that before. So, I know various people who ended up being
school teachers in these one room schoolhouses and part of their education was they'd have to come
right down to Hart Public Schools. And so, they were practicing and they were being critiqued and they
were being taught how to be teachers. Is that it?
JS: Right, and that's what that room was for.
WU: And you were part of that guinea pig class?
JS: Yeah, I don't know how long they had that. I know I was in it in the fourth grade. I don't think they
had it because I can remember where the room was. And when I was in high school, it was gone.
WU: It was gone, yes.
JS: It was the sixth-grade room then or something. I don't remember.
WU: Well, you mentioned Mrs. Northrop. Once you go into high school, any particular teacher?
JS: Mr. Sheehan [?], probably.
WU: He was the math teacher.
JS: He taught math. And he was very strict, but I get along really good with him.
WU: He was demanding.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
JS: He was demanding, yep. But you learned a lot in his class and of course, then the coaches, because I
was the manager, Mr. Swanson and Jack Epenstall [?], whose names are familiar to you I’m sure.
WU: Sure.
JS: And Jack, we get to see Jack almost every year in Florida. He's… of course, Swanson passed away
back… I went to his funeral back probably ten years ago.
WU: Yes, so those were the men in the school system that influenced your life, at least, or people you
could relate with.
JS: Yeah.
WU: Well, from a college standpoint, were there any Oceana County kids that you either room with or
got rides with or…?
JS: Uh, I drove back and forth and, yeah, Gene Robinson.
WU: Oh, Gene, okay.
JS: Harley Hodges, Rich Hodges, Don McClennan. And we were all going to State at that time and we
rode back and forth together on weekends or when we came home.
WU: In terms of living arrangements, did you live with any of these folks or…?
JS: No, I lived in the same dorm the first year down there. And then I moved out of a dorm into a co-op
house because it was a lot cheaper.
WU: That's what I did when I went to college! I ended up in a co-op house, so I guess we had a similar
experience.
JS: Yeah, and then we had to... in the co-op house, I know we worked… you had to put in six hours of
work a week and they had certain jobs you could do. And I got to be Steward. I was Steward, for they
made me be Steward for a whole year, which we had to do all the ordering of the food and stuff, which
was a good experience.
WU: Sure.
JS: Then I worked at the campus press as a freshman for two years, two nights a week. I went to work at
1:00 in the morning and you had to work until you got the paper out, what they did was printed the
State News. And I started there as a kid that sat at the end of the press and we had a counter and maybe
two hundred papers would go to this dorm and two hundred would go to this dorm or something. We
had to bundle them up and set them aside for delivery. And then the freshmen quit. And the woman
that owned it asked if - Harley Hodges and I was working there - asked if we go in the press and Harley
said yes. So, we knew nothing about it, but we soon learned. And so, then we got to be pressman, which
we were in the big bucks, and we got a dollar seventy-five an hour for running the press.
WU: And so, were you still in the co-op or were you out of the co-op?
JS: I was in the co-op. The co-op was only a block from where the press was.
WU: So, you still did the work of the co-op. You were making money on the side.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
JS: I made enough work on those two nights. I'd end up in the spring with more money than I started
with in the fall.
WU: One way to work your way through college.
JS: It didn’t cost then, you know, tuition was only forty-seven fifty a term.
WU: Yeah, was that a class or the whole thing?
JS: That was for ten weeks for the whole thing.
WU: So less than fifty dollars! You could…
JS: ...was tuition.
WU: That was your tuition.
JS: Yeah. The only other expense was books and...
WU: Sure, and your own living.
JS: It cost us a hundred and twenty-five dollars a term for room and board in the co-op.
WU: Yeah, those days have long gone, financially.
JS: Yeah, so you're talking about five hundred dollars a year…
WU: ...to go to school.
JS: ...outside of books.
WU: Right. Well what I want to do now is talk a little bit about after college and you start your life's
work, so to speak. Can you just sort of take me through that? You graduate from college and I'm not
sure if you're coming home to farm or if you're moving from there into other types of work?
JS: I came home to farm because my dad was unable to do anything then, and so I farmed.
WU: So, this would be nineteen fifty-five? Fifty-six?
JS: Nineteen fifty-five, fifty-six. And let me put an age bracket with that. Let me see, my dad died when
he was forty-nine, which was in fifty-nine. My dad died in fifty-nine, so then I farmed and gave my
mother a share of the farm, fair share of the profits, and took care of the farms. And then in fifty-nine,
1959, I got married and, let me see, then I went to work for FMC Corporation and I think I was thirtyfour so that would have been.
WU: Alright, let's just back up. Let's take the nineteen fifty-five to fifty-nine portion of your life. There's
four years there. Your dad, at this point, is not able to do anything.
JS: Nothing.
WU: But your grandfather had passed on by then.
JS: Yes.
WU: Alright.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
JS: He passed on when I was in… when did he pass on? I can't exactly remember, but when I was in
college.
WU: Alright. So, at this point, you were basically it in terms of running the local family farm, so to speak,
plus any of the leased farms.
JS: Right.
WU: How did you handle that? That's more than a one-man job. What did you hire people or how did
that work out?
JS: Basically, no, I had, once in a while, I had... well, I had to have people help trim the orchards.
WU: Alright.
JS: And I hired a couple of people from Walkerville.
WU: Are we talking about local folks or migrant?
JS: Yeah, Ed Lathrop and [?] Brumley was my main pruners. Those guys were really good, a lot better
than I was. And then if I needed help in the spring, Albert [?] - you probably remember Albert used to
work for me?
WU: Yeah, he graduated with me. He was a little old for our class.
JS: I'm sure. [Laughter] But Albert used to work for me when I needed help doing anything, spreading
fertilizer, picking up brush or whatever. Albert, I could always depend on him.
WU: Then in terms of harvesting these crops?
JS: That's the best years of my life. And we had, back then, of course, we didn't have mechanical
harvesters.
WU: Right.
JS: We had pickers. Our pickers come up all the way from… well, most of our pickers came from
Arkansas and Missouri at that stage of my life. And nice families and I really enjoyed them.
WU: Are these with Hispanic backgrounds or were these…?
JS: These weren’t, these were all Southern people.
WU: Caucasian folks or…?
JS: Yes, and then it switched. Well, that's a little bit later, if you wanted to go into it later.
WU: Yeah, let’s just talk about...
JS: That was just the [?] experience. That's where the pickers came from was Arkansas and Missouri for
us.
WU: Arkansas. How did you find them?
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
JS: You know, I don't know. They just showed up and they'd show up and say, “do you need help?” And
we'd say, “yeah.” And we had buildings for them to live in. Of course, the buildings are still there and
they’d stay for the harvest and go back. One family particularly back then I can still remember; Woods
their name was. Johnny Woods and I, the year I graduated from college, they went on then down to
southern Michigan and picked apples. And when I graduated from college that year, I went down and
stayed with them in a little shack. We used to… our pastime at night was watching mice run around and
picked apples with their family. And that was an experience and a half. I always wanted to make the fruit
circuit and see what it was like, but I decided that it wasn't that much fun.
WU: So back in those early days, you're telling me that people would migrate from the South? It
probably was hot; they wanted to get into cooler climates. Their backgrounds, did they… what did these
folks do back in Arkansas, any idea?
JS: Yeah, well I could carry this family. Well, no, that's a family that we got a little bit later. Woods’, I
don't know what they did for a living. I do know that my wife and I was married back several… oh,
probably this happened about twenty years ago. Three o'clock in the morning, I got a telephone ring and
I wondered who in the world would be calling me. And his daughter was five years old when they picked
cherries for us. And she got thinking about us in California and might have been drinking or something
and called us at three o'clock in the morning.
WU: [Laugher] Midnight, there!
JS: I hadn’ t seen her for... she was probably in her thirties then or something. So anyway, that was those
early years that those people came. Then later on it switched, of course.
WU: How many people would it take to harvest the cherry crop?
JS: We had probably about forty, counting the kids.
WU: About forty, counting the kids all out there picking. And did they all stay on your place or…?
JS: Yeah, but we had a few local people that picked probably maybe ten. But other than that, the rest of
them all stayed there.
WU: Well, just for the historical aspect of it, take me through a typical cherry-picking day. What you
would be doing and what time would the day start? What would you have to do to be ready to get
moving that day?
JS: Usually the night before you'd get cherry lugs out and scattered where they could get them without
going too far from their trees. The pickers had rows and I wasn't out there when they started because
my pickers used to go out and wait for it to get light enough so they could see the cherries and then
they'd start picking probably five o'clock in the morning. And when I'd get out there, I'd go around and
pick up the cherries that they had picked.
WU: Now, you'd be driving a tractor with a trailer?
JS: We had a little skid on the back, no wheels on it, just like a stone boat. And we'd pile the lugs on
there. And I usually had a high school kid that helped me do that. And so about ten o’clock,
eleven o’clock in the morning, we'd have a load. We’d haul all our cherries in a pickup. We'd have
eighty, ninety lugs of cherries.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
WU: Okay, so let’s back up. You had to get those eighty or ninety lugs of cherries out of the orchard. You
did that by driving around and picking them up from where these families were working and they would
actually stack them. So, you only had to go to a certain pile.
JS: They might have like four lugs - it’d depend on the number of cherries - you might have four lugs in
this stack, maybe two or three down the row, they'd have six or eight lugs stacked up.
WU: You’d pick them up, put them on the skid, drag them to where the pickup was.
JS: Right and set them on the pickup, load them on the pickup.
WU: And then where would you go with that load usually?
JS: We delivered several places: Stokely’s, of course would be one, Fenton’s in Mears was another one,
Hart Cherry Packers downtown at that time. And we depend and we just delivered all of them.
WU: So, the first all that you took in would be about what time?
JS: Probably about ten to eleven.
WU: Alright. Somewhere between ten and eleven, you drive to whatever cannery you're going to that
day and it would be weighed in and…
JS: ...they’d dump the cherries, put your lugs back on the truck…
WU: And then you’d weigh out?
JS: ...take them back to the orchard and scatter those lugs out and then turn right around and gather up
a load. And about two o'clock in the afternoon, we’d take in another load.
WU: That would be your second load.
JS: And then we’d come back, we'd scatter those out and the pickers would quit usually around four
thirty or five o'clock, and we’d gather them and then take them in after supper, usually, someplace.
WU: So basically, you're making three runs to the canneries?
JS: That’s what I did, three trips a day.
WU: Three trips a day and then that last trip that might take you a little while because everyone's
coming in at the same time and you've got to get in line, as I recall.
JS: You’d take those… I’d take those back out to the farm and dump the lugs off at the orchard and then
come back up to where the farm buildings was and by then the pickers, most of the pickers, would be
sitting around visiting. And so, I’d go out and we'd sit and visit for a half hour or an hour and go to bed.
WU: In terms of paying the pickers, did you do that…?
JS: On most Saturdays.
WU: Every Saturday you would… that’d be payday.
JS: I'd be paid cash.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
WU: Oh, you paid cash, not checks.
JS: No, and most of it we gave out tickets, little tickets. For each lug, they'd get a ticket. And when it
come Saturday, I'd go out Saturday afternoons after I got the cherries in from the morning and we’d pick
till noon. I’d go out in the afternoon with a bundle of money and pay them what they wanted. And some
of them wanted just enough money to buy groceries with. And in fact, that's what most of the families
did. And so sometimes I didn't take that much money. And then when you got done picking for the year,
then they'd turn in the rest of their tickets and they'd take that money and go back home usually. And
with some families, I guess that's pretty much the money that they had from down there. I know they
used to pay… they had what they called burial fees that they had to pay to take care of their burials, and
they would use that money to bring them up to date and then live on down there. So, it was fun. I
enjoyed those… I enjoyed the pickers.
WU: Do you remember what you were paying per lug?
JS: Back then, it was about fifty cents.
WU: That’s what I thought. And so, you would have… did they get a punch card or was it just a ticket per
lug?
JS: Just a ticket. Yeah, it was about an inch by two inches.
WU: And it was a ticket that they could not duplicate or…?
JS: I never thought about it.
WU: You were trusting.
JS: I don't think they ever did duplicate them, to my knowledge. But I suppose in this day and age,
somebody would.
WU: Certainly, with the technology.
JS: But back then, they didn't even think about it.
WU: In terms of getting the tickets, you were telling me you picked up six lugs here and eight lugs here.
When did they… did you give the tickets every day, at the end of the day?
JS: I’d give them to them as you picked up the cherries.
WU: Oh, so as you picked up the cherries…
JS: If you had four lugs, I’d give you four tickets.
WU: So, someone... you would actually hand the tickets to one of the pickers there?
JS: Right.
WU: So, they'd see you coming and you would be... whoever you hired might be loading them up while
you're…
JS: ...giving out tickets.
15
�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
WU: ...giving out tickets. So that was done simultaneously and that was your record and it was up to
them to hang on to them. You didn't even keep a record.
JS: I didn't keep a record, no.
WU: You didn't write down, “Smith had so many and Joe had so many”?
JS: No, I had no idea at the end of the week how many they had.
WU: And, well, you knew how many tickets you had to start.
JS: I suspect that they, you know, if somebody runs short of money and needed two or three dollars,
they'd probably go to one of the other families there and say, “Do you have any money? I’ll give you
these.” So, I think they probably switched tickets back and forth sometimes.
WU: That didn't bother you.
JS: No, that didn't bother me a bit. But that's how we paid back then. And this would have been in the
sixties, probably, fifties and sixties, and then our pickers all changed after that.
WU: Alright. Well, let's talk about that, the change in the type of folks that…
JS: For us, the family in Arkansas and Missouri that was coming up - and once you had them, they came
every year - couldn't come anymore. And I had a couple, an elderly couple, the last name was Kreals [?];
they were from Alabama. And he had a son, Johnny, with a big family, and he had a son-in-law called
H.B. Holland. And so, they all came up and then I had a family from Florida - our pickers basically came
from Alabama and Florida. And in Florida one year, all our pickers came from the same town in Florida.
WU: And they were Caucasian?
JS: Yeah, all Caucasians. We had one of the couples, he was a janitor at the hospital and his wife was a
nurse. The other one was a blacksmith in the town. The other one was a district manager for the
Whataburger stands in Florida. And plus, he ran the stand at Busch Gardens, Whataburger. It was like a
McDonald's. And they’d come up, he took his vacation and it was nice. They all knew each other. Every
Sunday they'd have a picnic at Crystal Lake. They all take a dish to pass and go over there and swim and
have a picnic, all our pickers together. And it was just one big happy family. And that was… but H.B.
Holland, I remember he had two daughters and two sons and him and his wife, and they had to pick him and his wife had to pick - twenty lugs a day. And one of his sons had to pick sixteen. The other one
had to pick ten and his two girls, they had to pick fourteen. And when they got that amount of cherries
they could quit. They were done for the day. Sometimes they were done at two thirty, three o'clock in
the afternoon. I’d come back from my afternoon load and, particularly him, he'd be sitting in the shade
in a chair with a beer, enjoying life. And he said, “I really like this.” He said, “I don't have a worry in the
world up here.” He said, “the only worry I have is where my next row is.” He said, “I have nobody calling
in that they can't show up for work today.”
WU: Well, you were very fortunate then, you had people…
JS: Nice families.
WU: They were nice families, they were very functional, and they were basically trying to finance their
own vacation, it sounds like.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
JS: This was their vacation. They got out of the heat...
WU: They got out of the heat, they came up and picked cherries, and made a little money to finance it,
maybe a little extra to take home.
JS: A funny thing, just last week I come home and my wife said, “you got a telephone call you have to
make and it'll take some time.” And I said, “who is it?” She said, “I'm not telling you.” And I said, “come
on, you got to tell me before I call.” And she said, “you’ll know, when you call.” So, I called this number
and my wife had written it down. And this woman answers. She said, “Well, Jerry says that this is Judy
Kreal [?]. And she was thirteen and they picked cherries for us. And that was the last year they picked
for us was ‘73. And she says, “whenever any members of our family get together,” she says, “all we talk
about is the fun times we had at Hart, Michigan.” And she says, “I pull it up and I see the farm buildings
are still there.” And she says, “we had to call you.” And she says, “I'm trying to get a couple of my
brothers and sisters, we’re going to fly up and we want to visit you this summer.” So, I don't know if
they'll make it or not.
WU: Well, that's amazing. But that tells you the close relationship you had.
JS: Well, she said, “my daddy made us work so hard when we were up there.” She said, “we’d think we
hated it.” But she says, “when we look back on it,” she says, “it was the best time of our life.” She says,
“on Saturday mornings, all those pickers let their kids... what they picked Saturday mornings was theirs.
They got the money for that.” And she says, “my daddy,” she said, “Saturday mornings let us have the
money.” She reminded me of that, which I knew. And she says, “we had our own money for the first
time in our life that we could do what we wanted to with.” And she says, “we had so much fun and
everybody was so nice to us. We just love you and your kids.” And I was probably on the phone with her
for an hour and then she sent on Facebook a picture of her to Joany, our daughter, because I don't have
Facebook or anything. And I tell you what, I certainly wouldn't recognize her. But then she was a
thirteen-year-old girl in ‘73.
WU: Some years have gone by. [Laughter]
JS: But we still maintain communication with them. In fact, Judy and I, three years ago when we went to
Florida, we met a cousin of hers and her mother who used to pick for us that laked in Florida for lunch
one day.
WU: Well, moving back then to your farm and your dad passed away and now you're into the ‘60s. You
were married what year?
JS: Fifty-nine.
WU: And you married whom?
JS: Judy Pangburn, my next-door neighbor.
WU: So, she's a gal right from the community and you were married and your family… you had how
many children, Jerry?
JS: Three. Two girls and a boy.
WU: And their names are?
17
�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
JS: Jennifer Purdy now and Jeff Spencer and Joany Small.
WU: Okay, and Jeff, do recall what year he was born?
JS: He was born in [nineteen] sixty-one.
WU: Alright.
JS: And Jenny was born in [nineteen] fifty-nine. Jeff was born in [nineteen] sixty-one. Joany was born in
[nineteen] sixty-four.
WU: Okay, so those are your three children. Then we sort of ended up with you back on the family farm.
But I know for a fact you didn’t stay there.
JS: Right.
WU: Can you help me with that transition? What happened in your life that caused you to leave the
family farm, so to speak?
JS: I was contacted by fellow, John Roth, from Fremont who worked for FMC Corporation in Ag.
[Agriculture] chemical business, and they were looking for salesmen for this area. And he asked me if I'd
be interested. I thought about it and thought, yeah, that’d work out okay. So, I took care of the farm
nights and stuff for probably three or four years or maybe longer than that. And my wife took care of
the harvesting in the summer, picking up the cherry lugs and hauling them. Except at night I would take
in the last load usually for years. And then moving on from there, later in life, I had an uncle who was a
warehouse manager at Stokely’s and he retired. And then he came out and did the spraying and stuff on
my farm, did all the work and he and I basically harvested the fruit then and then I retired, what,
twenty-three years ago. Then I sold the farm to the city.
WU: Sure, let's go back to your starting a new career. You're a sales person.
JS: Yeah.
WU: And you're selling for?
JS: Ag. Chemicals.
WU: Ag. Chemicals.
JS: Fruit growers only; we weren't in the row crop business.
WU: Alright, so you're dealing with… so you’re selling fruit chemicals. Does this require you to be visiting
farms or…?
JS: We were a service-oriented company. We sold directly to the growers. We sold through service. If
you had a farm, I’ll use Fox’s as an example, because they were one of my biggest customers. I went
through their orchards every week, and in their case, made recommendations on what they should be
using. I knew the number of tanks that it took to spray each crop that they had. I ordered to spray
material. They would set it right on their farms for them. And told them when they should use it. And
that's how we did that. That was a lot of service.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
WU: Alright, so physically you would be there. You would look at the leaves on the trees, make a
determination on…
JS: What they needed.
WU: What they needed, based on what you actually saw.
JS: And we’d try to recommend the material. I always tried to recommend material that was the most
economic for them that would still do the job.
WU: So, and you’re using your background from your college days. I assume you had lab facilities that
you could send stuff into?
JS: Well, yeah, Extension, too; Michigan State was good, but we had... what was I going to say? I lost my
train of thought here. The service part was we were the only company that really serviced orchards like
that. We got a little more for our chemicals, but we could save you money during the year, too, and
what you used and in products like that. So, and once you got a customer, he was yours. So, yeah, you
pretty much had job security. And then I worked for them for twenty-two years.
WU: Let's just leave it with them for a few moments. I'm trying to understand the regional area that you
covered. So obviously, Oceana; were you beyond Oceana County?
JS: Oceana, Mason, and Newaygo Counties.
WU: Alright, those were the three counties that you would have picked up clients, visited their orchards,
and made recommendations.
JS: Right.
WU: And would that be a year-round job or was this more or less a seasonal?
JS: It was a year-round job. Over the summers, of course, we were busy. The winters you spent at
shows, putting on meetings for growers…
WU: Educational-type meetings.
JS: Educational-type meetings for any new products that were out, going over them.
WU: And educating yourself, I assume you had to go to conferences and so on.
JS: Right. If you are in a business like that and I suppose it was the same with you, too. You learn from
this grower that has a problem and you find out how it works for him. So, then you know, the next guy
and you learn really from the people you’re calling on, too.
WU: Sure. Well, apparently you worked twenty-three years for this company. And then what happened
after that?
JS: They sold our sales group; we worked for FMC Corp. and they had two divisions. Our division, which
was called the direct sales - we sold directly to growers -and then they had a Fairfield division because
FMC also produced a lot of chemicals. We had our own chemicals and this division sold chemicals to
distributors and other dealers. And so, they decided that to get rid of the direct sales force because
there was friction always between us because they would want to sell a dealer and the dealer would
19
�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
say, well, you were out in the field selling growers; I’m not buying your stuff. And so, they sold us and
we were purchased then by Conagra Foods, which was grower service in Michigan. And I worked for
them. I told them I'd work five years and then I was going to retire and I did. And they hired me to mesh
the FMC sales force in with theirs. They never really worked out that good. We were a service-oriented
company with FMC, and they weren't. They were strictly sold on prices and…
WU: ...pushing their product.
JS: ...pushing their products. And our salespeople didn't like that. However, the five years I was there,
we only lost one salesperson and the year I left everybody quit from FMC that they had. So, and now
they're working for all other companies.
WU: Yeah, so basically, you had a twenty-three plus five or twenty-eight-year career in sales and service
to the agriculture community. Oceana, Mason, and Newaygo. Is that sort of a fair, quick summary?
JS: Yeah, I had the same territory all those years.
WU: Well, after you retired, did you continue on with any type of work for…?
JS: Well, we still had the farm.
WU: Okay, so now you're back to doing farming.
JS: Yes.
WU: And you continued to do that up until the time you sold it to the city?
JS: Sold it to the city, right.
WU: Okay, what year was that? Do you remember when the sale was made?
JS: Boy, I don't.
WU: And that was for the industrial park purposes.
JS: Yes.
WU: You retained at least the home place and the barn, is that correct?
JS: I retained the frontage.
WU: Okay.
JS: Well, my mother, in the meantime, remarried and the house was separate. And I sold the buildings
and I didn't... I sold everything to the city so they could annex it.
WU: That’s right.
JS: And then I had five years to buy the frontage back, which I did. And then, of course, I sold, you know,
where Rennhack’s [?] is. And we still got the rest of it.
WU: Alright, so you still own...what?
JS: The farm buildings and, well, about four acres, probably.
20
�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
WU: You still own four acres there. Well, of course, farming has changed a lot during your lifetime. What
do you see are special challenges that farmers face today?
JS: I think probably they're big; they, you know, they keep buying and expanding and I was never... not
my way of going, I guess, or everybody that does it seems to come out doing well. But I, because of that,
you know...
WU: The corporate farm way is what's happening.
JS: ...is what's happening. And I don't know if it's good or not. I still think, you know, I always said, “give
me forty acres, something that your family could take care of. And if you could sell most of your stuff
retail, you could make a really good living.” And farming’s a good way of life. I don't know, there's just
something about… I used to just enjoy driving through the orchard, spraying at night and watching the
fruit grow and on the trees. It's a good feeling.
WU: Just being part of God's Earth, so to speak.
JS: Regulations - it's changed so much. Regulations on chemicals, what you can use, what you can't use,
when you can use it. And some of it’s fine and some of it is stupid.
WU: It just makes it more difficult to do your life's work.
JS: Yeah.
WU: Well, Jerry, I know you've been very involved in the community and I think its part of your oral
history. Why don't you just briefly state some of the organizations you've participated in and taken a
leadership role?
JS: Oh, my gosh.
WU: I know, it's a long list.
JS: Well, I was starting out back when I was in the business, I guess, they had a biology club - and I think
they still have one, I don't know - that we got started and that was for fruit growers. And then I became
a Commissioner, County Commissioner.
WU: Oceana County Commissioner?
JS: Oceana County Commissioner.
WU: Right.
JS: And I said at the time when I got it, I said, “oh, when I get to be seventy, I'm done.” And I did ten
years and I resigned.
WU: So, for ten years, you're a commissioner.
JS: I was commissioner. I was on... in the meantime, then I was a member of the District Health Board.
District Health Five and then District Health Ten and through all that turmoil. And a member of the
Health Board, when we built the District Health Building out here.
WU: The Malburg [?] building.
21
�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
JS: ...in the Cooney place, you know, and I was on the Workforce Development Board for Muskegon and
Oceana County for years. Then after I was on as a business person, first I was on as a county... to
represent the county, Oceana County. But then when I resigned from being a commissioner, Paul Roy,
who was the head of it at that time, said, you’ve got to stay on our board. So, I said, “but I can't.” And he
said, “yes, you can.” So, Jack Cheever [?], he said, you’ve got to have a business. So, I said, “well, I don't
really have one anymore. I'm retired.” So, he said, “well, get one.” So, I went to Jack Cheever and I said,
“Jack, can I be a consultant for you?” Jack said, “any day of the week,” he said, “you certainly can.” I
said, “okay.” So, then they listed me as a... because the state of Michigan, if they would check, they
listed me as a consultant.
WU: Alright, so for what organization?
JS: The Workforce Development.
WU: Oh, Workforce Development. Okay, I missed that.
JS: Workforce Development for Muskegon and Oceana Counties. We were together; still are, kind of.
And so, but I finally got off of that. I'm still… I'm chairman of the City Planning Commission. I'm on EDC,
Executive Board of Directors. I'm on the local Emergency Planning Committee Board. Yeah, so, I'm still
involved enough to...
WU: Well, I commend you for all your service.
JS: You have to keep busy.
WU: Sure, so that’s what you're doing in your retirement days: you're a volunteer, you serve on a lot of
these boards. Jerry, when someone listens to this tape, which they'll be able to fifty years from now. But
what would you most like them to know about your life and maybe the Hart community? Is there
anything special that you would like to say?
JS: Well, I was born and raised in Hart and never left. When I worked for FMC, they wanted to move me
out east and give me a big territory. And I turned them down. And I know… well, you know, Fred Reilly?
WU: Yes.
JS: I worked with Fred, I worked under Fred when I was first hired here. And Fred said you shouldn't do
that because he said they'll never, you know, it’ll really hurt you in the long run, you know. So, then it's a
year after that, Fred got offered a job out east, the same job I was offered a year before, and he took it
and they eliminated him a year after that. And so, I was glad I didn't do that. But no, I was born and
raised in Hart and it's a good community to live in. And I think especially the last ten years, it has
become more progressive. And I can see a lot of good things that's happened the last ten years. And I
think there'll be a lot of good things happen in the future.
WU: Any special advice you'd want to give a young person who may listen to this tape?
JS: Not particularly, I think you just have to do what you think you should be doing and stick to your
guns. And I don't know, other than that, things will fall in place for you if you work hard.
WU: Is there anything else that you would like to share that I may not have asked you about? Something
that you might want to make a record of?
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
JS: It seems like you've covered things pretty good.
WU: Well.
JS: I think the most enjoyable part was - in the fruit business, anyway - it was, of course, we came up
with… we had a shaker, but it was a limb shaker, which is one of the first shakers that came out, but that
eliminated pickers. And I kind of miss that era; that was fun when you had families come up. And apples;
I had a Spanish couple that picked my apples for a few years and, boy, they were good. They still stayed
in the area. They, I think, now work for Tim Tubbs. I run into them every once in a while. They were…
WU: They're not migrants anymore. They live in the…
JS: They live here year-round.
WU: And do you remember their names?
JS: No, I don’t.
WU: Okay, well, I just want to thank you, Jerry, for your time and for sharing your memories with me.
And this concludes the interview. Thank you very much.
JS: Thank you. You did a good job.
23
�
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/34173090a508e2ef3773523bb978c562.mp3
6456720df95745ed7ac0a5aa55aa1145
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Oceana County Migrant Labor History Collection
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Shell-Weiss, Melanie
Description
An account of the resource
Collection contains images and documents digitized and collected through the project "Growing Community: A Century of Migration in Oceana County." This project was a collaboration between El Centro Hispano de Oceana, the Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society, and Grand Valley State University funded by a Common Heritage grant from the United States National Endowment for the Humanities. The materials in this collection document the history of communities in Hart, Shelby, and Walkerville and explore themes of migration, labor, religion, family, belonging, national and cultural identities, regional, national, and international connections, and citizenship.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Oceana County (Mich.)
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Grand Valley State University. Kutsche Office of Local History
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
El Centro Hispano de Oceana; Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society
Relation
A related resource
Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage project)
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
DC-06
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
image/jpeg
audio/mp3
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Image
Sound recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
spa
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oceana County (Mich.)
Hart (Mich.)
Shelby (Mich.)
Farms
Farmers
Migrant agricultural laborers
Hispanic Americans
Account books
Diaries
Oral history
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
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DC-06_Spencer_Jerry
Creator
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Spencer, Jerry
Date
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2016-06-18
Title
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Spencer, Jerry (audio interview and transcript)
Description
An account of the resource
Oral history interview with Jerry Spencer. Interviewed by Walter Urick on June 18, 2016 in Hart, Michigan. English language. Jerry Spencer was born in Hart, Michigan in 1932, as the only child of a farming family in Oceana County. He grew up on a thirty-six acre dairy and fruit farm that was passed down the generations from his grandfather. He graduated from Hart High School in 1950, studied Agricultural Engineering and Agricultural Mechanics at Michigan State University, and later married and worked at FMC Corporation before serving as a County Commissioner for Oceana County.
Contributor
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Urick, Walter (interviewer)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oceana County (Mich.)
Hart (Mich.)
Farms
Farmers
Fruit growers
Michigan State University
Agricultural engineering
Agricultural mechanics
Audio recordings
Source
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Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage)
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
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Sound
Text
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audio/mp3
application/pdf
Language
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eng
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b64d4505d42db2ebb99537979c3b8c11.pdf
5d497eaad098b7e503a6fba2a49b0361
PDF Text
Text
Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
John and Wilma Riley Interview
Interviewed by Alan Moul
June 18, 2016
Transcript
AM: This is Alan Moul and I'm here with John Riley. That's J-o-h-n R-l-e-y…
WR: R-i…
AM: R-i-l-e-y. And Wilma, his wife, W-i-l-m-a. And the date is June 18th, two thousand sixteen. And this
is part of the oral history being collected and its part of the Growing Community Project through Grand
Valley. So, we're going to talk today about the Riley history in Oceana County and growing fruit,
vegetables, Christmas trees, whatever they would like to talk about. So, John, I guess, where do the
Rileys start in Oceana County? And how did they get here, maybe? Or what are you remembering about
that?
JR: My grandparents came from Alpena area and established what we call the home farm. And my son
lives there now. And I have a place up on the hill just adjoining.
AM: From Alpena then.
JR: Yeah.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
AM: Now, were they farmers there or purchased the farm or what?
WR: No, they had emigrated from Canada.
AM: Oh!
WR: Both his grandparents and also his grandmother's parents came from that area.
AM: Okay.
WR: They came first to Alpena to work in the lumber business and then moved to Mears and his
grandma and grandpa were Richard and Clara Isabel Riley [?]. And they, first of all, became managers of
the old hotel that was there in Mears.
AM: Okay.
JR: At the railroad station.
AM: Was that in town there?
WR: Yes.
JR: There was a branch that went to Pentwater and there was a triangle there and one went to Hart and
they were able to turn the engines around. You had to have a triangle to turn them around.
AM: Well, sure. Yeah, okay.
WR: His grandmother, who was always known to us as “Bel” or Isabel [?], her parents were Alexander
and Caroline Henderson. And the original home farm that John referred to was purchased by Richard
Riley and Isabel from her parents.
AM: Okay, so that would have been originally Henderson's then.
WR: Yes, in the deed.
AM: Now how far back does that deed go?
WR: It would have been in the late eighteen hundreds and I can't give you an exact date on that. His
uncle, Bill, was born in Alpena. And I think that the year of his birth was eighteen ninety-three. So, it
would have been shortly after they came from Alpena and lived there in Mears.
AM: And so that's how they started farming then? They started on that piece of ground.
JR: Yes.
AM: How many... was that a forty [acre farm] or was that? A lot of the farms were quite small back then.
JR: It was a forty.
AM: Okay, yep. And did they grow fruit or what did they do? Do you know?
JR: We've always been known as a fruit farm. And of recent years, twenty years ago we got into
asparagus. Other than that, it was all fruit. Cherries are our main crop, apples, a few peaches, which
none of us like.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
AM: [Laughter] I’m familiar with that.
JR: It takes a lot of [?], they have fuzz that itches.
AM: It does. [Laughter] And the fair is going on at the same time.
WR: But, we like to eat them.
AM: Oh yeah. [Laughter] So then you started farming… now, you yourself, when did you come into the
picture then? I mean, did you work on the farm growing up, as a kid and all?
JR: Oh, yeah.
AM: Always been on the farm.
JR: Oh yeah.
AM: Okay.
WR: His father, Clayton Riley, took it over when his dad died. His dad died very suddenly in nineteen
twenty-seven, just before John was born and his parents then moved to the home place to be with
Grandma Riley. And then eventually Clayton and Flora became the owners or managers, anyway. His
grandmother held the title to the lands until after her death. They managed and everything was under
their care but she was still owner of the property, which is interesting.
AM: Okay.
JR: She didn’t want to let loose.
AM: Didn't want to give up control, huh? That’s understandable.
JR: And she didn’t control anything, but that was her security, I guess.
AM: Yeah, mentally, anyway, it was yeah. So how many brothers did you have?
JR: Two brothers and two sisters.
AM: Okay.
JR: There were three boys and two girls.
AM: Okay. Did they all farm then?
JR: No, I’m the only one that...
AM: You were the smart one that stayed on the farm.
JR: You said it! [Laughter]
AM: We all know all the jokes about how much money does it take? You know, you farm till it's gone
and all that. [Laughter] So then you continued, probably, to… unless you've got like a timeline that you
want to go through?
WR: No, no. This is just about the Hendersons.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
JR: Everybody that owned the farm expanded, you know.
AM: Right. Okay, yeah.
WR: It was interesting, just recently - and I read this in an old copy of the Mears News - and it tells that
the owner of the piece of property that we now own and live on, a part of the farm was sold to a man
named Mr. Pike. And Swift, in his little paper, said, “I presume,” something to this effect, “I presume
that when Mr. Pike finishes this transaction that he will call it Pike's Peak.”
AM: [Laughter] Up on the hill, huh?
WR: Yeah, yeah. And it's, to this day, it's still called the Pike Place.
AM: So, did land… did you refer to pieces of land by names like that? Like today we… I know we had
them on our farm.
JR: Every piece of property had to have a name because when you went to the field, you had to know
where you were going. And often they took the name of the people you bought from.
AM: We had some “by the rock.” There was a big rock. “By the rock” or “north of the woods.” But you're
right, usually the previous owner or… because we tried doing a number system one time and there were
too many numbers, you couldn't remember them all.
WR: Right.
AM: So, yep. Let's see, so what do you… you served in World War Two, right?
JR: Yes.
AM: So, at some point you went off to that and then how did the farm carry on while you were gone
then?
JR: Well, it was still in the family farm. And my dad and mom farmed it and I went to the service right
after school so I hadn’t really gotten started in it.
AM: Okay, so you were nineteen or so.
JR: Yeah. When we came back, then we… I decided to farm and started there.
AM: Did you have hired hands or migrants or Mexican helpers or what did you have at that point? I
know on our farm there was a lot of Southern workers.
JR: Yeah, we had Southern people and we had housing for them that was a bear shelter.
AM: Sure. Wouldn't pass now, would it?
JR: No, no, no, no, no. In fact, the house where we live was one of the houses that the pickers lived in.
AM: Okay.
WR: But not the house that we live in now.
JR: The site.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
WR: Yeah.
AM: Okay, there’s pictures here.
WR: ...of some when they were still picking cherries by hand. I found these last night and this is John and
one of the older people. What was the older man's name?
JR: Mr. Hilt.
WR: Mr. Hilt, yes. And he had his own little part of the… he lived in one of the old buildings here at the
farm. I brought that picture because it shows the old buildings at the farm.
AM: Now, how many migrant workers do you think you had at the peak… would you have had
harvesting cherries?
JR: We never picked; most of my life, we’ve mechanically harvested. We had a crew, though, that came
in and picked and they hauled them over to the plant in Hart - the Stokely plant.
AM: Sure.
JR: And they brought their people with them.
AM: Crew leaders with big trucks, like with a canvas top. I remember that, barely, but I do remember
that.
JR: And then, from then on, the Labor Department got in it and every year we had to make
improvements. And we have quite nice labor housing now.
AM: Right, sure.
WR: At one time, after his father died - John's father, Clayton, died - and I can remember doing the
payroll and it was for over sixty.
AM: Okay.
WR: But that was, originally, when a family would come they would all pick under one name. And that
built up Daddy’s Social Security.
AM: Sure.
WR: And then, you know, the government regulations changed. And then we had to use the name of
every individual.
AM: Right.
WR: But we weren't long in that because then we went to mechanical harvesting.
AM: Yeah. Now you had - when you did start mechanically harvesting - you had a Friday shaker, right?
JR: Yes.
AM: Okay, and that was two frames that came around the tree and there was a conveyor. We had a
different kind, so I'm having trouble remembering exactly. But everybody kind of chose the one that fit
their farm and the one they liked the best.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
JR: It had two inclined planes that got most of the cherries, some went over the edges, but they went
down to a conveyor and the conveyor went from there, right into the cherry tank.
AM: Okay, what year do you think you started? Did you put cherries in water before you mechanically
harvested at all?
JR: No.
AM: Never did.
JR: No.
AM: Okay, just when you took them to the plant and dumped them in the big tanks.
JR: Yeah.
AM: Okay. And I remember the long lines with the juice running everywhere from the lugs.
JR: Yes.
AM: You could hardly walk across the trailer because it was so sticky it would just pull your shoes off,
almost. [Laughter] And then, so we started mechanically harvesting then and so you could cover more
ground. I mean, now you could plant more acres.
JR: Yeah. I don't know how many pickers we’d need to have now to take care of the one shaker. And
we’ve got two.
AM: Now they have a wraparound...
JR: Yeah.
AM: ...shaker that shakes the trunk, yeah, a one man...
JR: An upside-down umbrella, I call it. [Laughter]
AM: Right, yep. Was there any backlash from the migrants when the shaking started because they were
kind of losing their part of their season, anyway.
JR: There was incidents around but we never had any.
AM: Okay, good.
JR: They would go out and slit the canvases and there wasn't much of it.
AM: More frustration probably than anything, I think.
JR: Yeah.
AM: Tell me a little bit about the people you did have working for you. I know some people formed
relationships with the people and became good friends and is there any memories you have of that?
Any specific people or…?
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
JR: No, not really, because my uncle, Bill, my dad's brother, had a crew leader and we didn't have a crew
because we had enough help that we handled the distribution, throwing the boxes off and picking them
up and hauling them to the factory.
AM: So, you didn't interface with the people a whole lot then? Not like a crew leader would.
WR: Remember Mr. Hilts and Vern, they came every year.
JR: Over years, yes, they came. That's when we handpicked.
WR: Yes.
AM: Did you ever visit any of them…
JR: Yes.
AM: ...in their homes in the south?
JR: Mr. Hilts in Muskegon, we have been there.
AM: Oh, he was in Muskegon?
WR: Yeah, he’s from Muskegon.
AM: Okay, so there were local people, too, that drove up and worked?
JR and WR: Oh yeah.
JR: And we had a cabin for him.
AM: Okay.
JR: He was almost part of the family.
AM: Sure. It was a different time.
JR: Yep, and when he went home, when I was a little boy, I cried. He was a storyteller and I’d go out and
he’d sit and puff on his pipe and tell about the woods and he worked for the lumber company, lumber
camp.
AM: Sure, okay. So, then your kids, Mark and Daniel, the boys, started farming with you then. And when
would that have been?
WR: When, well, actually we got our first shaker - the Friday - when Mark was still in high school. In fact,
he was fourteen years old the first summer that we had the Friday.
JR: We had to weigh it down so he could see over it - tilt it - it was, you know, flexibility. But he would
walk on his tiptoes all summer peeking over that thing and it had limb shakers at that time.
AM: Yes, I remember that; we had one a different style. Do you remember, did the first shakers… I seem
to remember seeing one that was on a harness, a guy carried like a chainsaw on an arm - very
lightweight. But was there something like that or am I imagining?
JR: No, there were those that somebody that had a few acres.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
AM: Okay, and they didn't last long.
JR: No, no.
WR: They were limb shakers.
JR: A lot of work and you had to catch them on something canvas and dump them into a box.
AM: And it was an idea in the beginning, wasn't it? It was somebody's idea, other than hand picking.
[Laughter] Yeah, there's all the old stories of all the broken ladders and my brother and I were talking
the other day about the nine foot. They always wanted a nine-foot ladder. Well, you didn't want to give
many of them out because they’d stand on top of that and pretty soon you'd hear “crack” and down
they'd go. And I just remember that we’d have to fix the nine footers.
JR: We had six and eight, most of them. Two or three tens. But, the top step was quite big, was quite
large, and that was quite comfortable to stand on.
AM: As long as you could hold a branch.
JR: Yeah.
AM: Yeah, never let them do it today.
WR: Yeah, I can remember in my day picking cherries that I could position that ladder so I could get up
there and sit on that top board and pull the cherries to me, you know, to drop into the bucket.
AM: How many lugs could you pick in a day? Do you remember?
WR: I think my top picking was fourteen lugs in one day.
AM: Wow, those were what? Twenty-two, twenty-four-pound lugs, something like that?
WR: And I think it was like over four hundred pounds.
AM: Okay.
WR: I made one time [laughter], but that was because I picked under the authority of an older brother
who took no mercy...
AM: No.
WR: ...on me at all.
AM: Get to work, huh!
WR: Yeah.
AM: Older brothers can do that, I guess.
JR: But one of the interesting things when we were kids, we had a five-gallon milk can and we put trays
of ice in that and we had to carry that around, people to people…
AM: ...to give them drinks.
JR: ...down the row to give them a drink. We had a dipper.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
AM: Yep. [Laughter]
JR: And we had one guy that he chewed tobacco and a lady who lived in Pentwater, they drove in every
day and she got that dipper and she got around and drunk from the handle where nobody else could do
it. I said, “that’s funny, you drink just like the guy next door!” She spit it out and carried her water from
then on.
AM: [Laughter] I remember my dad taking jugs of half frozen… he’d freeze it and then he'd fill the top
with water and take it out and they wouldn't drink it. They said, “well, just throw it under the tree over
there. It's too cold. It'll make us sick.” They wouldn't drink that ice water. They'd let it warm up. It was
just strange to me.
JR: I never heard that.
AM: What other memories do you have of those days of more hand labor, you know?
JR: Well, when we had to pick up the lugs right under the tree, there'd be a stack of six, seven to ten,
maybe; if it was a family, twelve, fourteen. And we would pick up three at a time with a handle and we’d
put our knee under it and grab it right underneath. And we always paid for the pounds, so we had to
weigh each one.
AM: Okay. I think that was quite common. I know Munger did that a lot and he had a lot of cherries, I
guess.
JR: And we had to set the scale back to the weight of the lug.
AM: The empty log.
JR: And every night my mother would average it out and we would either come up a little high or a little
short. We had to set the scale back the next day to compensate. She wanted to pay the right amount.
AM: Okay, yeah.
JR: You know, you could gain a pound on every lug, you know, but she was very conscious…
AM: Very honest about it.
JR: ...very conscious.
AM: It's kind of like getting wet apple boxes back when you took dry ones in. You lose money every
time. So, let me ask you, what asparagus… you said you got into asparagus. What year would you say?
JR: Boy, I don't know.
WR: The kids were still in high school.
AM: Late, late ‘60s or early ‘70s? Okay.
WR: It was just a small field that was next to where Mark lives now.
AM: And where did you plant... what fields did you plant? And how did you decide where to plant your
asparagus?
9
�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
JR: Well, you decide... we wanted to plant cherries. That was our number one goal. We’re cherry
farmers and then apples where it was suitable. And that was our main [crop]. We never was into
peaches much, a little bit, but not much.
AM: I seem to remember a story about... was it Amber Gems that everybody wanted and then they
didn't want them all of a sudden? Was that the one?
JR: That was the first [?] that came out. But they had a red pit cavity and then when they processed it, it
turned brown.
AM: Okay, that was the demise of them then. I know a lot of guys planted them and then turned right
around pretty much and took them out. But I guess that's one of the risks of…
JR: Well, you never know. Almost every fruit variety has a bad point, yeah.
AM: Nowadays, with all these new apple varieties that are so expensive that you have to buy - I don't
know how it works - shares in a...
[End of Audio Recording]
10
�
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/94e6fad574a994073ed8552568469adf.mp3
30ca668f513b5a041e805c61b5f2618a
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Oceana County Migrant Labor History Collection
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Shell-Weiss, Melanie
Description
An account of the resource
Collection contains images and documents digitized and collected through the project "Growing Community: A Century of Migration in Oceana County." This project was a collaboration between El Centro Hispano de Oceana, the Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society, and Grand Valley State University funded by a Common Heritage grant from the United States National Endowment for the Humanities. The materials in this collection document the history of communities in Hart, Shelby, and Walkerville and explore themes of migration, labor, religion, family, belonging, national and cultural identities, regional, national, and international connections, and citizenship.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Oceana County (Mich.)
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Grand Valley State University. Kutsche Office of Local History
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
El Centro Hispano de Oceana; Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society
Relation
A related resource
Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage project)
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
DC-06
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
image/jpeg
audio/mp3
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Image
Sound recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
spa
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oceana County (Mich.)
Hart (Mich.)
Shelby (Mich.)
Farms
Farmers
Migrant agricultural laborers
Hispanic Americans
Account books
Diaries
Oral history
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
DC-06_Riley_John_and_Wilma
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Riley, John
Riley, Wilma
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-06-18
Title
A name given to the resource
Riley, John and Wilma (audio interview and transcript)
Description
An account of the resource
Oral history interview with John and Wilma Riley. Interviewed by Alan Moul on June 18, 2016 in Hart, Michigan. English language. John Riley was born in Hart, Michigan in 1928, as the grandson of two Canadian immigrants. He grew up on their family farm and was a lifetime fruit grower in Oceana County. He graduated from Hart High School in 1946 and went straight into the U.S. Army Service after school, before marrying his wife of 67 years, Wilma Riley.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Moul, Alan (interviewer)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oceana County (Mich.)
Hart (Mich.)
Farms
Farmers
Fruit growers
Audio recordings
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/mp3
application/pdf
Language
A language of the resource
eng
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/920bb8cbede8bc3a9b09c0199d25c8f4.pdf
d9dffa756dc753846e7763b83aab870b
PDF Text
Text
Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
Esther Moul Interview
Interviewed by Alan Moul
May 26, 2016 and May 29, 2016
Transcript
AM: This is Alan Moul, I'm here with Esther Gilliland Moul, who happens to be my mother. The date is
May twenty-sixth, two thousand sixteen, which happens to be my anniversary. This oral history is being
collected as part of the Growing Community Project for Oceana County. And I'm going to have my mom
talk about her earliest memories and the first Gilliland's in Oceana County. Mom?
EM: Thank you! My plan is to tell the early and the transitional history of our Gilliland family farm, which
ended by being a centennial farm in Hart, Michigan. Since history is my hobby and because I have
inherited and gathered far more information than can be told on tape, I want everyone listening to this
to know that they can certainly find much more detail, both genealogy and history, because I am
currently writing our family history with a lot of detail. And that will be at the Chadwick-Munger House,
headquarters of the Oceana County Historical Society.
AM: Could you spell your name for us so we make sure we get it right?
EM: Esther, E-s-t-h-e-r. A lot of people leave out that “h.” May, M-a-y. Gilliland is G-i-l-l-i-l-a-n-d. And
then my married name is Moul, M-o-u-l.
AM: Okay, thank you. Alright.
AM: Okay.
EM: Harvey (H-a-r-v-e-y) Hunter (H-u-n-t-e-r) Gilliland, my great-grandfather - great-great-grandfather was the first Gilliland in Oceana County. He moved here from western Pennsylvania in 1873 with his
wife, Martha, two daughters, Clara and Elizabeth, and a son, my grandfather, Clayton, who was six years
old at that time. He also brought with him his mother, Mary. He had formerly been working on the Erie
Canal as a driver on the towpath. But the Erie Canal was going out of favor because the railroads were
coming in and I assume that that could be what prompted him to leave that occupation. I also think that
he probably had a connection to the Garwoods [?] who were already here in Oceana County, that may
be who prompted him to move here. There was a Mr. Garwood, who was a blacksmith, and the
Gillilands and the Garwoods [?] were closely related in western Pennsylvania where he came from. My
great-great-grandfather rented farm property out south of Hart, near what we call now Star Hill. And my
grandfather, Clayton, and his sister started attending the little rural Van Wickle School. They moved into
town after the kids graduated from the eighth grade. And great-great-grandpa Harvey was a
wheelwright and he also did building moving. He was also involved in community affairs. He was an avid
hunter. Everybody talked about how he had to go hunting and fishing every year. He lived on two lots in
Hart. And it is amusing to me that now I'm living in an apartment overlooking Hart Lake and he's buried
right at the top of the hill overlooking Hart Lake, overlooking his... what he called his fishing hole. And
that was at his request; he wanted to be buried over his fishing hole.
AL: Alright.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
EM: Harvey's daughters eventually married local men, but they moved out of Michigan, but my grandpa,
Clayton, stayed and decided to be a farmer. He bought the first twenty acres of our farm in 1889 and
built a small house and then married a lovely girl, Mary Trommater, from Elbridge in 1891. Sadly, Mary
died in pregnancy. I'm sure he was grief stricken and there are several silent years that we know nothing
about. I have many of Mary’s keepsakes that were in an old trunk in our attic. But eventually he got a
new lease on life and in 1894 he married Rose Moore, a local girl who was a housekeeper for a local
businessman. And she was the daughter of John Moore, who was in the sawmill business out east of
Hart. Then in 1909, both of Clayton's parents died, and so he inherited his father's building tools, moving
tools, and for a while he would move buildings or rent out the tools. He also began to plant fruit trees on
his twenty acres. And it's interesting, instead of planting a whole orchard like we do now of one variety,
he would plant one or two trees of many varieties, trying out to see what they liked, I guess. And one of
those trees is still standing in the front yard, the old russet tree. He also planted several sweet cherry
trees and some pear trees.
EM: I was born in 1931 in a snowstorm. They tell me that the doctor had a hard time getting there; he
had to wallow through the drifts, but my dad held the lantern. They didn't have electricity and he was
quite at ease because he'd held the lantern for delivering calves in the barn many times, so it didn't
seem to faze him. Our house was a wood frame house. We call it - for places of reference - we call it the
North House, which is gone now. There was no indoor bathroom. There was a water tank upstairs. The
pump at the well outside, there was a gasoline engine that pumped and it would pump the water up to
that water tank upstairs and then it would go by gravity drainage down to the kitchen sink. So, there was
very little water pressure. I remember we had kerosene lamps and I can remember when the phone
came; we finally got our first telephone and I remember when electricity - the REA [Rural Electrification
Act] - finally came. And I was expected as a good farm girl to pick fruit in the summertime, which I did
not like. I ran barefoot through the orchards and I loved to collect rocks and play with pretty flowers and
things. I wasn't much interested in working, but if I wanted to earn a bike, I had to. I got very tan. I
enjoyed the outdoors a great deal. I loved to climb trees. My mother always had a big garden and did
lots of canning. The folks went to market in Muskegon, usually three times a week during the productive
summer months, and that was a lot of work, getting things packed up one day and then spending the
next day on the market and hoping to sell everything, so you didn't have to come home wondering what
to do with the leftovers.
AM: Did you go down and come back the same day?
EM: Oh yeah, we went early in the morning while it was still dark and usually could leave by 2:00 or 3:00
in the afternoon. We sold not only to the local people in Muskegon, but to the stores. The stores would
come and they'd look over all the farmer's wares and see which farmer they could get the best price and
the best product. And I still remember some of the names of the stores in Muskegon. Balkan's [?] was
one that regularly bought from us and we actually became good friends.
AM: Now, at this point, you had a vehicle, right? You had a car?
EM: Yes. They moved up first to a model A and then a little pickup truck.
AM: Okay.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
EM: Yeah. Like I say, a lot more detail in what I'm actually writing that will be available for people to
read at the Historical Society because there's so much detail. When we lived in the North House, as I've
mentioned, my mother’s sister, Alice, who was a polio victim and had to walk with crutches and braces,
came to board with us part-time because she was a bookkeeper at Hawley’s Nursery just down the hill
on the corner where the...
AM: The King funeral home.
EM: ...the funeral home is now, yeah. But Hawley’s Nursery was a big nursery in the area; supplied the
farmers with most of the fruit trees and ours. And they had a daughter, Ruthie, and Ruthie and I played
together a lot.
EM: I'm thinking more about the basement of the north house, how my folks, probably great grandpa,
helped them, insulated the north end of it in the basement, and that became a storage room, it was
well-insulated, and they would store apples in there. And then that was used for a packing shed. Back
then, fruit was shipped out of the depot in Hart to heaven knows where, I don't remember. Also, it went
by boat from the early days from Pentwater and later days from Ludington, but there was a lot of
shipping of fruit for quite some time.
Another thing that I just thought about was the indoor market in Muskegon. Most of my memories are
of the outdoor market in the summertime, but there was a winter indoor market. So, I think we
probably took some of our apples there in the winter and that was not at the same location, and I just
can't remember where it was. But I know there was an indoor market and I remember vividly that I
didn't like to go because we had to get up early in the morning and stay most of the day to sell the fruit.
And so, my mother taught me all kinds of little games and poems and read books to me and anything
she could do to entertain me. So, some of those things I used on my grandkids and later life because my
mother taught me so many of those little things that stayed with me.
AM: So, you would sit there with your produce and sell it and then pack up what was left and come back
home?
EM: Yep.
AM: Okay.
EM: I'm guessing that on the way back we probably stopped at my dad's sister's places; they lived in
Whitehall and Rothbury and probably gave some leftover fruit. That would be like my parents and my
grandpa to want to do that, and I know that periodically we did give them fruit. So, I would guess that
the leftovers probably went in that direction.
AM: I remember Grandpa, I always couldn't figure out why Grandpa had the worst stuff in the house to
eat. And I would ask him, “Grandpa, why do we have all these bruised and wormholes [apples]? And he
said, “Well, the good stuff, I sell at market.” So, we ate the bad stuff.
EM: That's right. Okay, my grandma, Rose Gilliland, died in nineteen thirty-nine. So, I'd like to say some
of my memories about her because sometimes when my folks went to market, they'd let me go and stay
with grandma. And grandma had a Victrola and that was a real new thing. There were no record players
back then; it was a Victrola where you had to wind it up and play these old records. And so, she would
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
play her records for me and they were mostly really just records. Her favorite one? I'll think of it in a
minute.
She also... I have vivid memories of her sitting on the basement steps, washing and polishing eggs and
putting them in the carton to sell. And like I said, she didn't go to sell her eggs. She went to trade and
she'd come home with something in exchange for the eggs.
“I Need Thee Every Hour” - that was Grandma's favorite Victrola song. She played that over and over
again for me.
AM: I've got a question: being that they bartered, was there ever any... do you ever remember any
discussion or disagreement over what they were going to barter and bring home? Or did Grandpa
always have the final say?
EM: I don't remember anything like that. The one vivid memory I do have is of Grandpa starting out of
the yard with a model egg to go to town and grandma discovering that he'd forgotten something. And
she screamed and screeched and tried to get him to stop and she could not make him hear her. She did
not have a delicate voice. [Laughter]
I loved my grandma very much, but it was hard for me to see her suffer with cancer. And oftentimes,
then at that time, they would send me over to the other grandma's house in Mears - Grandma Auger’s
house in Mears - to stay because it would be too hard for me to watch my grandma in bed going
downhill until she died. On the day she died, I got sent across the road to the Walkers, our neighbors,
the Walkers, to have supper with them and they were good friends. They had five kids and they were my
playmates. And Ethel Walker had made scalloped potatoes and I loved scallop potatoes, but I got one
bite in my mouth and she had used pepper and my mother never used black pepper. And I choked and
coughed and I remember how I wondered what in the world was wrong with those potatoes. But those
are my memories of my Grandma Gilliland for her short life.
AM: And what was her first name again?
EM: Rose.
AM: Rose, okay.
EM: Rose, yeah.
AM: One more thing about the Garver School. For a more comprehensive story of the school, I've
written a little booklet, “Once Upon a School.” So, it’s at the Munger House headquarters; it can be read
there.
Now about our neighbors across the road, the Walkers across the road from my grandparents. Mrs.
Walker was a Hasty and Sherman Hasty was her father. And he's the one that built our fruit picking
ladders. We want to be sure and mention his name here. He was well-known. He moved into town in
later life. But I wouldn't be surprised that he had something to do with the building of my grandfather's
house because he was a builder.
Also, Vern Walker, who lived in the house next[door] with his wife, Ethel Hasty Walker; Vern Walker was
a farmer, too, there at the place. And he and my dad, one year at least, rented a good-sized truck and
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
packed up fruit and went to the Benton Harbor market. Benton Harbor was a big fruit market, and
together they went to the Benton Harbor market. I don't remember that they did it more than one year,
but they might have. But the Walkers were our good friends.
I do remember an incident while we were still living over at the north house when we had a terrific
thunderstorm. And my parents were very worried and we had big beech trees in the front yard. And I
remember lightning struck a beech tree that night and you could smell - I called it sulfur - I don't know
what it was, but I remember the awful smell and how worried that my parents were. Well, when
children know that their parents are worried, they are doubly worried. And I remember I was afraid of
lightning for years and years afterwards. And I think I was married before I finally could enjoy a good
thunderstorm.
EM: I may have already said, I don't know, in nineteen thirty-nine, my grandma died and it was a logical
thing for us to move around the corner to live with Grandpa, to take care of the farm with him. My dad
had already been spending all his days over there anyway working and so it was just logical. So, funny
thing is I have no memory of us packing up and moving because I had been spending so much time there
with my mother who was taking care of Grandma, that it just seemed logical for us to just be moving
right on in.
I remember the time of her funeral, how we went down the hill on 72nd Avenue to the cemetery, and
how there was an odor of chicken feathers - burnt chicken feathers - in the air because there was
Archer's Hatchery on that road and it had burned and oh, what a horrible smell - burnt chicken feathers.
And I identify that time of her funeral with that fire.
I said we moved around the corner to the house; I need to say that the house was double in size from
when Grandpa had first built it because about nineteen twelve or so, as the kids were leaving home, as
is often the case, he added onto the house and made it what it is still standing today. A much larger
house. In nineteen eleven, the barn was built and my mother, who was living in the neighborhood just at
that year, said she remembered coming over to play with Dorothy Gilliland and there was a pile of
lumber waiting for the barn to be built. And here again, I never thought to ask who built that barn? I
have no idea. It could have been a barn raising. I just don't know. Be sure to ask the questions that you
can get answers to while your family is still living because you’ll have many regrets about the things that
you don't know and wish you'd asked!
AM: Now, did you mention anything about the kids were all leaving after getting out of school and now
you had no one to pick the small fruits that they were growing?
EM: Right, up until that time they had picked their own fruit, done their own harvesting along with
relatives, the girls, my grandpa Clayton's sisters, Dorothy and LaVange [?] and Phyllis would come maybe
for a day and pick. And maybe they had friends that would want to pick and so you could get local help.
But as they increased the size of the farm and by the time my dad and mother and I moved around the
corner to live with grandpa, they were starting to look at more acreage and eventually did add quite a
bit to the farm. And so, labor became an interesting problem.
AM: Now, we looked at the farm drawings and saw that they had strawberries, raspberries...currants...
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
EM: You can bet those came out when the kids left home. [Laughter] They didn't have their help
anymore, so nobody wanted to do that kind of labor. And so, then he started planning fruit trees in
earnest.
There's a story I think my grandpa told me himself that Dr. Munger, who is known in Hart, used to be
known as the Cherry King. He had more acreage than anybody at one time of tart cherries. That he and
my grandpa, who were friends and I imagine my grandpa went to him for doctoring, as they would call
it. He said, “how are your cherries doing, Clayton?” And my grandpa said, “doing pretty well, doing
alright.”
And Dr. Munger says, “I think I'll plant some cherries.” [Laughter] Makes a good story. Well anyway, he
ended up being the primary cherry grower in Oceana County at one time.
EM: I'm coming up to when I was about nine years old, and so these memories are going to be from that
vantage point, nine, ten, eleven years old. So, I remember how, of course, as we…
AM: ...it would’ve been around 1940.
Yeah, as we got more acreage, more fruit coming into bearing, we had to have more labor. And so, like I
said, we took cousins, neighbors and anybody that wanted to help. And one cousin, Doris in particular,
loved to pick fruit. She was tall and I can still see her standing on top of a nine-foot ladder with only the
tree branches for support, picking away, singing away. She loved it and she boarded with us in the
summer to do that. And she was quite artistic and she loved to draw pictures of what she was doing. She
came several years, as I remember, earned her school money that way, clothing and books and so forth.
So right about that time, we were getting rid of our horses and cows. We had one team left, Dick and
Nell, and out of deference to Grandpa Clayton, they still kept them and he'd do a little bit of cultivating
with the two horses. And when it came haying time, because we still had several cows, and the horses
needed hay. And when it came haying time, we had rented pastureland down the hill. That would be
where my son Cal lives now in that field to the south.
We would go in and get that hay, cut that hay, and I can remember the horses bringing in the hay up the
hill. One of my favorite pictures of myself is standing on top of that load of hay. I used to love to just sit
and watch the process of unloading the hay, how the horses would pull the ropes to raise the hay fork
full of hay and swing it over into the hay mound and let it drop. And it took quite a while to unload the
load of hay and then go back and get another load.
AM: How they could back that wagon up, the horses would back it up.
EM: Yeah, I loved to watch my grandpa hitch up the horses, too. I'm so glad that I have those memories
because they're gone now. Kids don't see those kinds of things on farms unless they go to a museum
farm. So, I'm glad I have those memories of haying time on the farm.
I had older cousins who would come and stay summers with my parents, but they were soon drafted
into the army. So there went some of our good help. There were local people, as I’ve mentioned, that
would come and work. Teachers often liked to work on the farm in the summer because it gave them
summer employment. Ivan Robinson was our old standby. He painted our house one summer and did
other odd jobs around the farm.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
AM: Didn't he end up being the principal of a school or something?
EM: I think he might have; he was a teacher, yep. There were people we called drifters and I suppose
maybe they were alcoholics. They just had that kind of temperament where they were just passing
through and just wanted to earn a little bit of money and they would work and we hired some of them.
We didn't have to house them at all. And by the way, back then there were no housing laws, no
restrictions. If somebody wanted to come and pitch a tent in your yard and pick fruit, that was all right.
We had young girls just with new driver's licenses that drove across the state to camp under our walnut
trees in tents, and they became lifetime friends. They’d have parties in the barn at night and we just
became really good friends.
One man in particular, I think he just stopped in to see if we needed help and he became a family friend
for many years. His name was Harlan, H-a-r-l-a-n, Parrish. He and his wife Mae came and we called him
“Shorty.” He was a short man and he was the best hired man my dad ever had. He would do anything.
He dragged the tractor. Oh, yes, we'll have to talk about the new tractor. He would, you know, whatever
the day called for, he was up for it. And we housed “Shorty” in the barn and they didn't mind. They
curtained off an area and we had an old bed with a mattress and a place to wash up. And of course, all
the accommodations, bathroom accommodations were just outdoor privies at that point. And so
nobody minded. It wasn't until the government agencies got involved and put restrictions on the
farmers that things had to change.
But people would start to come up from the south and people would come from Oklahoma and
Arkansas. And you never knew where your help was going to come from. That was risky business to
hope that there would be enough help to get your crop off. But it always worked out and there were
good years and bad years. Some years there would be a heavy frost and you'd say, well, maybe next
year will be a good year. So, talk about being in the gambling business. It sure felt like it, but things
seemed to always work out.
EM: I don't remember the year - but it's written down, so you can find it if you want to know - that we
got our first tractor. It was a Caywood and that's an unfamiliar name now, but we were so proud of that
tractor. And I remember how my dad practiced with that tractor and how he had to use it to pull a
loaded truck up the hill and he was so proud that he was able to do that.
Also, the name Eva Doedy [?] comes to mind, Eva Doedy [?] was a nurse at the Hart hospital and she was
a corker, she loved to work and she loved the outdoors and she took her vacation and came and picked
cherries every year. She’d take a bucket of water and put it at the bottom of her cherry tree and she'd
wash her hands after she got through with every tree and she just treated it like a true vacation. And
then I was reminded that in later years, she came back and helped my mother and me can cherries in
the summertime. She truly loved farm life, and she was willing to spend her vacation time outdoors.
AM: It sounds like in those years there was a lot more community involvement in the farms that just
kind of was natural, which we are losing now, that doesn’t happen.
EM: There was a saying by the businessmen in town, “if the farmer has a bad year, so do we.” The
farmer couldn't buy the new couch or his wife couldn't get her new coat or whatever. Or the farmer
couldn't buy a new truck or whatever. The economy was… everyone affected… everyone's success
affected somebody in the community.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
AM: What are your memories of tourism, as far as it related to the farming community in the [nineteen]
forties?
EM: People came through to the sand dunes, I remember the sand dunes, that was a big drawing card.
People came just to see them and to climb on them. And there were little cabins. And now that people
all had cars and were traveling, resorting was a big thing. I think that's some of what got my Grandpa
and Grandma Auger to start their canning business, was for the resorters that came and just, oh, they
just “oohed and aahed” for all the fruit over here and wanted to take some back with them.
I'm moving into my teenage years now, and I'm remembering that the government was making jeeps,
used army jeeps available to farmers to use in place of tractors if they needed a good utility vehicle, they
could do some light farming with Jeeps.
AM: This was before World War Two? Must have been World War One surplus?
EM: No, this was World War Two… in the middle of the... or at the end of the war, I’m not sure. But I
remember writing to school with the Walker kids across the road because they had bought one of the
Army surplus jeeps and we could go through the snow in the wintertime when other kids couldn't get
there.
I remember the Normandy invasion talking about World War Two now, we were very deeply involved in
listening to the radio, which we had a radio now and that was a big deal because we had cousins Harold
and Norman Hoxton in the war and we kept track of the movement of the troops. And I remember
sitting on my dad's lap with the map out in front of us watching,
listening to the H.V. Kaltenborn [?] and other announcers talking about the Normandy invasion and
were just really caught up in what was going on. At the school, the men were, of course, all going into
the service and our high school principal was a woman that was quite new. Mrs. Frost was our high
school principal, and one day she got up to the study hall and announced that we would all be collecting
milkweed pods for the Kapok preservers for the army. And she brought the house down when she said,
“the bags are in the office.” Well, back in those days us kids would call anybody in authority that we
didn't care too much for an “old bag.” You know, so she said, “the bags are in the office,” but we yeah,
we went out and harvested milkweed pods. We also went out… they would let school out for kids to go
out and help with emergency crop harvest.
I remember how I got my Social Security number and my dad and mother got theirs at the same time.
The cherry harvest was on and the canning factories were getting plugged up with product and they
couldn't handle it fast enough. So, they would tell the farmers, “don't bring us anymore for a while,
come in and help us.” So, the farmers and their families would have to go in and help. But I remember I
was on the sorting belt. My dad was emptying lugs into the water and I don't remember what my
mother was doing, probably sorting. And that's how we all at the same time, my mother and dad and I
got our Social Security numbers to help out.
But the biggest excitement at that time, nineteen forty-four and five, were the German prisoners of war
that were made available. They had captured them and brought them over here. And rather than just
warehousing them, they put them to work. And according to the Geneva Convention, they were to be
treated humanely. And we wanted to show that in America, we treat our war prisoners humanely. And
so, we gave them work to do and whereas our troops were not always being treated humanely. Anyway,
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
we could sign up, a farmer could sign up for needing so many prisoners and my dad would take the
pickup truck and go to the fairgrounds where they were housed in tents and pick up his quota for the
day and a guard with a gun would come along and he was supposed to stand watching the prisoners at
all times, but he would get very bored. And so, he would put his… lean his gun up against the tree and
go to work, too. But it was interesting, as a teenager looking out at those men, I didn't feel like they
were the enemy. They were there to help us. They were friendly, it was just different. They would kind
of wave at me and smile. But we weren't supposed to communicate back and forth. And I couldn't talk
German anyway.
AM: Now, were there any Japanese prisoner of wars or do they stay on the West Coast?
EM: No.
AM: I'm not aware whether they helped or not. I think they were pretty much warehoused, it was a
different situation.
EM: No, I think so. They were in the internment camps. Yeah, no these were just... now there were at
the same time some Jamaicans and some other people who came through that we'd never had before.
It was kind of a trial period, they just took anybody they could get because the good men were gone.
AM: And did they ever do any scrap metal drives just to scrap metal, scrap rubber, scrap paper.
Everything went to the war effort. Even now, when I go down the expressway and I see where
somebody's tire has blown apart and lying alongside the road, I have this urge to get out and pick it up
because that's what we did. You just saved everything. Everything was rationed: sugar was rationed,
tires were rationed, gasoline was rationed. But the farmer didn't have it so bad because the whole
world, the soldiers, the troops depended on what the farmer could raise. And so, the farmer had to have
what he needed to produce. So, we had what we needed.
Interview Day Two – May Twenty-Ninth
AM: This is Alan Moul, and I'm here with Esther Gilliland Moul. And this is a continuation of our tape
from May twenty-sixth and today's May twenty-ninth. So, we're going to continue where we left off.
EM: Well, I think we left off about when I was graduating from high school in nineteen forty-eight, I was
a country girl headed for the big city. I wanted to be a nurse and my dad had said, “well, why don't you
just go down to Muskegon, to Hackley Hospital?” And my mother wisely said, “she needs to get away.”
And I've always been grateful that she had the foresight to send me to the big city. I left with several
local girls for Oak Park, Illinois, West Suburban Hospital School of Nursing affiliated with Wheaton
College, and was there for the next three and a half years.
EM: I really, really loved Chicago. I loved to get on the elevator and go down and explore. Looking
around the architecture, the buildings, the opportunities, things I'd never seen before. I really enjoyed it
and I enjoyed the nursing experience, too. My boyfriend back home, Leonard Moul, M-o-u-l, had
another year of high school to finish. And we kept in touch some, but gradually through the years when I
was there, we kind of lost touch until the end of my training.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
My parents were doing quite well on the farm and they started going to Florida in the winters and taking
my grandparents, my grandpa Gilliland and my mother's parents with them. And that was nice, they had
some freedom to travel.
And with the new gales [?] in Hart, they took some pretty extensive trips to California and Texas and
quite a bit in the southwest. And in nineteen forty-nine, I came home on vacation and found that my
father had bought his first new car, brand new car, a forty-nine Kaiser. He was so proud of that - it was
the first totally new car he'd ever had. So, I guess they were doing quite well with their farming, over the
years they were gradually adding more acreage.
Leonard would come up from Comstock Park and visit his sister in Shelby, Dr. Hasty's wife Beverly, and
do yard work for her, and then he also did some carpentry work. That's where he learned to do
carpentry work, was with Burmeister Builders out of Shelby. He graduated in nineteen forty-nine. In
nineteen fifty-one, I graduated from nurses training and my folks gave me a bus trip to Florida and then I
rode home with them. I went back to Oak Park and worked for a few months just to say that I had
worked as a graduate nurse in my home hospital for a little while.
But by then I was engaged to Leonard and we were beginning to plan a wedding. We were married in
September nineteen fifty-two. Started out with a little house trailer in the driveway of my new sister and
brother in law, Mark and June Dorn. Leonard was working at Sackner Products in Grand Rapids and I
started working at Butterworth Hospital. Times were good.
AM: Now, he was a machinist, is that correct?
EM: He became a machinist. When he first started there, he drove a Hi-Lo and loaded trucks and they
loved him because they said he could load a truck semi faster and better than anybody. But then he
gradually moved up and became a machinist. He's also in the Michigan National Guard's.
Deer hunting was big, big… hunting of all kinds was big with him. And he and his brother in laws had
tented in the Upper Peninsula, and were making plans to buy some property up there and build a cabin.
So, one of the first things I got to do was camp out and go deer hunting. I did it to please him, not
because I had any desire to kill any animals. I took my gun with me. I learned how to shoot it, but I never
killed a deer. But it was a nice vacation experience. This was before the Mackinac Bridge was built. So,
we sat in long, long lines and my sister in laws would pack wonderful sandwiches and pies and things.
And so, we ate while we sat and waited to go across the bridge.
As I said, we were living in a little house trailer, but we wanted to get some land and Len, with his
carpenter skills, wanted to build a house. And his boss at Sackner Products very conveniently gave him
his house plans and so we used his house plans to build our first house. We bought two acres on Division
Avenue just about a couple of miles from Walton and Donna Moul’s place; they lived on Six Mile Road
on Division Avenue. Leonard started right away; as soon as we bought the property, we moved the
trailer up there and started right in with the plans to build our house. And I was still working, so we were
doing alright. I think we were each making about four thousand something a year.
We still took our vacations to deer hunt. Grandpa and Grandma Moul were still living. They came over
and watched the progress of the house. And I have a picture of Grandpa Moul driving a nail in the siding
on the house. And he was so proud to be able to do some little thing that showed he was interested. But
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
sadly, he died in nineteen fifty-five and Leonard had to teach Grandma Moul how to drive. She had
never driven a car, so he did - he taught her how to drive.
EM: Back in Hart on the farm, my dad and mother seemed to be doing well, enjoying their winters and
traveling and we were so involved in building our house, we weren't paying much attention to what was
going on, on the farm back in Hart. So, we weren't thinking about their future very much. But, they
certainly every year were getting one year older and wondering who is going to take over. I think my dad
had always wished for a son, but that never happened.
So, I remember at one time he mentioned that the house and farm across the road was for sale. Well,
we sure weren't interested because we didn't want to live that close proximity to my parents. Didn't
think that would be a good idea and we weren’t thinking about moving anyway. But we got our house
built on Division Avenue and discovered in the process, we had to put down a very, very deep well. And
we didn't like the water at all because we had... it was so hard that we had to buy a commercial water
softener and that water tasted terrible coming out of that commercial water. We just didn't like it at all.
Then some other houses started going up around us and that troubled us a little bit because we had
envisioned living out in the country without too many neighbors. And so, we started looking around a
little bit.
And I'm getting ahead of myself because in nineteen fifty-six, I discovered I was pregnant, and so I
thought, well, I should be getting more domesticated and I needed to make some curtains for the baby's
bedroom. And so, we were looking at a sewing machine in Grand Rapids and when we got home, the sky
began to get really dark and strange and I had never seen that kind of weather. And the upshot was we
saw our first tornado and Leonard had to go out with the National Guards and help with that. My
neighbor down the hill and I got to stand in our living room window and watch the tornado go through,
and that was pretty exciting.
AM: When would that have been, like, May of nineteen fifty-six?
EM: Yeah, yeah.
AM: Around Easter you said, wasn't it?
EM: I think so.
AM: So earlier.
EM: Yeah, the sky turned all yellow, just like a dandelion, it was just yellow. You never saw anything like
it. Our friends, Ruth and Ron Bullis [?] lost their trailer in the storm and ended up building a house,
becoming our neighbors. Anyway, in October, Alan Lee was born and I stopped working at the hospital.
Soon after, I found out I was pregnant again and Bradley Ray joined our crowd.
By then, we were really disenchanted with where we were living and started looking around a little bit
at property. And we still took our vacations up north, went fishing up... by then, the guys had built a
cabin on some property in the Upper Peninsula outside of Munising and we took vacations up there.
And Leonard still went deer hunting, and I did too, because Grandpa and Grandma Gilliland were only
too happy to have a couple of boys come and stay with them. And that was nice that they were
accommodating.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
Then in nineteen sixty-one, February, Calvin John was born and, in the meantime, Leonard was helping
Marv [?] down the road build a house, so he was getting plenty of carpenter experience. We did some
looking around and found some property on Rogue River and bought a couple acres there and decided
that we would move. But we had to sell our house and we didn't have too much trouble. Some people in
Grand Rapids wanted our house and we just traded houses. They bought our house, so we bought
theirs, and ours was much more expensive than theirs, so we did alright. Moved into Grand Rapids just
in time for Al to start kindergarten. Do you remember that?
AM: Not really.
EM: No, you don’t remember Riverside Elementary School?
AM: I remember James Street...
EM: Yeah, that's where we lived on James.
AM: ...walking home.
EM: Past a dog, remember you had to walk past that scary dog?
AM: An old dog in the yard.
EM: Then, to complicate things, my dad called again and said, there's another farm for sale down the hill
and a nice big house and property, fruit trees and you've got some boys coming along. You might be
interested now. And we decided maybe we were, if we're going to have boys to raise. Why not on the
farm? So, we had already committed to building a house on the river, which we did. We lived in Grand
Rapids in town for a year and then moved out to our house on the river and lived there just a short time.
Joel came along in the fall of... no, he was born in June.
AM: June, [nineteen] sixty-three,
EM: Sixty-three and then the fall of [nineteen] sixty-three, I got a phone call from my mother-in-law that
President Kennedy had been shot. And Al remembers that quite well because he was in school.
AM: Yep, one of the few things I remember about down there.
EM: It was pretty traumatic. Brad started kindergarten there and Al was in first grade. Dr. Hasty and his
wife, Beverly, in Shelby bought our James Street house when we needed to sell it and rented it and that
helped us out considerably. So that got us out of downtown and out on the river. The kids did enjoy
living on the river. We could swim in the river and Leonard could play baseball in Rockford and that was
fun. It was between Rockford and Sparta; the kids were in the Sparta school system.
So, in June, nineteen sixty-three, Leonard started coming up to the farm and working on weekends with
my dad to see what there was that he needed to learn and help him out. In Easter time of nineteen
sixty-four, we made another move up to the farm and thankfully another person came along that
wanted to buy our house on the river. Leonard's boss bought our house down there. So, we... except for
I guess we kept one acre which we later sold to him, and the boys started at Garver School here in Hart.
AM: It must have been kind of a big switch because I know the house on the river was a lot nicer and
brand new compared to the house you moved in on the farm. It was an old farmhouse with plaster
falling off.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
EM: It was very old, very old. But we had no qualms about it because by then we understood what a
builder Leonard was and so we had plans right away. We drew our own plans to build a house and live in
the old house and build a house in front of it and move the old house out to use for farm labor.
AM: You actually built your house behind the one that was there.
EM: I said in front, didn’t I?
AM: Yeah, behind.
EM: We built it behind.
AM: And when you built it, you could walk from one to the other with a plank...
EM: Out the back door of the old house and the front of the new house. And Uncle Norman Johansen,
my uncle, came to visit one time, looked out our picture window and the old house hadn’t been moved
yet. He was a dry comedian. He looked out and he said, “it ain’t got much of a view.” We always had a
laugh about that.
Now we need to talk about farm labor. My dad had been buying small pieces of property and so there
were up to over one hundred acres, I'm sure, by then. And so, he needed more help and he would pick
up local help, but that wasn't going to be good enough. And people were coming from the South, but
that wasn't enough. And there was a new system of help called the “crew leader system,” where a
leader would gather a group of people from Texas or wherever they came from, and he would be
responsible to oversee them, and they were usually young single men. And so, we got started… my dad
got started using that system of labor for the harvest time.
AM: There weren't many rules back then as to what he could or couldn't do, so there was a lot of...
EM: No, there weren’t housing restrictions. People could sleep in the barn, which they did in chicken
coops, in…
AM: Tents.
EM: ...tents, old houses. Yeah, there were virtually no rules.
AM: And the crew leader, some of them anyway, charged their workers for taking them to town, for
buying food, things of that nature. So, it was pretty loose.
EM: When we remember one name in particular, Eliseo Salazar. Good man, I think he treated his people
fairly. I don't know if it was the same ones that came back year after year or not, but he was a very nice
man.
AM: Now, he was from the valley, right? In Texas?
EM: I don't remember
AM: Alice, I believe they were from Alice, Texas. And then Donna and Far and those were some of the
names that people were coming from down there.
EM: Leonard right away got connected with the Michigan State Extension office in Hart and started
taking classes, short course classes in agriculture because a lot of things he needed to learn. He could
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
learn from my dad first hand, but this brought him up to speed on the latest farming practices and put
him in touch with the county agricultural agents that could help him decide what to plant and…
AM: Spray.
EM: And spray and things. It was really good for him. And he in school, he never had been a good
student and didn't particularly care about learning. And so, this was something new for him. And he
applied himself very well and did real well.
EM: So, I guess in summary, I'll just say that it looked like we were here to stay and the boys were
acclimating into school and farm and we were even looking at more property and life was looking pretty
good. And I think, Al and Brad, our memories intersect here, and I think they can take it on from their
vantage point of what it was like for them as they were young growing up on the farm.
14
�
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f6c491f5a798b275d0fa2468ba173f87.mp3
28d0d6efee3317b277a4a7526ec6f596
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Oceana County Migrant Labor History Collection
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Shell-Weiss, Melanie
Description
An account of the resource
Collection contains images and documents digitized and collected through the project "Growing Community: A Century of Migration in Oceana County." This project was a collaboration between El Centro Hispano de Oceana, the Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society, and Grand Valley State University funded by a Common Heritage grant from the United States National Endowment for the Humanities. The materials in this collection document the history of communities in Hart, Shelby, and Walkerville and explore themes of migration, labor, religion, family, belonging, national and cultural identities, regional, national, and international connections, and citizenship.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Oceana County (Mich.)
Source
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Grand Valley State University. Kutsche Office of Local History
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
El Centro Hispano de Oceana; Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society
Relation
A related resource
Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage project)
Identifier
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DC-06
Format
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application/pdf
image/jpeg
audio/mp3
Type
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Text
Image
Sound recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
spa
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oceana County (Mich.)
Hart (Mich.)
Shelby (Mich.)
Farms
Farmers
Migrant agricultural laborers
Hispanic Americans
Account books
Diaries
Oral history
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
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DC-06_Moul_Esther
Creator
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Moul, Esther
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-05-27/2016-05-29
Title
A name given to the resource
Moul, Esther (audio interview and transcript)
Description
An account of the resource
Oral history interview with Esther M. Moul. Interviewed by her son, Alan Moul, on May 27 and 29, 2016 in Hart, Michigan. English language. Esther May Gilliland Moul was born in 1931 into a farming family located in Hart, Michigan. Her great-great-grandfather was the first Gilliland in Oceana County dating back to 1873 and the Gilliland family farm became a centennial farm in Hart, Michigan. She holds many memories of her life growing up on the farm: how they received their fruit trees from Hawley Nursery, stories of Dr. Munger who was known as the “Cherry King,” and life during World War Two. Esther graduated from high school in 1948 and went on to pursue nursing in Oak Park, Illinois at the West Suburban Hospital School of Nursing which was affiliated with Wheaton College. She married Leonard Moul in 1952 and worked at Butterworth Hospital in Grand Rapids while starting a family there. They later relocated their family to the fruit farm across the street from her parents in Hart, Michigan and were able to raise their sons with the same agricultural traditions that were a part of their family’s heritage.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Moul, Alan (interviewer)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oceana County (Mich.)
Hart (Mich.)
Farms
Farmers
Fruit growers
Nursing
Oak Park (Ill.)
Wheaton College (Ill.)
Butterworth Hospital (Grand Rapids, Mich.)
Audio recordings
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Rights
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Type
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Sound
Text
Format
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audio/mp3
application/pdf
Language
A language of the resource
eng
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f41b739477588872d2d0e1f05288c9f1.pdf
56a086a73e81d0288bc1628322cae080
PDF Text
Text
Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
Estevan Luevano Interview
Interviewed by Andrew Schlewitz
June 18, 2016
Transcript
AS: Alright, this is Andrew Schlewitz, and I'm here today with Estevan Luevano in the Hart Public Library
in Hart, Michigan, on the eighteenth of June 2016. This oral history is being collected as part of the
Growing Community Project, which is supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the
Humanities Common Heritage Program.
So, thanks, Estevan, for taking the time to be interviewed.
EL: No problem.
AS: So, can you, for the record, say your full name and then spell it?
EL: Okay, my name is Estevan Luevano. It is spelled E-s-t-e-v-a-n, Luevano L-u-e-v-a-n-o.
AS: Okay, do any of those letters have accents?
EL: No.
AS: No, you don't use it. So where were you born?
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
EL: I was born in San Juan, Texas.
AS: San Juan, Texas. Okay and what county is that in Texas?
EL: That's Hidalgo County.
AS: Hidalgo, okay. Is that where you grew up as well?
EL: Yeah, part of my life, yes.
AS: Okay, so where did you go from there then? You said part of my life.
EL: Yep, we're migrants. We traveled ever since I remember. We used to travel from Texas to Michigan
and back to Texas. Then one year we traveled from Texas to Michigan to Iowa, Iowa to Texas.
AS: Wow. Can you remember that year?
EL: Uh, no, I was like maybe ten, eleven years old.
AS: When were you born?
EL: I was born in nineteen sixty-seven.
AS: Okay, how many people are in your family?
EL: It’s my dad, my mom, three brothers, and two sisters and me. Eight of us.
AS: Were you in the middle there?
EL: I'm the oldest of the boys…
AS: The oldest of the boys. And your two sisters then?
EL: My sisters… one of my sisters is the oldest, then me, then my brothers, then my little sister.
AS: Okay. Did you have other family around you?
EL: Yes. We came up from Texas with my grandpa and my uncles and one of my uncles came from
Florida down here. They went to Florida instead of Texas.
AS: Okay, where are your parents from?
EL: My parents are from Texas as well.
AS: Okay, so would you say you're like third or fourth generation Chicano?
EL: I don't know because my grandpa and grandma were from Texas, too.
AS: Okay, so you've been there a long time?
EL: Yes.
AS: Many generations.
EL: Yes.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
AS: What are your family members' names, like your father and mother? Siblings?
EL: My father is Hilario “G” Guadalupe Luevano. And my mother is [?] Luevano.
AS: Okay and then your siblings?
EL: My older sister is... her real name right now is Irman Holsa [?].
AS: Okay.
EL: And then my brother, Hilario Guadalupe Luevano Junior, and then my other brothers, Sylvester
Luevano and then Hector Luevano, and then my little sister, Elise [?] Luevano.
AS: Okay. What was your grandpa's name?
EL: My grandpa's name was Tereso [?].
AS: Tereso [?]. And what are your most vivid or starkest, clearest memories of childhood?
EL: Well, my grandfather used to have a business, semi business.
AS: Oh.
EL: A truck driving company. It was Luevano and Sons. And that's the reason he decided to migrate this
way, because he used to do all of the oranges and fruits in Texas. Well, somebody told him that over
here they had pickles and cherries and, you know, all that kind of stuff, too. So, he decided to come over
here to try it out and he brought two semis and one two-ton truck with them. And then they liked it, so
they started coming up here.
AS: Okay.
EL: And then they worked for Chase Farms and Miles Chase asked him if they knew any more people
they can work with, you know, work in the fields for them. So, he started asking people around over
there and started bringing people in and people started coming with my grandpa because there were
people they would charge people to bring him over here. My grandpa never charged nobody. He said,
do you want to come in here? Well, I don't think my truck and my car make it here so we don't make it.
We stop and fix it because my uncles were mechanics, my dad, my uncle Greg, everybody's a mechanic.
So, he said, “if you break down the road, we stop and fix it or we put it on top of the semi.
AS: Did that ever happen?
EL: Oh yeah, sometimes we stopped and fixed the car and, you know, at the rest area. We used to come
from Texas… this over here. It's kind of funny because I go to Texas and I can make it in thirty-six hours
with, you know, with sleep and stuff. Or if I don't want to sleep, you know, straight at twenty-four hours
or whatever, but we used to last four days to get here because that's how many people were in the
back, the two semis were in front and then the two-ton truck, then all the cars behind it.
AS: So, how many people would go? I imagine it started out with a few. And then by the end…?
EL: By the end, there was like fifteen cars behind the trucks.
AS: Wow.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
EL: That's how many people would come with my grandpa. And the reason why, because, you know,
other people would charge people to bring them over here. And my grandpa said, as long as, you know,
you can make it over, just come behind me…
AS: Follow me.
EL: ...follow me. And my grandfather stayed in the back and then somebody broke down and he, you
know, passed all the semis and go off the road and the semi driver, you know, my uncle knew when my
grandfather passed him, that something happened. So, they’d all stop and see what happened. And
then the semis would go to a truck stop and the rest of them are going to the rest area and the trucks
will get fuel and stuff and wait for the people, you know, for all the other people to get there.
AS: So, you always stuck together.
EL: Oh yeah. Whenever my grandfather led and he let nobody, you know, break down; my dad and my
uncles would fix it. You know, if they couldn’t fix it, they’d find somewhere to put it on top of one of
those semis. And then they would bring it to Michigan and then drop it and then they'd fix it here, you
know. But if they could fix it on the road, they would fix it on the road.
AS: What time of year did you leave for Michigan?
EL: We were here just for… we’d get here and we never picked asparagus. We always picked just
strawberries, cherries and pickles, and we never picked apples. And then we would take off because the
trucks had to be there for the orange season and all that stuff for down in Texas. And one year, after the
pickle season, we went to Iowa.
AS: What did you do in Iowa?
EL: Well, you know, we didn’t take the semis out there, you know; we didn’t take the trucks. The trucks
decided to stay that year. All the trucks stayed here and my uncle ran them here. You know, Chase [?]
had a lot of, you know, he said, “you buy a freezer, you know, refrigerator trailer. You’ve got work all
year round.” So that's when my uncle, Denny [?], and my uncle, Greg [?], decided to stay here and run
the trucks and bought a refrigerator trailer for the truck for one of them. He started driving for a trade
farm, and then my dad would come over here and drive a truck and we would go out in the fields. My
dad would go drive the truck for my uncle or for my grandfather.
AS: So, your uncle settled here?
EL: My uncle settled here.
AS: Okay. Have you settled here?
EL: We settled here in nineteen eighty-one. My dad decided, you know, at first, we stayed two years in
Texas because of school. He knew we weren’t getting a real good, you know, education because we're
going back and forth with him. Matter of fact, well I’m going to say it anyways. I don't know how to read
real good or spell real because of that. Because back then, like, the teacher didn't care, you know, they
just passed you.
AS: Oh, really?
EL: Yep.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
AS: What's that called? Social promotion or something like that.
EL: They just wanted… because you're a migrant and they just want you to be at the school at that day
for the count.
AS: For the county, yeah.
EL: And, you know, when I grew up, I grew up after I got out of school, I worked, you know, and I did my
homework when I got home, but, you know, didn't study very much.
AS: Yeah, plus your year was chopped up.
EL: Yeah, and then we stayed there two years and then my dad was in Texas and then come over here
and then my dad had a good job, but then he started having problems with their… because he was a
good truck driver. So, the company he was driving for bought a brand-new truck and trailer and gave it
to him and the people that were there, they had more years there, kind of got mad because he got the
brand-new semi. So, they started doing stuff to the truck. Then my dad had a nervous breakdown. And
then my Uncle Phil said, “I don't know what you're doing over here. There's trucks over here you can
drive.” So, my dad decided, “well, I'm going to go over there for vacation” for a couple of, you know, the
doctor told him to take a couple months of vacation. So, he took three months of vacation. We came up
here and we worked in the fields and he drove a truck for my uncle. And then that was in 1981 when he
decided to stay here. So, I've been here since [nineteen] eighty-one. I graduated in [nineteen] eightysix...
AS: Okay, from Hart High School?
EL: Nope. From Walkerville High School.
AS: Walkerville, okay. So, the first time you came up here, what did you think?
EL: Well, the first time we came up here, I was too little to remember, but when we were younger, you
know, nine, ten years old, we used to go help my mom, you know, in the pickles, you know, to pick
pickles and stuff. We were not working. We just out there in the fields, you know, playing around. But at
the age of thirteen, that's when we started picking pickles and stuff, you know, in the young age and
ever since then, till I graduated. You know, since thirteen until I graduated. And then during the
wintertime, we lived so close to the factory at Chase’s that I would get home and Miles would pick me
up and say, “hey, do you want to work?” He picked me up and would take me. He’s the one that showed
me how to drive a forklift. I never knew how to. You know, I was fourteen years old and he showed me
how to drive a forklift. And then he would pick me up every time and I would drive a forklift. Okay, so I'd
be unloading trucks out in the skill building and stuff.
AS: So, like taking out the pallets and stuff?
EL: Yep.
AS: So, you picked and you drove a forklift. Did you have any other jobs?
EL: Yes, well, I took the vocational center. I went to the vocational center and graduated high school.
And I took diesel there because my uncle had trucks and my dad. And then from there, you know, Miles
wanted me to drive trucks, you know. So, then my uncle said my dad decided to sell everything and I
said, “why are you selling everything? I want to drive the truck.” And my uncle says, “you want to drive
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
the truck for real? I'll set you up with somebody, my brother out of Hesperia and you can drive a truck
for me. If you like it, we’ll buy a brand-new truck.” But the reason that my uncle sold everything is
because my dad couldn't drive anymore. He had an accident with a semi. He had an accident in a vehicle
and he was not the driver. It was my brother driving. And somebody t-boned him and didn't stop at the
stop sign and my dad got hurt pretty bad. Matter of fact, he's got some of his nerves are pinched, some
of his vertebrae are pinching his nerves in his neck. But they want to do surgery because he's allergic to
the anesthetic, he has diabetes, and he's got a heart murmur.
AS: Oh, no.
EL: So they told him that no, they won’t operate on him. He’s losing feeling on his arm and that's the
arm that he's shifted gears and he says, you know, “I don't want to drive like that because I might have
an accident and I don't want to kill somebody in an accident.” So, he stopped driving.
AS: So, what year then did you start to drive the truck?
EL: At an early age because my uncle and my dad showed us how to move the truck where my dad
parked it, so we could put fuel in it. So, I was like sixteen, seventeen years old. I can move it, back it up,
and that's it, because that's all he let us do. [Laughter] But, you know, and Miles, when I graduated, I
was nineteen, he said, “hey, I want you to get in that truck and go to Paul’s” - his son’s place. So I drove
it all the way to Paul’s and Paul would be waiting there for me and he said, “okay, now back it up here.”
So, I’d back it up and I thought I was going to get something. I would back it up there and he’d say, “you
did good. Now go back.” And it was about eight or ten miles away from the plant, you know.
AS: So, they are like testing you?
EL: Yeah, they were, you know, so I would drive it back. And then a friend of mine, his dad is Jerry Frick,
they own Walkerville Well Drilling, and they knew I graduated from the vocational center for a diesel
mechanic. And one day they came over there to Chase and Jerry offered me a job working on the trucks.
And I couldn’t let that go because at that time, I was only getting like five-fifty an hour at Chase Farms.
And when Jerry showed up, he says, “I'll pay you ten dollars an hour at my place.” And I couldn't refuse
from five-fifty to ten dollars an hour.
AS: Sure.
EL: So, I said, “well, let me give Michael two weeks’ notice before I move over there.” He said, “I'll let
you do that.” When I went and talked to Miles, Miles wasn’t here. He was in Belize because they were
trying to buy land over there, too, for producing over there... I don't know what. And I told Michael,
“Miles isn’t here, but I'm talking to you. I would like a raise because all the forklift drivers - I've been
here more than the forklift drivers - and I'm working at the Brown garage, working on trucks, working on
this mechanical work on the forklift and stuff like that. And I'm only getting five-fifty [dollars an hour]. I
know they're getting eight, eight-fifty an hour. I would like to go up to eight ninety-five an hour.” And he
said, “well, I just gave you a raise. Yeah, a twenty-five-cent raise.” But them guys had been here less
than I'd been here and they’re getting paid more money. And he said, “well, I already give you a raise.” I
said, “well, I'm going to give you a two-week’s notice.” He said, “well, you don't have to. You can leave
right now if you want to.
AS: Wow.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
EL: I think he thought that I was kidding. I wasn't. And I said, “okay, Friday will be my last day.” And
Friday was the next day; that happened on a Thursday. So, I loaded up my toolbox and my tools on my
truck. And that Friday he said, “are you leaving?” And I said, “you told me I could go. I’ll see you later.”
And then I started working for Walkerville Well Drilling on that Monday, I started on Monday.
And then when Miles came back from Belize, he went and ordered a pipe cutter and I'm the only one in
the shop that he asked me, you know, how to use the pipe cutter and stuff. And I said, “yeah, I used it
over there at Chase, you know, I know how to use it.” Okay, come here, link this link and Miles was
coming to pick it up. So, when he came and picked it up, they called me in the shop, “hey, I put it in his
trunk.” So, I went and put it in his trunk. He was waiting for me outside and said, “how come you
couldn’t wait for me to get back?” I said, “because I talked to Michael and Michael said he would not
give me a raise.” He said, “well, if I was here, I would give you a raise. I would give you what you wanted,
but come back and I'll give you what you wanted.” I said, “well, they’re paying me more money here
than what I wanted over there. They’re paying me ten dollars an hour here.” And he said, “well, I can't
pay you that much, but I would like you to come back.” And I said, “well, I can’t. I already got obligated
to work here.”
So, I stayed there for five years with Walkerville Well Drilling, and then my friend, you know, he knew I
was a mechanic and stuff, he said, “hey, they’re hiring mechanics over here.” I said, “where?” He says,
“North American Factories in Whitehall [?].” I said, “I got a good job getting paid ten dollars an hour.” He
said they paid fifteen over here. So, the only way I could make an application there is to go to Michigan
Works and they had a test for me to do and stuff. And I did that and I didn't think they were going to call
me because I didn't. I didn't think I did good on the test. I must have done good on the test because they
called me for a job interview. I went over there for the job interview and he asked me why I wanted to
quit Walkerville Well Drilling. And I said, “well, it’s more money. I've been there five years and I never
got a raise, you know?” And he says, “well, if you get hired in here, it'll be twelve ninety-five. And then I
have two years or less than that and if they think that you learn everything and you can get top raises.
Fifteen ninety-five.” And I said okay. “We’ve got to start you from the very beginning, we just can't
throw you in as a mechanic.” I said, “okay, and how much does that pay?” Fifteen ninety-five, mechanics
get paid more than that.” So, I said, “well, if mechanics get paid more than that, I should start working
here and maybe I can make it into a mechanic.”
So, I did the interview, I didn't think they were going to hire me and they called me. They said, “I want
you to come to work Monday.” And that was on Wednesday. So, on Wednesday morning, they called
me Wednesday morning before I went to the other job and I told Jerry, you know, “I got a job offer at
this other place.” And he said, “well, I don't want you to leave, so we can talk about what they're going
to pay me.” And he said, “I can't do that.” And I said, “well, Friday will be my last day.” So, Friday was my
last day. And I wanted to give him a two-week notice, but the other job wanted me on Monday and I
couldn't lose that opportunity and I'm glad I didn’t. I've been in my job for twenty-one years and I'm
getting paid twenty-four sixty an hour as a mechanic.
AS: As a mechanic. How long did it take you to become a mechanic there?
EL: It took me five years to become a mechanic, but I'm glad I did it, because after I became a mechanic,
I became a Journeyman and they sent me to school for welding, for everything they wanted me to go to
school for. You know, I struggled at school because, you know, my spelling wasn't very good and my
reading wasn't very good. But I still passed the classes and I got my certificate for the Labor Board, and
7
�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
I'm a Journeyman and I can work on equipment - heavy, heavy machinery. And it took me a while to
come to days, but I'm on the day shift. I'm third in seniority in maintenance. And when my group leader
ain’t there, I’m the group leader.
AS: So, it was a good move?
EL: It was a good move, yes.
AS: Where do you live now?
EL: I live in Hesperia.
AS: In Hesperia, okay.
EL: I moved from Walkerville to Hesperia in [nineteen] ninety-two when I bought my first place. And I
wasn't married, so, you know, a single white trailer house with a garage was okay. And then later on,
you know, I got married.
AS: When did you get married?
EL: I got married twice.
AS: Okay.
EL: First I got married and it didn't work out. It lasted not even a year. We got a divorce. And then a
couple of months later, I met my wife and we starting going out. She's from Mexico. She's from… where
do you call it? She's from Mexico and she's from Oaxaca, Mexico.
AS: Oaxaca?
EL: Yeah, and we started going out. And at first, she came over here with her sister from Houston and
her sisters came over here with her boyfriend and they came from Houston, but he had brothers in
Washington. His family was in Washington. They stayed here for two years. I went out with my wife,
went out with her for a year and his brothers told them to move to Washington and they were going to
move to Washington. And I didn't know what to do because she was going to leave. So, at that time, I
didn't know if I should propose to her because I had just gone through a divorce a year ago, you know,
and stuff like that. I didn't want to go through it again. But I'm glad I told her not to leave [laughter]
because we've been married ten years.
AS: Do you have children?
EL: Yes, well, first my little daughter was born and then we lost one. She had a miscarriage and she
called me in the bathroom; I went over there and I'm like, wow, I never seen anything like it. It came out
like a little egg, like it was still in the pouch, it came out. And he was about an inch and a half long, the
baby. And you can see his little feet, little arms like, you know, in the fetal position. But he didn't have
his face. No eyes, no nothing like, you know, like it was just starting to develop.
[?]: Sorry to interrupt, guys, but I just got a phone call. Make sure you get your picture taken across at
the community center before you leave. I didn’t want anyone to forget.
AS: Alright, thank you.
8
�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
EL: And seeing that, you know, upset me a little bit.
AS: Sure.
EL: And upset my wife a little bit, but, you know. They told us he was going to live because two days
before that, she started bleeding and we went to the hospital. And they told us that the baby was not in
the... where it’s supposed to be. It was in the tube. It was growing in the tube. And that's how come it
only grew that much because, you know, that's how far it could grow in the tube and then it decided
to... she started to have labor pains that day and she didn't know why. But that's why, because the baby
was coming out. But, you know, we tried again and we're blessed with Stellan [?] Jr. and he's five now.
AS: Okay, and what's the first child's name?
EL: My first child is Yasmine [?] Marie Luevano.
AS: It's my granddaughter's name, too.
EL: And my son is Estevan Luevano, Jr. And then my wife wanted another one, so we tried and she
couldn’t. We didn’t know why she couldn’t get pregnant. So, we went to the doctor and the doctor told
her the monthly cycles are lasting too long. That's how come you can't get pregnant. They should last
only five days. And my wife was, well, they were lasting like fifteen, twenty days. So, they told her that
the best thing they can do, you know, for her for that. And then they found out that her gallbladder was
bad, too. So, they said, “well, we can go in there and take your gallbladder out and then go in there and
burn the blood cells that make you, you know, go to her monthly cycle.” And my wife said, “well, we
wanted to have another baby, but we couldn’t have one.” And they said, “I don't think you can have
another baby.”
Okay, so we made the appointment in two months to go do surgery because they told us she couldn’t
get pregnant. The day of the surgery, we walked in the hospital and [?] stayed with the kids, and they
put everything… they started everything, put in her I.V. on and they didn't start, you know, putting her
to sleep because the doctor was still in surgery for another patient. So, you know, they just prepped her
up to get her ready. She was already hooked up to everything. But they had to check her blood and
check her hearing before the surgery. Then the lady that put her to sleep came in there and said, “hey, I
need to talk to one of you guys outside.” So, the head nurse went outside and talked to her and she
came back in there and started unhooking everything. I'm like, “What? What are you doing?” “Well, the
surgery isn’t going to happen today.” I said, “why?” He said, “your doctor is going to be here to tell you
why.” Then she went outside and they told her, yeah, you can tell them why. So, she came in and said,
“well, they told us that we can tell you why - she's pregnant.” What do you mean she’s pregnant? The
Doctor told her she couldn’t get pregnant. “Well, she's pregnant. We don't know how long, but she's
pregnant.”
AS: Wow.
EL: And then that's when my son was born - the other one. And so, you know, it was a blessing of God,
so I name him Isaiah Christian Luevano. So, he's one and a half right now.
AS: He's one and a half. So, you have Yasmine, who's how old now?
EL: Yasmine is nine.
9
�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
AS: Nine. And Estevan Junior is five.
EL: Five.
AS: And then Isaiah is one and a half.
EL: One and a half. And we would have had another one between Junior and, you know, only two years
apart, not even, you know, but, you know, at that time it didn't happen. But we’re glad with the other
two. My son was a miracle. That's what the doctor said, when the doctor showed up, actually told me
she couldn't get pregnant. He said, “it must be that God wanted you to have another one.” So, he says
surgery is not going to happen today until the baby's born and then you've got to wait three months
before we can do surgery. So that's what happened. The baby was born and after three months my wife
had surgery.
AS: What's your wife's name?
EL: Marguerita [?].
AS: Marguerita [?]...
EL: Her real name or her?
AS: Yeah, her real name or prior to getting married to you.
EL: Her name is Marguerita [?] Contaros [?].
AS: So, she's from Oaxaca, but she's not from an indigenous group.
EL: What’s that?
AS: She's not from [spanish language]?
EL: What do you mean?
AS: So, in Oaxaca, there are a lot of [American] Indians. I don't know if she was…
EL: I don't know if she is. She looks and, you know, my friends told me that because he went to the ruins
up in Oaxaca, one of my friends at work. And when she met my wife, she said, “she looks like the Indians
from over there. Is she Indian?” I said, “I don't know - we don't talk about that.” I know she lived in a
small town, you know, and you can see mountains and hills there. But I don't know if she’s Indian or not.
I haven’t even asked her that question. But, you know, and she said... one time I did ask her...yeah, I
remember that because my friend told me and I asked her and she said no, but she don't know if her
grandfather or her relatives are or not. But she said no. But to me, she said, “I don't know.” [Laughter]
AS: Okay. Other people that you've said you ran into from Oaxaca, have you… are the other Latinos or
Latinas, are they mostly from Mexico or have you run into Guatemalans or other Tejanos up here?
EL: Well, when I used to come, you know, I don't know where they're from. I used to go to the dances,
they had Spanish dances here a lot. I’d just go to dance and I never asked girls where they're from and
stuff. I just knew that were you know, they talk Spanish and some of them talk English. I never asked
them.
AS: Okay.
10
�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
EL: All the people that I meet now, because I'm married to my wife, they're all from Oaxaca and they're
all from her town and that's where we go visit, you know, some other times. Because they're the people
that are still in Michigan that know her because, you know, they migrate in the state here and they’re
from Oaxaca. They live in Shelby, some live in Hart, some live in Ferry and stuff. And they know my wife
because they know my mother-in-law and stuff. And they all know each other because they’re from the
same town.
AS: Interesting.
EL: You guys can take… I’ll show you some pictures of my father-in-law and mother-in-law from Mexico
in their hometown.
AS: So, they still live in Oaxaca?
EL: Yes, my father-in-law and mother-in-law still live in Oaxaca. And her sisters, all her sisters and her
brothers - they’re from Oaxaca. But we go visit them, not every year, but every other year, you know.
Like one year, two years ago, my sister-in-law called her and said, “I'm getting married.” From
Washington, the one that was living here with her, that she lived with her for two years here and “I'm
getting married, I want to be here to be my maid of honor. And I want my other sister to be here for,
you know, further, you know, to stand up in the wedding. And I want you guys' husbands to be the
groomsmen.” And I'm like, “we should go.” We start planning, you know, because she told us there was
like three years before she was going to get married. So, I was saving money and stuff.
And then that year, my wife was pregnant. She goes, “we need a bigger house.” So, we started looking
for a bigger house and we found that the same year we went to Washington. Well, she says, “we can’t
buy the house and go to Washington.” And I said, “don't worry about it.” I had money saved up just to
go to Washington, but we also had money saved up to buy a house. And the good thing about it is that
because I had a single-wide and there was a lot of foreclosures out there, the government had a thing
that you can buy a house with no money down. And I didn't think I was going to fall into that because
we had the house. But the lender says, “you fall into that because that ain’t a house. You got a title with
that trailer house, right?” And I said, “yeah, I’ve got a title.” It ain’t a house; you need a deed to have a
house, not a title. So, he told me, “take pictures of the house, take pictures of the rooms, and write me a
letter why you need a bigger house.”
Because there's only two bedrooms and we had two kids already and one on the way. So, I told my
sister that she can do that for me. So, she wrote me a letter why and everything, and I took the letter to
him and signed it. And then, I took the title of the trailer house - what year it was and stuff - and I passed
the application. He says, “you can get any house. No matter what, no money down.” You know, no
money down, no closing cost, nothing. And that’s how come we got the house. And then we said, “well,
we can’t go to Washington.” And I reserved plane tickets because we were going to fly and then she
canceled them. You know, she [?] and I said, “yeah, we do. We’ve got this money. I'm going to resort [?],
you know, resort it with a credit card and we pay it, you know, when we get our income taxes. “No, no,
no, no.” So, I went to work and she called the company and canceled the flight. When I got home, she
goes, “I canceled the flight.” Why you do that? “Because it's too much money, we're not going. I called
my sister and we're not going.” So, I called her sister and said we're going. So, she said, “I'm going to
expect you here.” And I said, “yep, we’ll be there. She canceled the tickets, but I'm going to drive.” It’d
be cheaper for me to drive. So, I didn't have them, I had two more days left for vacation, so I took them
two. We already had the vacation to go to Washington, but if I was going to fly, not drive.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
AS: Right.
EL: So, I had two more days of vacation left that I could schedule. And I took them and I left and I took
them two days and they gave them to me. And there was two more days so we had to leave. I told the
wife, “you better pack.” She goes, “why?” I said, “we're going.” She said, “no, we’re not!” We’re going. I
said that “your sister wants you over there and all your family, all your sisters from Houston are going to
be there, your brother from Houston, their brothers from Houston. It's like a family get-together. I guess
your family from Oaxaca can’t be there. You can't see your family over there because you can't go to
Mexico, but you can see your family that live here.” And how long has it been that we haven't gone to
Texas? I said, “for three years. I haven’t seen my brother and sister for three years. How long have you
not seen your sisters in Washington?” “For five, seven years,” she said. We're going! And she said, “no,
we’re not.” Yes, we are - you better pack. I already took the two days that it's going to take to get there
on the road off. And I says, “we’re leaving, my day starts this day, we’re leaving… after I get out of work,
we leave on that day. I get home at four o'clock, we're leaving at four o'clock.”
AS: So, the whole family went?
EL: She didn't believe me, she packed and everything. And we got there and she said, “where are we
going to leave the dogs?” I said, “don't worry, I got all my sisters and my little niece is going to take care
of them. I already talked to her.” “No, we’re not going.” So, we started putting everything in the truck,
we took the dogs over there to my sister's and we left and when we were there, she was so happy to be
there and she said, “well, I told my sister not to buy the dress.” And I said, “well, we can buy one on the
way over there. Just tell her to send you what color.” And she didn't find the same color that, you know,
almost, but she stood up in the wedding. And I think she had a good time with her because then she
hadn’t seen her aunt for fifteen years. She saw her aunt because her aunt is over there in Portland,
Oregon and it's only two hours from Irvington.
AS: I was going to ask, yeah, where in Washington? I grew up in Oregon, spent a lot of time in
Washington state.
EL: You know where Portland, Oregon... you know, Arlington. Arlington is on Highway-Five.
AS: Just up north then of…?
EL: Yeah, it’s over there by Port Washington [?].
AS: So, below Tacoma?
EL: It’s called Arlington. It's got like a port, like the ships come in there and it's like, I don't know, like a
port for ships and stuff because the companies are over there, they definitely like fish. So, they're fishing
like a fishing factory. They’ve got fish factories, they got single factories. And that's the only thing
they’ve got there: saw mills and stuff at that place. But we went over there and we had a lot of fun and
all of them took days off from work. And we all, for two days, we went to Portland, Oregon, to her aunt's
house. And then from there we went... man, that's beautiful. Portland, Oregon is beautiful. She took us
to… her cousin took us to a rose garden over there.
AS: Oh, the rose gardens, yeah.
EL: The rose garden is beautiful. It's just beautiful.
12
�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
AS: What time of year? I'm sorry.
EL: This time right here. Right now.
AS: In June?
EL: We left in June and we had to be over there by June the eighth. And we left here on June the fourth
after work or June the fifth after work because my wife didn't think we were going to make it. We got
there on June the eighth, so it was a Saturday, I think it was. Yeah, June the eighth, I think it was. And we
got there at three o'clock in the morning in Washington that day that my sister was getting married. And
she said, [?], so we slept. And then I couldn't sleep because there was a whole bunch of racket upstairs,
you know, they had… we stayed at my sister-in-law’s, but, my sister-in-law's husband, her future
husband, brought Mariachis upstairs when they were singing and they were, you know, and I told my
wife, “what is going on upstairs?” Because we were in the basement, sleeping in the basement. Well, my
future brother-in-law brought Mariachis because that's what they do in Mexico. When somebody gets
married, the groom brings chocolate and donuts to the wife's parents house. But my parents are not
here, so they brought it here to my sisters. I went upstairs. They had homemade chocolate, you know,
chocolate for drinking - hot chocolate - homemade hot chocolate. And then they had buns from Mexico,
donuts and then they had [?] they had for breakfast and stuff. And I couldn't sleep. So, I went upstairs
and they were singing, Mariachis were singing and stuff. And I'm like, wow, you know, I never been to
a… over here, you just get married, you know, a celebration. Then they all left and my wife started
getting dressed. And my wife said, “we haven't slept hardly, it's too much excitement. I can't sleep.” So,
we went to the wedding, to the reception at nine o'clock at night. And I can't keep my eyes open. I fell
asleep in the chair for two hours, then I woke up. She was like, “do you want to go back?” I said, no,
“we're good. I slept for two hours. We're good.” So, we stayed there till almost one o’clock in the
morning. And then went, “I know we can go. We should go there. We can go now.” But then I said I
didn't want to go. She goes, well, “thank you for bringing me now,” because she didn't want to go. And I
think we're going to have the money to do it, but we had the money to do it because of my loan, I didn't
have to have the closing costs or not because we passed that government loan, they call it, like I said, I
don't know what it was.
AS: What are some of your best memories and some of your worst memories about living here?
EL: Like a good one was the trip to Washington. Well, being here, the best memory is when I met my
wife. I mean. Sheila, I never, you know, I was married to a Takana [?]and they're a lot different, they're
more… the culture's way different, you know, so it's an example of a difference, the way we talk. When I
was talking to my wife, my wife would look at me and start laughing as I don't know, what are you
talking about? I don't have the slightest idea what you're saying. So, what do you mean because you're
Spanish and you're talking differently, and I talk and we talk like a sliding Spanish and they talk to write
Spanish, and you don't say this, you say like this. All my life, I've been saying things, but now I talk with
her in my life, I talk the correct way now and when I’m with my brother-in-law and my sister in law, I
don't laugh at me anymore when I talk to him, because I first when they started talking, when they
looked at me and started laughing and looked at what it's trying to say and my wife would tell him what
I was saying, you know, and they don't do that anymore. But, you know, that's the best time. I met her
and we had kids, and at first, you know, I was like...I never grew up. I would party, go to Spanish dances,
you know. All my money was gold, like to drink and I'm going to spend it and going to Toledo, Ohio, to
see the theaters and all that and stuff like that going, you know, spending money doing that. And I never
13
�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
had nothing. You know, I was just the house and the car. I always had a brand-new vehicle all the time
because I was single, but never, you know, I always party. Then my first wife was the same way. So, you
know. And we didn't get along because she would take off and then come back, you know. And I
thought we were married. I said, you know, “you should tell me where you're going and stuff” and she’d
get mad. And you know, that time she got mad and took off. Then I didn't see her for a month. Because
she was mad at me. And when she came back, I said, “well, this ain't going to work, you can just leave
for a month. Don't know where you are and you know well you don't like it while living [?] all over
again.” That's when I filed for divorce. Because marriage is a lifetime, it's a commitment, not the way
you're doing it. I don't want that. You know, if you want to do, you know, party and do whatever you
want, you can do it without me. Because part of the time, I don't know where you are at? You know, and
I don't need that.
And then, when we were divorced, and then when I met my wife, it was, you know, the culture's way
different. Like I say, their culture is way, you know, she doesn't bring…. It's way different, I mean, this
culture, you know, our culture here and being our people and our culture in Mexico is different. And
that's come to me as my life goes along because, you know, I was at that time, you know, I was thirtysomething years old. I'm forty-nine years old. And I got that one and happy, I'll tell you something. But,
you know, I mean. And at that time, I was thinking about settling down; I didn't want to party anymore. I
didn't want to go to dances. I just, you know, I would see my brothers, my sisters, especially my
brothers. You know, they got married young and their kids were growing big. My brother, you know, I
went visiting my brother, but he's got a house here and his daughter staying there and he goes all over
working in construction and working hard. He works for a company out of Holland. They work in
hospitals and stuff, and they go all over the United States working in a hospital. And I’ve got nieces that,
you know, my brother younger than me and I got nieces, they're twenty-one, twenty-two years old and
already grown up.
And there’s one, you know, one Christmas. I went to Christmas and, you know, I started realizing, I need
to settle down. My nephews and my nieces are fifteen, sixteen, and I need to get settled down, and
that's when I decided, you know, when I got married with my first wife, I thought I was going to be
settled down. That was what she wanted to continue her life the way it was. And I was I was not going
to do that, you know, anymore. I had quit drinking and stuff she did. And she wanted to, you know, be
liberal or what you want to call it. I couldn't handle that. So, I told her, you know. This only lasted, you
know, we were together for a year and marriage, you know, I thought marriages are going to change it,
but it didn't. It made it worse. So, we were only married three months and I decided, you know, this is, I
can't have you going like that. I'm going to work and then come back, you know, the next day on a
Friday because you had Saturday and Sunday off. You know, she didn't come back until Friday and
wouldn’t come back till five, six o'clock in the morning. When I was with friends from work party, you
know, there's a phone call. I can't handle it. I married my wife. That's one of the cultural differences; we
got along great and I was ready to settle down and we’ve got to trust each other, no matter what I think,
we have that. We mean I've been here waiting for you with me, where I you and this one, you know, I
can go to my work, come back. And I love to work, we talk about work, we talk about, you know, the
kids are you know, where we differ. Yeah.
AS: Does your wife work?
EL: No.
14
�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
AS: Okay.
EL: She does. She wants to work, but we're trying to get her papers and it's been difficult. She's not
documented and it's been difficult for us because they denied our part because my job, you know, for
me to have what I got and for us to have the help we got, I’ve got to work overtime. And they know me
there at work. They don't ask nobody because they really know what they're going to say. They come to
me and say, “You want to stay here, you want to come in early tomorrow?” And I go in early and they
deny my pardon, they call it, because they told me I make too much money and I can afford for her to be
over there. But they don't understand how much over time I've been working. Because of her, she wants
to work. I would want her to work too, you know, to help us out, you know, but the lawyer said she
couldn't work. She couldn't drive. You know, we don't get caught working. Don't get caught driving
because there's a penalty on your account because of paperwork, because of what's going on. So, she
thinks that I don't want her to work. But it ain't that I don't want her to leave. You know what I mean?
Because she... they also told her that if she gets caught, they can send her back to Mexico or whatever.
And I don't want her to, you know, I don't want the kids to go to that, you know?
AS: Sure.
EL: And she doesn’t understand that. But, you know, right now she's understanding why but at first, it
was kind of hard for me and her because she thought I don't want her to work. She said, “no, you don't
want me being, you know, get my own money.” It ain't that, this is what the lawyer said, it isn’t that I
didn't want you to work or do that, but. And for us to have the house we got and the kids and stuff, I got
to work that overtime and I work a lot overtime. You know, last week I worked fourteen hours overtime.
This week, guys, I work for hours of overtime, and so the government is saying you make too much
money. For now, I make too much, I make too much money that I can afford for her to live in Mexico
and have my household here and still send her money to live off of. Because I worked a lot over time,
they think that they think that the money I make throughout the year, that's the money I make all year,
every year, and that ain't the case.
And this year I'm going to prove it, because this year we got bought out from another company. We got
bought out from Harverson [?] one. The company that bottomed out is Harbourfront Walker
International. Now, the company is not North American Factories anymore. This year changed name to
Harverson Walker International and they don't want to. Over time, they took away the overtime, not
necessarily overtime, but there's still overtime. Sometimes because of the vacation, people got to
vacation and stuff to get done. So, during the summertime, that's when I get the overtime. During the
wintertime, I don't get overtime. And they're going to see that this year because that's when they
bought us last year at the end of the year and at the beginning of the winter. And we didn't work no
overtime when their time started and worked overtime right now. So, then we had a bonus every month
and the whole year bonus. Don't give us a bonus anymore. So that's what they were looking at, too. You
know, I get they didn't know, how do I get paid? They were just saying, you know why he's making sixtyseven thousand, eight, you know, a year. But they don't know that. I was working a lot of overtime, you
know, six, seven days a week sometimes. You know, yeah, and the lawyer once said it's going to be a
new law coming out and then he wants me to say, you're not making any money. I said, I'm not making
overtime and I’ll say I'll be probably in the forties, forty-five or something, not in the sixties anymore,
not sixty-nine. Seventy thousand, I'm not going to be making that anymore. And you told me why...I
said, well, honest and then necessary overtime, they took our bonus away. So, you're not going to see
that I would get a thousand dollar bonus a month, just like another paycheck, you know, it's like another
15
�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
paycheck because the government takes forty percent off that. Yeah, because it's another tax bracket.
Because of brackets, because it's a sentence, not a word. You know, it's like a center for you. The
government don't look at that, they don't look at your... you know, over there and see how much you
work, and they just see that he makes as much money in a year. You don't know why you're making that
much money in a year. You don't want me to. And that's what they should look at, the people there and,
you know, the judges and stuff. You know, how can we make so much money over time? But I just hope
they change and we can find the paperwork and because I got to redo everything again, I started from
scratch because I denied everything. And now we have to start like the lawyers and we have to start
from the beginning and see if you could. So, they're talking about the money. I don't make the money
anymore. I mean, you know, I'll be in the forty-five this year. Yeah, you know, not seventy, over seventy
down.
AS: Does your wife speak any English?
EL: No, she don't.
AS: What about your kids? Are they growing up speaking English? Spanish?
EL: Both my kids are bilingual.
AS: So, your oldest daughter is already in grade school and she's in third grade.
EL: Third grade.
AS: And then your middle son is in kindergarten.
EL: Kindergarten because my daughter was born in February and September is the deadline. So, I can't
put her in school until, you know, she has to be five years of September, the deadline. So, she was going
to be five that year. But I couldn't put her in school because the time was like she had to wait another
year to go to kindergarten or to preschool. And so, did my son. He just turned five in October, and he's
going to kindergarten and then he's going to be the same way because he was born in September 2001
and September 12th, that's the deadline. He was born September 21st. And then he’ll have to wait to
turn five years old to go to preschool right, then in kindergarten he is going to turn six years old. But it's
okay. And then all three of them are bilingual and they’re barely talking. But he speaks Spanish directly.
You know, my son talks a lot of English to me, but with my wife, he talks Spanish. And when we had a
teacher’s conference and the teacher asked me and my wife said, “do you know how to talk in Spanish?
“And so, she tells me, you know, it's interesting. Why do you think, I told her, you talk to your mom in
Spanish, oh, that's what that is, Spanish. So, it's just so natural to me. Yeah, I say you talk Spanish to your
mom. So, it is teaching, I know what to expect. But yeah, he taught Spanish to me by the time he talks
English to mom, his mom, but she is learning English by my kids, so she understands it, she can read it,
she don't know what she's reading, but she you know, that's the good thing about it. They are not a very
good reader. And she can read it to me how she can pronounce the words very good. But I understand
what she's saying and I can, you know, you know, relate, you know, to stuff. You know, I don't know the
words and stuff. And in English, all I'm doing, I'm using the words in Spanish. So, when she tells me that
in Spanish, I'm telling you in English, but she tells me that and how are your kids learning to read in
Spanish where they just talk and understand English talk and understand.
My daughter loves to read. I didn't know one time I went to bed and I'm like, I'm here and stuff like. I
was talking why she stopped. You will you will find out for a lot closer to her over get the door open a
16
�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
little bit and I see a little light coming from open the door, turn the light on. She's underneath the covers
with her flashlight reading a classic. I think a lot of kids have done that and say, what are you doing? She
goes reading, I go to bed. I said, no, you can read. She goes like me before I go to bed. That makes me go
to sleep. I love it. She does that every night, reads something with the little flashlight. So sometimes I
have to tolerate it. If you need better batteries for your flashlight. And I said here, just keep them in
your room and then she already knows how to change them and everything. So, then I got her little
lights that’s got that clip. No, no, it's a light that it's instead of twenty-five lumens or whatever you call it,
it's like sixty, so it's a little brighter. I got one of them and she loves it. Thank you for the light. I would
like, you know, to know what she reads every night, every night. And I could hear you talking at night. I
really know that a couple of nights there, I'm like, let's talk. So, Yasmine, I thought maybe she started
her sleep or something. One night I said, man, she's talking like she's reading something and you go
check and my wife already knew what's going on. I wanted to act and she was reading. So, she likes to
read. At school they get a little piece of something. Every month during the winter time, she got one
little piece of fruit because she read a whole bunch of books. She likes reading.
So, my son is a different story. You know, you don't know how to read in preschool. You don't pick up a
book and read or not, I think it's going to be like me. He likes mechanical stuff. I'm working on stuff
where I go outside to the garage. He goes outside to the garage with me. And what is that? What is this?
What is that for? What is this used for? So, I show, you know how to use it to stuff some. And he said,
we got to fix the bike, what to do, and I help him to fix this and that. And he surprised me this year. He
says that I need a bigger bike. I said, no, you don't. Yes, I do. You don't. Your bike, it's good. No, I need a
bigger bike and I need to take the training wheels off. It had training wheels on, but bigger than the one
he had, he can barely put his feet down like he is too tall. You know, I can do it now. That's what
happened with the little one. I would get stuck like those that take the training wheels off. I didn't want
to, but I took them off. I mean, it surprised me. We took off all around the house and stuff. And I'm like,
I can't believe that Yasmine didn't do that. She had the training wheels until she was like six or seven
years old. He's only five, we need to take the training wheels and he took off with his bike and he's
bigger and he barely can put his feet down as it is. And I got to see it all the way down, you know, all the
way it can go down. And he says, you know, one time you fall off the bike, I'm like, so he can yeah. It's
because I have been on my tiptoes. I lost the footing. I think I said, well, get the other one and I put the
seat on it. No, I want this one. And he rides and he rides that bike every day. Now after he got out of
school, and I said, what are you doing out there? And like I said, he's out there on his bike. Yeah, he's out
there every day. And he wakes up, he goes out there, gets his bike, riding his bike all day.
AS: Apart from family life and your work, are there other kinds of things that you do in town?
EL: Yes, I'm a proud member of the Knights of Columbus. I didn't know what it was at first when I was
married to my wife, with my wife here. One day a friend of mine said, you know what we're doing
tonight? I said, well, what is that? He said, Well, I'll bring Mr. Mason with me and we can talk about it.
His name is Jim Mason from Fremont. He came and talked to us at St. Gregory and I said, well, I'll try the
way he talked to Mr. Mason. I mean, just look at Greece this year. Yes. Mr. Mason talked about the
nights when he talked about the nights. It was like, you know, it was like a great thing to do. The way he
talked, you know, when Hector told me about it, I don't want to do it. So, I wouldn't bring Mr. Mason.
But when he talked, he was the one that convinced me, you know, OK, I've been in the knights for five
years. And I'm a fourth-degree knight. You know, they go by degrees, they go first degree, second
degree and third degree in fourth degree and fourth degree night. I do the [?] with the fourth degree.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
And I like it because it gives me something. To do one, you know, sometimes they have, like breakfast
and stuff and that's my time for me. I tell the wife, I said, I'm going to help, you know, help out there.
And I come and help and I go back home. She told me how much money you guys make and, you know,
stuff like that because, you know, we make money, too, for charities. And I tell her stuff that's done all
the time alone for me because the rest of the time I spend it with my kids.
There was a time that I was spending too much time doing because I was a great knight. I don't know,
what a great knight, you know, great knight is your… the council is your council. You're the one that
makes the meetings. You're the one to send letters to your council members. You're the one that makes
the decisions for them. It's like being like a president. And it's like you got a president and vice president
for a company. That's what it is. The grant like, you know, does all that where the money is going to
where you know, and you got your assistant knight. You got your treasurer, you got here. So, it's you
know, and it was getting to be too much, you know. And then the kids got baseball stuff, you know,
practices and Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts. And my son just wants to be a Boy Scout and we're trying to get
them in Boy Scouts. And he plays football. You get, you know, stuff like that. My daughter plays it and
she's been trying everything. And I think she wants to do baseball, basketball, and volleyball and not
football. Yes. You know, she liked football, but, you know, she's a girl. So, football, soccer or no football.
Football where they call it Football Americano.
AS: Right.
EL: But, my son wants to play that. So, I put them in and he sees Yasmine being in Girl Scouts. You've
been in Girl Scouts and since she started, if you want. You know, since we went there, we asked her if
she wanted to be a Girl Scout in first grade. She was going to first grade and she likes it. And Junior sees
her going, like, they go on trips, they go on camping trips and stuff like that. He says, I want to do that.
Then I want to be in Girl Scouts. I say, you can’t be a Girl Scout. And they’ve got Boy Scouts. Oh, they do
the same thing as Yasmine. Go on trips and go on camping trips and soccer. He likes camping. We go
camping sometimes. I went back in the day and my wife doesn't like camping. But, you know, I once had
just gone a couple of miles away from home, you know, we can do that at home. And I said, you don't
understand this. Can you keep away from home, you know, just for a couple of days? You know, it's like
she don't like it, but the only way she's going to go to Europe or something or like Ludington and stuff,
you know, they were far away from home, but we try to do it here in the Hart. It's too close to home. I
don't understand going camping. But she does understand the kids like it, so they must love camping,
fishing, we go fishing, camping together and I take my daughter, she loves fishing. You know, I used to
party a lot, and when I decided to settle down, I picked up fishing with my cousin Roy. We used to go
fishing in Ludington. And that was, you know, that was my time away from work, to go fishing. I was
working third shift, I would get out and he worked at [?]. And he said, I might take a day off Friday. I
said, well, Friday is my last day and I get out at seven o’clock in the morning. I said, I'll meet you at your
house at eight o’clock. Okay, so I will get out of work, and that was my last day of work, you know, and
before I used to go party, and I’d go to the bar and all that stuff.
Now it's time for me to settle down. So, I go fishing with my cousin and then, you know, what time you
get out of work? And it's about five o’clock and said, well, we got a couple hours to go fishing. I'm going
to be at work. And we go to Ludington and I got to drop you off and I got to go to work. So that's what
we do. I sleep at home, get up, get all my equipment ready, and wait for him to get out of work. We go
fishing up the [?]. I come back and drop him off at work so I can go home. Sometimes they say, well, just
meet me at home. So, I'm home. Now, wait a minute. You know, I'll get there before you always get
18
�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
there before. One time I got there and I thought you said you were going to [?}, so I left early and then
he had an accident and he messed up his back. He doesn't work there anymore. Matter of fact, he can’t
be seen very much because his back. I went to my little nieces, his daughter's graduation party and says
he's still fishing. I said you should come pick me up one time. I said, well, I thought you didn't want to
fish. Come sit down and kind of stand up. Well, he says I can do a little bit more now, but not very much,
he said. But we can still go fishing. So, I have to call him up. I didn't know his number. You know he
changes it. Yeah, I had his own phone number, but then he got a cell phone and I didn't know his
number. A couple couple of days ago, it was last Saturday. Now we've got his number. Give me your
phone number on it. Call me when we've got to go fishing. My wife called me to say where I left that
because I thought I might be home by one or twelve [o’clock].
AS: I just have a couple more, quick questions and we can wrap it up and we can take you over to get
your picture taken. We can give you a copy of this. And if you wanted to give us some pictures or you
could send them.
AS: So, this interview is going to be archived, it's saved for years and years, and so if you think of
somebody fifty years from now listening to this. What's one thing that you would want to say to them?
That really matters about your life here?
EL: Life in Michigan?
AS: Yeah, or maybe your life growing up first as a migrant settling here, something like that.
EL: And I don't think I would have this opportunity when I got in Texas, so I talked to my cousins over
there in Texas and they earn a lot less than I do, you know, but the cost of living is a lot less over there.
But the job I got, I don't think I'll find anywhere else. I mean, in order have a job like that and like it is
very slim and I like where I work at because of the people that work there, but the president and the
president of the company are nice people, you know, not the people that bought us out because I don't
know them. But the people there in the plant itself are like a big family. I mean, if something happens to
somebody, like an operation. My friend's wife had cancer and fortunately she died about a couple of
weeks ago. But we all had… a hat goes around people for money in there and it all goes to get a car and
everybody finds it and it goes to the person because the medical bills are pretty expensive, that stuff.
And our insurance company is not a Michigan insurer or insurance. Now, we had good insurance, but
they took it away from us and they gave us insurance from Pennsylvania. And I don't know, is it different
over there or whatever is here in Michigan? They don't cover hardly anything.
But, you know, I like working there, and I don't think I would get an opportunity to go to a place like that
and get on with the people, get along with your supervisor, get along with the company manager and,
you know, stuff like that. I don't know. And there is a place around like that. I mean, ever since I worked
there, I felt at home because the people are just, you know, they reach out to people and. And I like
working here.
AS: Is there a mix of Anglo and Latino workers there?
EL: No, well, at first, there were African-American, Latino and Americans. But throughout the years, I'm
the only Hispanic that works there…. African-Americans, their only used to be four of them. The other
one, the other two retired, one quit, and there’s only one left and the rest are Americans. So there's
only two of us, the one African-American, one Hispanic. Yeah, and there's no racial stuff going on,
19
�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
nothing. They're just like, you know, you're the president of the company who walks around and, well,
how are you doing? You know, all the kids now, they don't talk about it when they talk to you. You
know, when he's walking around first thing or, you know, out of his mouth is, how are you doing? I was
a kid, you know, stuff like that. Not that, you know, you don't talk about work or anything, you know,
and then you talk to him about the kids and stuff and he and all the kids down there, they're pretty
grown already. You know, I've been there twenty-one years. And, you know, people think, how people
are going to act or who, you know, who's nice, who's not. But mostly everybody is, you know, a good
person. They're working.
AS: Well, to finish up anything else that you'd like to share that I haven't asked you about? I don't know
whether you want me to talk about it, maybe?
AS: How do you feel like you've gotten your story out, you feel like if somebody else listens to the story,
they’d have a pretty good idea of this guy's life?
EL: Well, I don't know, I just know that, when we were younger, it's kind of hard because going from
Texas to Michigan, it's kind of hard because, you know, you don't… you only knew a couple of people at
school, and there's always problems in school because, you know, you're new here and people didn't
like you here. Then when you go to Texas while you were a part of the problem, the school first started
for you or it’s not your problem there to me. So, it worked both ways. You know, it doesn’t matter, you
know, people say there's racial stuff. It don't matter where you go, you know, it's got to be, like I said
here, because I was the only Spanish guy here at school in the high school in Walkerville, you know, and
then over there is because you didn't start the school year when they started, you know, and they're
your own race, you know, you want me to be like, hey, you know, and then over here the same way, you
know, that's where I come from. That's why when Miles would come up and say, you want to work, go
to work and hang around with anybody, you know, I'd rather go work than, hang around with people.
The people used to be wrong, you know? Yeah, and over there in Texas, we got home. My grandfather
had cattle and some cattle, not very much. And my uncle and we get home and [Inaudible] be waiting
for us a long time. Let's go cut some grass for the cows and stuff and we'd help out, you know, water.
The cow will take food, too, you know, and hang around my grandfather. That's what I miss most about
my time when my grandfather died, as part of me died because I used to hang around my grandfather a
lot when we used to do a lot of stuff because my dad was a truck driver, he was never home, but my
grandfather was there for me.
AS: Alright, very well. Thank you for that. Thanks for your time and for sharing your memories with us.
And that concludes the interview.
20
�
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/0ced52a717bdf0a73f834c4bf75bcc52.mp3
e86599ee104bd66ffc7b3d1a9104f268
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Oceana County Migrant Labor History Collection
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Shell-Weiss, Melanie
Description
An account of the resource
Collection contains images and documents digitized and collected through the project "Growing Community: A Century of Migration in Oceana County." This project was a collaboration between El Centro Hispano de Oceana, the Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society, and Grand Valley State University funded by a Common Heritage grant from the United States National Endowment for the Humanities. The materials in this collection document the history of communities in Hart, Shelby, and Walkerville and explore themes of migration, labor, religion, family, belonging, national and cultural identities, regional, national, and international connections, and citizenship.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Oceana County (Mich.)
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Grand Valley State University. Kutsche Office of Local History
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
El Centro Hispano de Oceana; Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society
Relation
A related resource
Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage project)
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
DC-06
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
image/jpeg
audio/mp3
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Image
Sound recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
spa
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oceana County (Mich.)
Hart (Mich.)
Shelby (Mich.)
Farms
Farmers
Migrant agricultural laborers
Hispanic Americans
Account books
Diaries
Oral history
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
DC-06_Luevano_Estevan
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Luevano, Estevan
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-06-18
Title
A name given to the resource
Luevano, Estevan (audio interview and transcript)
Description
An account of the resource
Oral history interview with Estevan Luevano. Interviewed by Andrew Schlewitz on June 18, 2016 in Hart, Michigan. English and Spanish language. Estevan Luevano was born in San Juan, Texas in 1967 as the son of two Mexican parents who migrated to Michigan for work each year. Throughout his life, he and his family were a part of the agricultural heritage of both places, and they settled in Michigan in 1981 and decided to stay. Estevan graduated from Walkerville High School in 1986 and studied diesel engines at the vocational center, which later helped him as he started his career as a semi-truck driver for his family’s business and later working as a mechanic. He ended up moving to Hesperia, Michigan in 1992 where he bought his first home and later started a family.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Schlewitz, Andrew (interviewer)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oceana County (Mich.)
Migrant agricultural laborers
Farms
Audio recordings
Source
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https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a66e078944717745ebbb1b2e38288e40.pdf
e8cd485d67e09f97f8e7b239d09ba103
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Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
Edward and Gretchen Hawley Interview
Interviewed by Nora Salas and Paul Kutsche
June 18, 2016
Transcript
NS: Melanie got this water for you. I don't know if you wanted some coffee or something.
EH: Well, I don't like bottled water.
NS: Uh oh.
EH: So, I do not want the water.
NS: Okay.
EH: And I don't think I need any coffee right now, so I think we'd better go ahead...
NS: Okay.
EH: ...with what we need to do.
NS: Sounds good. Yes, well, we have some questions, but of course, you know, it’s up to you, also, what
direction you want to take things. We do need to say a couple of things right at the beginning just so we
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
get it on the recording. And then if the recording were ever separated from the records, for some reason
in the future, they would be able to know who was here and what they did, et cetera.
EH: Alright.
NS: Okay so, and we'll have to put your name in, too… when we say the interview name.
EH: Anyway, should I say… this is what I thought I would say at the beginning here…
NS: Okay.
EH: ...if it would work in. Do you want me to say it here now or?
NS: Well, right, maybe right after I say our names and the dates and such. So, this is Nora Salas and...
PK: Paul Kutsche
NS: ...and we are here today with...
EH: Ed Hawley
NS: ...Ed Hawley at the Hart…
PK: City Hall [laughter].
NS: ...City Hall?
EH: Well, it’s a Commons. Don’t they call this the Hart Commons, back here behind the City Hall?
NS: Yes.
EH: I think.
NS: Yes, in Hart, Michigan and today, which is June 18th, 2016, this oral history is being collected as part
of the Growing Community Project, which is supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment
for the Humanities Common Heritage Program. Of course, thank you for agreeing to come and be
interviewed and talk with us today. And we are interested in talking more about your family history and
your experiences in Oceana County. Before we go into this, can you please state, again, your full name
and spell it?
EH: Yes, my name - well, if you want the whole thing - is Edward Adair Hawley. E-d-w-a-r-d A-d-a-i-r H-aw-l-e-y.
NS: Sounds great.
EH: OK.
NS: Why don’t you go ahead?
EH: When the topic for today first appeared in the Oceana Herald Journal, I knew that the Hawley
Nursery and Fruit Farm is an important part of that history. I also knew that there are only four of us left
with personal experience of that history. The other three are my sister Martha Ann Piegols, my nephew
John Hawley, and my niece Joann, who with her husband David, own and operate the fruit farm. My
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
sister always defers to me in things like this and she has a conflict today anyway. Well, Saturday is the
busiest day of the week for the other two and their businesses. So here I am ready to share what I can.
NS: Awesome, thank you. So, we have questions... we don't have to go by these questions, especially if
you get started on a particular topic…
EH: Oh, I have a bunch...
NS: ...or you want to have your own things. Why don't we start with what you brought, I think would be
better.
EH: Okay, well, I went in yesterday - no, Wednesday - to the Chadwick Munger House, office of the
OCGHS. And they were pointing out to me that on their curb lawn, there is a cherry tree that was given
by my father, Monroe Hawley, to Dr. Munger and he still... he finished his practice but was still living in
the Munger House. And that tree still blooms every year and has cherries every year, so that is a
connection. And then another connection that might be missed. This book that I have brought with me
is a history of the Robinson and Hawley families by Duane Robinson, who was a cousin of mine and the
family connection goes back to the Hart High School class of 1907 because Morris Robinson and he was
a Morris who spelled Morris: M-o-r-r-i-s, but my dad is a Maurice and he spelled / it’s spelled: M-a-u-r-ic-e. The connection is that in 1892, my grandfather, who had just graduated from an institution then
known as the Michigan Agricultural College in East Lansing, and his brother, who Harry Edward Hawley
came from Ganges, much further south down near Fennville, up to Oceana County, and leased eightyseven acres because there was a railway track that kind of angled and made a boundary of it that was
owned by the Hubbard family. And they leased this farm from the Hubbard family and began the
Hawley’s Nursery and that was in 1892. My Uncle Ed, we called Uncle Ed... I just sent a big email off to
the Robinson family members who live out in Seattle, Washington - another long story that I need to tell
- and but that Morris Robinson went to Hart High School and my men in our part of the family call him
“Uncle Ed” stayed up here and rented a house on the same road that this eighty-seven acres was on.
And his daughter, Hazel. Oh, this is my wife Gretchen…
[?]: ...who wants to come and add to the story.
NS: Okay, we need a chair.
[?]: I will get one for her.
NS: Gretchen, did you sign the release form at the beginning?
GH: No, I didn't expect that I would be doing anything.
NS: Do you want to say something? Maybe you should sign it just in case you need to sit to interject.
GH: Okay.
NS: Because I think if you interject and you haven't signed it, I think we might have to try to edit you out
or something and it could get really complicated.
[?]: OK, should I take her back out there to do that or bring it in here?
NS: Just to the beginning station where… what’s that young woman's name?
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
[?]: I don't know.
NS: I don't know either. [Laughter]
[?]: [Laughter]. Okay.
NS: Then we would, of course, welcome you to come in.
GH: Oh, thank you. Thank you. I’ll sign...
NS: Yes.
PK: Good morning. I’m Paul Kutsche. Remember we met last year?
GH: We did.
PK: And this is Nora Salas, who is conducting the interview.
NS: Hi, I'm sorry, what's your name?
GH: I'm Gretchen Hawley.
NS: Gretchen. Hi, Gretchen.
PK: Oh yes, Mrs. Hawley.
GH: Yeah.
NS: Yeah, I got that part. [Laughter]
GH: Fifty-eight years this summer.
NS: Oh, my goodness.
GH: Well, of course, we started late, that’s really amazing.
[Laughter]
PK: By the way, the two of you have Michigan State in common. Dr. Salas got her Ph.D. in History, was it
not?
NS: It is true, yes.
PK: From Michigan State.
PK: Your fellow alumni.
EH: Oh, an alum. Mine is also...
NS: Oh, really?
EH: ...but that was much longer ago.
NS: Well, yes.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
EH: Specifically, in nineteen forty-three. I think I have that right. So, but I...and it was a strange situation
because it was wartime and I was studying for the ministry so I had a deferment for that purpose. And I
felt because all my friends were going into the service or were conscientious objectors, that I should
since I had this deferment, that I should get to college as fast as I could. Well, all these friends were in
danger one way or another. And so, Michigan State had a requirement that you could only take twentyone credit hours and, from the time of Pearl Harbor, I began to do that in order to get through as fast as
I could. And also, being the school it was - MSC, as it was when I was there - had a requirement that you
could only take twenty-one credit hours in a semester, or not, a quarter because they were in the
quarter system. And so, I was trying to do that, but also, we had ROTC and that was a credit and a half.
And so, I wound up taking twenty and a half credits each semester and goes right through the summers.
And then I was going on from there to Chicago Theological Seminary on the University of Chicago
campus by Rockefeller Chapel. And I should remember his name - began with a “K” - my History major
professor. Oh, I suddenly relaxed for my last term since they would not let me take twenty-one and a
half credits.
PK: [Laughter]
EH: “No, you can’t do that, you have to go to summer school.” So, they gave me a blank sheet of paper,
they let me stand in line for graduation, but I had to write one more paper. So, I… ten o'clock on a
Saturday morning, I went in with my last paper and left it on my history professor's desk and went out
and hitchhiked to Chicago with everything that I needed on a backpack. And amazingly, the University of
Chicago and Michigan State were on exactly the same schedule, so I arrived on a Saturday evening and
on Monday morning I took my first course at eight o'clock in the morning in seminary. So that was my
transition and how they could be on exactly that same term schedule. And also have an intensive sixweek summer school divided in half was amazing, but that's what happened.
PK: Did you happen to be a contemporary in the seminary with Duncan Littlefair, who became…
EH: No, I know Duncan Littlefair from Grand Rapids, but he was in divinity school and I was in Chicago
Theological Seminary, which were a part of a federated faculty and this gets so complicated.
PK: Oh, I see. That, of course, has nothing to do with the project…
[Laughter].
PK: Since I’m a member of Fountain Street Church, I was curious whether…
EH: Yeah, well, that's right. I certainly knew Duncan Littlefair, but that was the connection. He was
younger than I.
NS: Before we go too much farther, Gretchen, just in case you do have something to add, at the
beginning you missed the part where we ask people to state their name and spell it. Just in case, at
some point in the future the written record were to be separated from the recording, then people
would always know who was here. So, if you could do that, that would be really helpful.
GH: Alright. I'm Gretchen Hawley. G-r-e-t-c-h-e-n H-a-w-l-e-y. And I'm Ed’s wife. We were married on
the Fourth of July, nineteen fifty-eight.
NS: Thank you. Easy day to remember.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
GH: I was a town girl and I married a farm boy.
PK: Which town?
GH: Lowell.
PK: Oh!
NS: So, one of the first questions on here… we’re moving around a little bit, but... Ed, you grew up here
in Hart, right? The relationship with the nursery?
EH: Well, on a farm outside of Hart.
NS: The seventy-eight acres?
EH: Yes. Yeah, eighty-seven.
NS: Sorry, yeah. It says, “tell us about where you grew up, some of your most vivid memories from
childhood.”
EH: Okay. Well, I, believe it or not, can...I have a memory of my sister's birth. There was no hospital in
Hart or Shelby at the time I was born, which was in 1923, and my sister was born two and a half years
later. But our doctor, who was Dr. Nickelson, a contemporary of Doctor Munger's, the house where his
office is still down here on Main Street. And he… when my mother went into labor, he sent a midwife
out to help deliver the baby. And I don't remember when that happened to me. But I was aware enough
as a two-and-a-half-year-old because we had bedrooms upstairs separated by just a passageway. Same
house is still there in Iona now. But anyway, I have this distinct memory of my… my bed was by my
parents' bed, but when she went - my mother went - into labor, they put me in the back room, of
course, but I still remember that the midwife came and when I went back in, I was shown this new baby
sister that I had and I am always amazed how things like that can somehow stick in our heads. But I do
feel I…
PK: Were you the oldest?
EH: What?
PK: Were you the oldest?
EH: I was the oldest.
PK: Uh huh.
EH: And then we have another sister, Lucy, who is five years younger than Martha Ann. So, she was born
in the hospital; by then, an old building that had been a family restaurant down by the… well, kitty
corner from Ace Hardware, down there was the hospital and it had a big front porch. And another
memory I have was my grandfather had appendicitis and went to the hospital and died at the age of
sixty-two. And I can remember going down and, as a child or children, Martha and I weren't allowed to
go into the hospital, but the big plate glass window from when it had been a house was in the same
room that my grandfather was in, and we could stand on the porch and wave to him from outside the
window of the hospital. So those are some ancient memories, but I don't know we need to go into them
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
with the Holly Nursery because I do want to get to the...specifically, the Holly Nursery part of this. And
aren’t we supposed to be doing this out there or at this time or what’s the schedule?
NS: To try to scan that stuff?
EH: No, no, I’m not worried about scanning. We can do that…
GH: No, you do it all here, Ed.
EH: We do this all here?
NS: Where you talk about it?
EH: Oh, yeah.
NS: The nursery?
EH: Oh, okay.
NS: Yeah. We can, if you want to go in that direction we can do that, but there's a couple of questions
too. We don't have to do all the questions, though.
EH: Okay. I definitely want to get into the Holly Nursery part of it.
NS: Yes. Yeah, so we can go ahead and do that if you want to. And then afterwards, they have a couple
of stations set up to scan the documents that you have there. So, if you want to take them out and talk
about them then... if that's what you wanted to do.
EH: I have one question about this, and that is about copyright, because this book, which I would very
much like to get a lot of into the Historical Society record, is... I think has a copyright by… I can’t recall
his name, my cousin.
NS: Robinson?
EH: Well, he's the author of this thing.
GH: Duane.
EH: Duane, yeah, Duane Robinson. And so…
NS: I think we have to ask Melanie.
EH: He’s gone and when I got into this, I remembered. Let me go back to give this part of the history, to
get the Robinson / Hawley connection and why this is that way. Because Morris Robinson went to Hart
High School and my uncle Ed’s daughter, Hazel, also went to Hart High School. I had thought they were
in the same class, but they weren't. That's where they got to know each other. And they got married and
Morris went on to get a law degree at Ann Arbor, to the University of Michigan, and then went to work
for Sears Roebuck. And Sears Roebuck sent him out to Washington State and that's where he never
really practiced law because he was too busy selling Sears products, I guess.
[Laughter]
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
EH: But I suddenly realized, having looked at this, that Duane finished this in 1974 and that some of us
who are still living ought to update it. Well, he had five kids and so I sent an email off to all of them
yesterday saying that it suddenly struck me that some of us needed to bring this up to date while we’re
still around. And I don't think they’ve… well, I haven't heard back from any of them yet. And there's a
son who was a rather famous jazz musician. Well, a cousin of mine. So anyway, I hope that some of us
will be willing to bring it up to date. And I can't imagine any of them would object and probably would
never know anyway if I had some of us stand...
PK: What is the date of the copyright, Ed?
EH: What?
PK: What is the date when this is copyrighted?
NS: Because the law is different depending on when the copyright was.
GH: It just says 1974.
PK: Oh, so the copyright may still be enforced.
NS: We can... I think that when we get to the part of scanning it, if we ask Melanie then…
EH: Okay,
NS: ...we can see what she has to say. Is there a copy of this in the historical society?
EH: No.
NS: Okay, just for your family?
EH: I wish there were and I don’t know if there’s any loose copies around, there might be now because
some family members may have died and their offspring have no interest it, but I'm not sure of that.
Ideally if the whole thing could be in there...
GH: We need to get it. We have a copy at home and this one at the cottage.
EH: No, this is Steve's.
GH: Oh, no, that's the one I took out of our bookcase.
EH: Oh, it is, okay. This... we have it then; one in each place.
PK: Well, of course, you know that you're at liberty to deposit this with the historical society, quite apart
from scanning it.
EH: Yeah, okay.
PK: Whether it's, you know, whether the copyright’s enforced or not.
NS: Yeah, especially if you fear later it might not be preserved, you know, down the line, then that could
be a good idea. Sometimes people save a lot of things and then, you know, not everybody saves it after
they're gone, unfortunately.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
PK: It's awfully hard for families to keep things and let them get destroyed. And I'm right in the middle of
it in my family. So, if I may, I urge you to… if you have a spare copy to deposit it with the historical
society…
NS: Think about it.
PK: ...then if you want to update it, there's no reason you can't do that. Then they might eventually have
two versions. The earlier and the later. All the better.
NS: Yeah. Sometimes families, even if they want to preserve it, though, you know, the basement floods
or something, you know, things are accidents. People move, lose track of things.
PK: Well, I've been desperately trying to keep family records together, and I find that little bits of paper
just sort of wander off. And so, the earlier they get deposited in a place that professionally can keep
them the better, I think.
NS: Now, what's this one that you have there? Is this about the nursery?
EH: Indirectly. This is my dad here in the picture. And I made copies of this yesterday. And the historical
society has one already so…
GH: They copied that, you’re saying.
EH: No, but was one thing, well I guess, we found.
NS: So, this nursery…
EH: Yeah.
NS: ...when your family worked on that, what can you tell? What do you think is really significant? What
do you remember about it?
EH: Well, the fact is that a high percentage of all of the fruit trees in Oceana County and up and down
the west shore of Lake Michigan were originally produced and sold by Hawley’s Nursery - the Hawley
Nursery is the correct name. And so, in order to have the trees to sell, we had to get rootstock from
someplace out in Oregon or Washington state, I'm not quite sure which. And then someone in March of
each year, we'd have to have a field where they would plant all of this rootstock. And then come August,
some of us - including me and a lot of kids from high school and all of my relatives of roughly the same
age, my cousins - all crawled on our hands and knees up and down fields all over this county, because
my dad needed fresh ground not to do this on the same field every time. So, he would lease land all over
the county, really. And then send us… we had some very experienced and very fast and good budders
[?].
But the technique was - having cut off the tops of these and dropping the root stock - was to... the
budder [?] would go down the aisle and make a cut in the rootstock, and then he'd have a bundle that
my dad would have or somebody going out into the orchards where there was fruit, true to name on a
tree, and cut off a stick of buds. And as he crawled down, the person crawled down the aisle, pulled one
out from behind and made a slip behind it, kind of a pointed slip. And then he would cut like this and
slide that down into the rootstock. And then some of us would crawl along behind with a specific length
of rubber band and wrap that up tightly. And then it would be left until the next spring when that bud
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
would sprout and grow. And I think it was usually a year later when those were dug out of the ground
and sold to farmers.
And I was intrigued just a year ago now that a friend, a near contemporary of mine in high school, Todd
Novles [?] died and he had written his own obituary and he spent his adult life basically over on the
other side of the state. But he wanted his obit[uary] because he would come over, he had a cottage… his
family had a cottage on Pentwater Lake and it’s still in the family.
And so, Tom, when he wrote his own obituary, and wanted one in the Oceana Journal, what he talked
about in his obituary was how he crawled up and down the aisles budding [laughter] or tying rather
behind the budder.
PK: Does this then produce hybrid stock?
EH: What?
PK: Does this produce a hybrid, the rootstock plus what's going in?
EH: No, the root stock…
GH: ...it doesn’t influence it.
EH: ...it doesn’t influence it.
PK: Oh, it's merely the host!
EH: Yeah.
NS: It’s like grafted together.
GH: Yeah.
PK: Okay.
NS: What kind of fruit was it?
EH: What?
NS: What kind of fruits?
EH: Basically plums, pears, cherries - I think I’m onto five - and peaches…
PK: And apples!
EH: And apples, yeah. But then we always had I think usually just one quince among all of these. But and
so those were all true to name and the people that bought them would be confident that they would be
producing the same kind of peach or apple. My dad said it was, so…
NS: Do you think it changed over from when you were smaller till later? Like, what kinds or different
varieties?
EH: Well, they were intended to be fewer and fewer. My sister still has in her house a catalog from the
Hawley Nursery from something like 1907 that lists at least twenty-five different varieties of - I think it's
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
nearer a hundred different varieties - of all five of these. And because not all of them were sold
commercially, that list got smaller and smaller as the years went on down to maybe forty varieties.
NS: What do you think was the most biggest change from when it first started until now?
EH: Well, the biggest change is that small nurseries like this were gradually forced out of business by the
big commercial ones. What’s the one down in Kansas… near Kansas City? I should remember. Starcrow's
[?] is one, but there are several of these that have pretty much forced all of the smaller nurseries out of
business.
PK: Hawley Nursery no longer is in business?
EH: It's no longer in business. The fruit farm is because David and Joann Rennhack operate the fruit
farm… live on and operate the fruit farm and have the Rennhack store now down across from Hansen’s
where they sell all of their stuff.
PK: Rennhack inherited or bought your business?
EH: They inherited it; Joann is my niece so…
PK: Really?
EH: Yeah.
PK: Wonderful family.
EH: So, and Martha Ann… technically, Martha Ann and I are the inheritors in that generation, but Martha
Ann passed hers down to Joann, and then Joann married David, so that's the connection there.
NS: Do you remember roundabout when that stopped being able to be a nursery and went more to just
the fruit farm part?
EH: Yeah. John Hawley who his… my dad was Monroe Hawley. And then he had a brother, Morris, who
died in the flu epidemic in the First World War in 1918. And then there were three girls in that family.
And then my uncle, Herb, who has two daughters and a son, John, who's still… and John kept the
nursery going for quite a while and had a place over on Polk Road for a while. But he and his wife were
living in what is now the clubhouse for the Colonial Golf Course over on 72nd here. And that was a fruit
farm which John also inherited when his dad died. He had kept it going because Herb wanted it to keep
going, I think. And so, John took out all the fruit trees and made a golf course instead and he now is the
manager of the golf course. And that's where Gretchen went to see if he had any Hawley Nursery stuff.
GH: He didn’t, but he said hello.
[Laughter]
NS: When did the golf course go in?
EH: What?
NS: When do you think the golf course went in?
EH: I think it's fifteen years ago, roughly, I'd have to…
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
PK: There was a restaurant there also for quite a while, was there not?
GH: Well, there still is.
PK: Oh, still is? That’s still running?
GH: Inside Herb’s… that was the Herb Hawley house, that's the clubhouse.
PK: You mean that beautiful, beautiful house there?
GH: That was Herb’s house.
EH: Before that, we always think of it as the Russell House because the original owner of that land, the
man who built the house, was Judge Russell and Russell's Creek flows through and down and eventually
into Hart Lake. And my uncle, Herb, bought that from the Russell family after Judge Russell died, and
then he and Lucille, well, they built a smaller house for themselves and had John and Sandy living in the
other house, in the big house. But Herb and Lucille are long gone. There was almost an even thirteen
year difference between my dad and Herb, and then I’m about thirteen years beyond that. There’s all
these girl children in between.
NS: And this is ‘52 and this is your dad?
EH: Yeah.
NS: And it says he was a nursery man.
EH: Yeah.
NS: And he had the nursery through maybe the [nineteen] sixties, seventies or longer?
EH: Well, he had… he and Herb together had the nursery. And then John took over when both of them
were gone...
NS: And he still had the nursery.
EH: ...and he still had the nursery.
NS: And then part of it became a golf course.
PK: How many acres of trees did the Hawley Family have at the maximum, would you say roughly?
EH: Well, there was that original eighty-seven acres, and then my dad bought what we called the Turner
Farm across the street, across the road from that original property. And the reason he bought it is the
man that did these wonderful postcards and note cards for the historical society just died a few weeks
ago.
PK: You don't mean Ed Ricketson, do you?
EH: I do.
PK: Oh!
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
EH: Yeah. Because he worked on all those cards and I read his obit[uary] and didn't catch the fact that
that’s whose obit[uary] I was reading, somehow. But, yeah, it was Ed Ricketson. And anyway, where was
I going with that? [Laughter]
PK: How large the enterprise was…
EH: Oh, yes! And the reason for the Turner Farm. And that is that my mother grew up in Adrian,
Michigan, which is down close to Toledo... closer to Toledo than any other sizable place. Anyway, she’s
from Adrian. She went to Adrian College, then she got a master’s degree from the University of
Michigan, and then she got hired to come up and teach high school in Hart. And it happened my dad's
sisters were in her classes and dad, my grandfather, had been in… no, now we’re with my dad. My dad
was in the Second World War and was with an army unit that went over to France.
GH: Well, that would be the First World War, Ed.
EH: Oh, my memory is...
GH: [Laughter]
NS: It's okay.
EH: ...playing tricks on me.
GH: It is.
PK: There wasn't much time between the First World War and the Second. It’s easy to conflate them.
NS: He met your mom, then, when she was at the school?
EH: Yeah, that's right. This is the First World War, as Gretchen says. And so, my dad, Monroe, had
missed going to Europe because he had scarlet fever, and the unit went without him, but he got
discharged then after the armistice and came back to Hart. And his sisters had Doris Hawley as their
teacher and she said they liked her very much and thought that they should introduce her to their
brother.
And so, one of the funnier stories about that is that he began dating Doris at his sisters’ encouragement
and it was in the middle of the winter for them when this was happening and he had a sleigh and a
horse. And so, he took her out in the winter with lots of rogues [?] for this ride in the sleigh and the
horse knew the way and they got acquainted with each other as they went. And he suddenly realized to
his embarrassment that the horse had turned in at the driveway of the girl that he had dated before.
[Laughter]
GH: The horse knew the way.
NS: It seems like the sisters overruled the horse, though.
GH: [Laughter] Yeah.
NS: The horse had an opinion about this, too, I guess. [Laughter]
EH: He made some kind of excuse, which I probably once knew, but no longer.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
[Laughter]
PK: Well, they got married anyway! [Laughter]
EH: Yeah, right. [Laughter]
GH: Dorris' maiden name was Adair and that's Ed's middle name.
PK: Now, all this had something to do with the growth of acreage because that's where we started from.
EH: Oh, yes, the Turner Farm. The original farm was in the Gulliver [?] School District. One of the things
that - oh, what was it - the man we were just talking about produced is a card that there were one-room
schools that sometimes got expanded to two rooms all across the county that served grades one
through eight. And I just signed off this morning to a friend of mine that's helping me write my memoirs,
because right where we're sitting here in the bottom center of that card, there's a picture of a building
that ran from up here all the way back to the playground at the back down there that’s above Courtland
Street, where I went to school from kindergarten through senior in high school and all in the same
building. And so, and then it has pictures of several of these country schoolhouses on that same...
GH: Yeah, but the reason your dad bought the Turner farm?
EH: Yeah, oh, that's where we were going was that my mother was still teaching in high school. And so
instead of us kids having to walk up the road half a mile to the Garver [?] School, which our neighbor
kids did have to do because Dad bought the Turner Farm across the street, it was in the Hart District.
And my mother was still teaching in Hart, so she could take us into Hart School and we could go to a
single-grade classroom because he was paying taxes on that property.
PK: How big was Turner Farm?
EH: Turner Farm, I think - it’s been expanded some - but I think initially it was pretty much a standard
ninety-acre quarter section.
PK: So, all together then you had at that point maybe one hundred eighty acres or so?
EH: Something in that neighborhood. And then they bought some other additional that was beyond
that, too.
NS: And maybe, you said before, maybe leased some other?
EH: Huh?
NS: You said before, maybe leased some other lands sometimes?
EH: Oh, yeah, almost every year. For example, one year I can remember he’d leased land out in Elbridge
Township in what had been the American Indian Reservation.
Gretchen grew up in Lowell and Cobmoosa, who was a chief of one of the Indian nationalities, actually
lived in Lowell in a regular house. She’ll correct me if I'm wrong.
GH: [Laughter]
EH: But then because the federal government decided that they should give these people some of their
historical land, they made this Indian reservation; all of Elbridge Township, originally, was American
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
Indian. And so Cobmoosa decided that he should come up because he was a chief of his people, he
should come up and live on that land. And his log house is now down in the Hart Historical District down
here.
But I can remember when it was still out in Elbridge Township and my dad had rented probably
something like twenty acres across the street from it for budding. So, for about three weeks in August,
we would take lunch and go over. By then, no one was living in the Cobmoosa house. But we would have
our lunch over there and then go back to crawling up and down the aisles across the street. And then
eventually they carefully took it apart and reconstructed it down here in the historical district.
GH: Before you did budding in high school and all, your dad hired you kids to hang out in the orchards.
EH: [Laughter] Oh, I knew she wanted me to tell this story.
GH: [Laughter]
EH: Child labor.
GH: [Laughter]
EH: And this is when Martha Ann and I and our neighbor kids - the Nickleson girl and a boy, we were
roughly the same age - that played together. Dad had a cherry tree that was out in the orchard with lots
of other cherry trees, but that bloomed about a week earlier than the others. And as soon as it would
have fruit on it, the Cedar Waxwings would all come in to eat the cherries off the tree. So, my dad
offered us a nickel a day - the four of us - if we would go out and play under these trees to scare the
Cedar Waxwings away. So that is child labor laws [laughter] were being violated for a nickel a day.
NS: What about the other… aside from the important job that you all did when you were kids, were the
other people who worked for your dad and worked for the nursery… where did they come from? High
Schoolers?
EH: I hope Walter has lined up... because the house that Martha Ann and I were born in, I still own, but
it’s kind of… my dad just pulled it out of the farm when it went over to the Rennhacks and eventually it
has to get back into their hands. But I'm renting it currently to Tommy [?], who works at the La Fiesta
restaurant and her brother now runs it or her father. But that family all came up in the summer to work
on my dad's... on the nursery and the fruit farm for my dad.
As did a, for example, this is sometimes forgotten, a white family from Alabama who were also part of
this migration of people that went around picking crops and that white family whose name will come to
me and should eventually, stayed here in Hart and of course, because they learned the nursery and fruit
business, were doing some of the same things on their own.
And that same thing was true with Tommy and her family and that family named her brother now
inherited from her father, who was the original one who came up and worked seasonally, is down in the
valley between the golf course and Polk Road and he keeps the place up beautifully. And so, we have
that connection also with the history of Mexican ancestry people who have now settled here. And I
think Walter has him on schedule to be a part of this.
PK: Ed, a couple of people whom I interviewed, particularly Floyd Fox and Velo Burmeister, both of
whom were in their mid-nineties when I interviewed them...
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
EH: And Floyd is still around, I think.
PK: Yes, he is. I understand he's still healthy, as a matter of fact.
EH: That’s right. I go to Shelby Church and he's five years older than I am.
PK: Still driving his own truck, as a matter of fact.
EH: Yeah, right.
PK: Well, each of them told me the succession of waves of pickers started, as you have already told us,
with the kids in the family.
EH: Uh huh.
PK: And then they moved on to different categories. With the Latino pickers, they were all Mexicans to
start with, were they not?
EH: Yep.
PK: Came in...
EH: Well, no, some of them were Texicans, actually, that they were born in Texas, but of Mexican
ancestry.
PK: But they were of Mexican ancestry, not Honduran or Guatemalan or Puerto Rican.
EH: No.
PK: Can you give us an idea of the succession of categories of people who picked and otherwise worked
on your family's acreage, starting with the family and then…
NS: When you were a kid, did they hire people outside the family to work?
EH: I think so.
NS: Do you remember?
PK: And who were they? I don't mean their names, but were they other Anglos or were they?
EH: There was... I don't ever remember any black families.
PK: Oh, blacks did not pick for you. As you know, they did for other families.
EH: Uh huh. There was one black family and one black man, Gabe Crocket [?], and one black family, the
Reeds [?], that lived in Hart when I was a small kid. But how they got here… they were just here. Oh, but
I think the Reeds had to have probably come up from Muskegon and probably did start working. But my
memory, because at one point they lived in the Garver School District and there were two girls - Fanny
and I'm not sure I can remember their name - and i think two boys. But there was a time when they
were living in the Garver School District and would walk past and further to the north because they
would walk past our house and the Nichols [?] house to go up to Garver School. And Fanny had a great
voice and was a wonderful singer. And Estelle, I think, Estelle was mentally challenged and she kept
being left behind so she'd be much bigger than the other kids in her class, but Fanny, Mrs. Nichols [?]
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
would invite them to come into her house. She had a piano and she would get Fanny to sing. And I
remember as small kids, they were somewhat older than we were. We would be fascinated by listening
to her sing.
GH: But they never worked in the orchards for your dad?
EH: No, I don't think they ever worked for my dad, but they were here and Gabe had the house in Hart
and I know right where it is, still. And he was a very short man. He probably was only five [foot] two
[inches] or something like that. And he allowed himself to be the butt of people's jokes at the county
fair. But I remember the men coming up to him and pinning prize bull or something on his collar and he
would just smile and go on.
PK: But he didn't work for you?
EH: He didn't work for us.
PK: You mentioned a family from Alabama.
EH: Yeah.
PK: They were white people.
EH: They were white.
PK: And you remember when that would have been? What decade, at least?
EH: That would have been in the late 1930s or early 1940s.
PK: Now, as you know, they were great, at least one, maybe two prisoner of war camps here for
Germans.
EH: There were.
PK: And they worked for a lot of people. Did they work for you?
EH: No, I don’t think they did. I remember walking by there on our way back and forth from school
because one of them was just south of what is now Polk Road, which wasn’t then called Polk Road, I
don’t remember what it was. But I do remember that they were there, but they didn't... I don't think
Dad ever had any of them working on the farm.
PK: Well, then was the Vasquez family the first of the Latino families who…
EH: I think so, yes.
PK: That would have been when? 1950s, perhaps, or?
EH: Better ask Tommy or her brother. Let me think, it was earlier than that in the 1940s, probably.
NS: During World War Two.
EH: What?
NS: During World War Two, the federal government had a program where they brought workers from
Mexico directly. Sometimes they called them “braceros.”
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
EH: Oh, yeah.
NS: And they were mostly all men. They were supposed to be all men, not families.
EH: Yes.
NS: Do you remember them coming?
EH: Not to Michigan, but I remember them coming to California and how they...
NS: Were you in California?
EH: Oh, the folk singer had this... John Denver had the song, I think…
NS: Guthrie?
EH: ...which would be later.
NS: Guthrie, maybe?
GH: Not John Denver.
EH: Who was it?
GH: Woody Guthrie?
EH: Woody Guthrie. It was Woody that had this…
PK: John Denver would be flattered to be compared to Woody Guthrie.
EH: Yes, Woody Guthrie had this… oh, I thought I could sing the words to that song even about being
forced to go back to Mexico.
NS: Yeah, that continued for a while until 1964 for that program.
EH: Yeah.
NS: And then it ended, so yeah.
PK: Did you help the Vasquez family get started in the restaurant business? They're so successful now
that it's very interesting to a lot of people how they made the transition from migrant laborers to solid
members of the commercial community here in Oceana County. Was your family instrumental in helping
them make that transition?
EH: Well, I don't remember any specific instances of it,
but just the fact that they knew they’d always have employment on the nursery or the fruit farm. It gave
them, I think, the stability to be able to develop their talents along that line and create their marvelous
chips that are now probably even more the part of the business than the restaurant.
[Unknown]: Slide past. I’ve got to use the restroom.
NS: [Whispers] It’s okay.
[Unknown]: Sorry about that.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
NS: Sorry, so you mentioned some people who came to work from different places.
EH: Uh huh.
NS: And then sometimes high schoolers would come and you would go when you were in high school
and when you were younger. How were those people recruited, especially who came from other places?
How did they find out? Or at first, you know, like, they get in their car in Alabama and how do they end
up at the Hawley’s?
EH: I'm not sure I know, they just appeared!
[Laughter]
NS: Well, after a while, they must… they came back year after year.
EH: Yeah.
NS: Right? But if a family decided not to come back, then you needed more people to replace them.
How would they… how would your dad or other family recruit people?
EH: I think we would say to the ones already here, “do you know anybody else?” And they would then
say, “well, yes, there’s so-and-so, and I'll tell them.” So, that's how that would happen.
NS: Do you know what time of the year when they would arrive? Usually?
EH: Usually, I think in June. I doubt that any arrived much earlier than that, but I would need to think
about that more to be sure. A lot of them had a routine that would then eventually take them down to
Florida to pick tomatoes after stopping in New York State to do something or other. So, it was a big
circle, Texas, and maybe with the stuff in Missouri on the way to Michigan, I'm not sure about that but…
it was Missouri or Iowa, but.
PK: Did any of the… well, how many Mexican pickers did you have at one time at the maximum, do you
think? It wasn’t just one family, I'm sure.
EH: Oh, boy. I think John Hawley is the one that really could answer that better than I.
PK: Do you happen to know, to remember...?
EH: Once I finished high school, I was here so little. John was on the ground all the time, so he would be
a better person to ask.
PK: Do you recall whether any of them moved into supervisory positions, at least field bosses or
managers or anything other than the pickers on the ground? I know that's fairly rare, but I do know of a
case or two where somebody who started picking ended his career managing. Chico Longoria, for
instance, who worked for the Fox’s for a long time, whose obituary appeared in the Herald Journal last
year, was a conspicuous case. Are there any such people who worked for the Hawley’s?
EH: Oh, well, the Vazquez’s, of course.
PK: But were they in a managerial position for you or is it only after they left Hawley to go on their own?
EH: Well, as I say, when I graduated from high school, which was 1941, I do not recall, but after that, I
just wasn't around enough to be aware because I was going straight through school.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
NS: After school, after you went to school in Chicago, too, then what did you do?
EH: What?
NS: After you went to the school in Chicago, then what was the rest of your life?
EH: Well, the first thing that happened...
NS: How did you end up back here in Hart?
EH: The first thing that happened is that once the war was over and I no longer had this compulsion to
keep going to school, I had in 1946, I had connections with what our denomination called the
Congregational Christian Service Committee. And Jim Flindt, who was on the staff of the big
congregational church in Madison, Wisconsin; Jim was also on the board of the Congregational Christian
Service Committee.
And the congregational churches in Great Britain - and we did have an international congregational
organization - were completely closed down, their theological schools, during the war and with the
bombing and everything going on. And the tradition had been that young people who were studying for
the clergy in Great Britain would go into various inner-city programs to work with kids and youth and
children,
and that just completely shut down. So once the war was over and the seminarians were going back to
school.
[Cough] Well, I may need… well, all right. [Inaudible]
They recruited seminary students from here to go over to Britain for a year and work in these places.
[Cough] And Jim Flindt knew me from the Pilgrim Fellowship, which was the youth group of the
congregation. [Cough] He asked me if I would like to go and I jumped at the chance to do something
besides study.
And so, in September of 1946, I got on the Queen Mary - which was still a one-class ship at that point
because it had been a troop ship during the war - and went to Great Britain and wound up at the
Crossway Central Mission in South London, near what is still called the “Elephant and Castle,” which is
the name of a pub in Southwark. And the New Kent Road connects up with the Elephant and Castle and
Crossway Mission was at New Kent Road.
Bill Martin, W.B.J. Martin, who was a Welshman who had been working in London inner city in the
height of the bombing over on the East Side and somehow got through all that. He was then the
minister and that building after the old city missionary [?] had a tower that had three apartments in it…
maybe two apartments. But anyway, Bill Martin and his wife, who is also an ordained minister, were on
the one floor and the caretaker who lived on the top floor - the last name was Vassie (V-a-s-s-i-e) - and
they would come to me and they had a spare room. So then, as it turned out, for two years I lived with
the Vassies on the top floor. And so, there are lots of connections with that. I'm not sure how far we’re
going in terms of Hawley’s Nursery now but...
NS: Well, but then you were in London and then, for two years, and then…
EH: Yeah, I was at Crossway Mission for one year, but stayed with the Vassies because I had been
national president of the Pilgrim Fellowship, which was the youth organization for the congregational
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
churches in this country. And the Congregational Union of England and Wales had a youth division and
decided they wanted to have something similar in Great Britain. So, they asked me to stay a second year
and travel around to all the different counties and meet with the youth of the churches in those areas to
help them form.
That was the pattern of Pilgrim Fellowship. Each different confluence had its own organization so that
was the connection there and was fantastic because… oh, and in between these two things was the
Second World Conference of Christian Youth, which was held in Oslo, Norway. And I had been doing the
work at the Crossway Mission and their work with the youth program really wasn't going to start, so I
had that summer fairly free and because each of the denominations had people that would go to this
Second World Conference of Christian Youth, and I was closer so, at least, I think it was easier for them
to make me one of them because it wasn't going to cost as much to get me there from London as it was
from New York City or California or someplace or Hawaii. And so, I did, I was able to spend two weeks
there and again, these marvelous connections. And this is certainly a long way from where we started.
The Congregational Churches Worldwide had the foresight to call a pre-Oslo conference,
which was held at… there was a Congregational College at Cambridge University, and they got
Congregationalists from all over the world to come together for a week there. And one of the people
who came was Russell Chandran from the Church of South India, and he was from Bangalore.
Russell and I not only got to know each other at the meeting in Cambridge, but when we got to Oslo,
that program was divided up with small groups. And he and I wound up in the same group for two
weeks in Oslo. So, we got to know each other quite well and he eventually came to do some additional
study. He and his wife, Vicki, from South India, came to Chicago Theological Seminary, which was my
seminary. By then, I was the minister of the interracial and bilingual church on the west side of Chicago
and the…
NS: What church in Chicago?
EH: It was the Warren Avenue Congregational Church. It no longer exists, though. It merged with the
Presbyterian Church on the next corner. And the building now is a Black Baptist Church and it’s still
there. But that was another marvelous experience because…
EH: Oh.
NS: It's OK.
EH: Is it okay?
GH: Well, you've gotten far afield.
NS: You find all kinds of things.
PK: So, you went with the merger?
EH: Yeah.
GH: But you were in Chicago then, not Oberlin.
PK: And Bruce, as you know, went with the congregational holdout.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
EH: Over to the church, yeah, there’s still a Continuing Congregational Church out in Grand Rapids, isn’t
there?
PK: Mayflower.
EH: Mayflower, yeah.
PK: One of my relatives went there, the rest of them stayed at Park [?]. I'm happy to tell you they still
went together for Christmas.
EH: Oh, good. [Laughter] Well, that’s amazing.
PK: And we almost overlapped in London, apparently; I arrived in London in September 1949 and went
to work for the United Press and stayed there until 1951. But you had already left by then, had you?
EH: Yeah, but I came back in the summer of [nineteen] fifty-one for the Festival of Britain.
PK: Oh, how wonderful!
EH: And also, to direct a World Council of Churches work camp in Deptford south of the river and which
was one of the stranger work camps anyplace because the minister of this church...
PK: An inner-city slum work camp, huh?
EH: Yeah, it was decided that the building should be restored. But they had once had a much bigger
piece of land and had a graveyard outside. And way back in history, they had brought all the bones from
the graves outside into the basement. And when the minister decided he wanted to restore the building,
he had to get to the foundations and all these bones were down there. So, our work camp and the kids
from Germany and Denmark, World Council of Churches people from all over, a German guy and I were
co-directors of this, where our whole job was getting these bones out from around the foundations that
had to be supported.
PK: What did you do with the bones?
EH: Nothing ever came of it, in terms of actually getting the building changed.
PK: What did you do with the bones? Did you throw them in a pile?
EH: No, we were reburying them, but away from the pillar, we had to get the pillars cleared so that they
could be reinforced to hold up the rest of the building.
GH: So, they're still there; the bones are just relocated?
EH: They were the last I knew! But I have not kept up with that.
[Laughter]
EH: I don't follow bones around.
PK: You know, there’s something that struck me: are we sort of freewheeling now or do you have a part
of this you want to get back to? Because I think Ed and I are sort of going way past Oceana County.
NS: Well, you've discovered new things now, connections that you didn't know before.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
PK: Yeah, but I don't want to interfere with the core.
NS: It doesn't have to follow a linear path, necessarily. I think that might be kind of hard for us to…
PK: Well, I think Ed’s getting tired and I’m getting tired.
NS: Yes, that could be.
EH: Didn't Walter have other people that you're supposed to be interviewing lined up?
NS: Yeah. I think… are there things you wanted to talk about that you didn't get to yet? Before you
came, are there things you said, “Well, I'm going to…” because I don't want that to be missed out.
EH: Well, let me look at my notes. I’ll tell you what I wrote down.
NS: I don’t want him to leave not having talked about things he wanted to talk about. I doubt most
people got to all of these questions.
EH: This is pretty peripheral, but it's interesting how, again, things come together because Duane
Robinson, who put this book together… I had to come up here to do a lot of interviewing and, of course,
Duane, having been part of this branch from Seattle or West Seattle from our family, had come here
knowing that his dad, Morris Robinson, was from here. And at that point, when he came, Ivan Robinson
was still living and was on a farm just south of the farm that Martha Ann is still living on, and she and I
grew up on kind of on top of the hill. And all of his family, Duane had talked to them and had listed by
name in the book all of the Robinson family members that were living right in our neighborhood here in
Oceana County.
I broke the femur in my hip two summers ago and wound up in the Oceana County Medical Center. And
there was a man there… actually, two people that relate to this and I'll get to the other one, maybe two.
We’re a little more back to what we originally were aiming at anyway. And I discovered that one of them
who was a patient then in the medical center was named Manley Robinson. And he and I would eat
lunch together while I was in there rehabbing from my hip. And I eventually thought that I'd better go
look at this book. And sure enough, here was Manley’s name and Ivan… Duane had interviewed Ivan and
he listed all his brothers and who they were and where they were. So, again, I copied out of this book
that page where Manley’s name appeared and I was able to produce it for him at the medical center.
And he was so pleased and amazed he actually had his name in print.
PK: [Laughter] That’s great.
EH: He’s gone now, too. But, I’m glad before he went, he knew that he was remembered.
GH: Have you interviewed any of the families that are here now that worked in the orchards who came
up from Texas?
PK: I decided when Andy Schlewitz came up and interviewed a number of people who worked in the
orchards, that I would carve out something. At that time, nobody else was doing that, they were
interviewing the growers. So, I have not interviewed any pickers.
GH: When we were married in ‘58, the Hawley’s were still tapping all those old - well, now they're really
old - maple trees along 72nd Avenue and to make maple syrup.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
PK: Oh!
GH: And so those trees…
PK: Well, those are sugar maples then?
GH: Uh huh, those are all sugar maples.
PK: That's a pretty big industry in Oceana County.
GH: And they had, what was it called where you boiled the…
EH: An arch is what we called it.
GH: An arch. And they had the big pans that are about twice the size of this table. And they’d use old...
PK: That’s where they boiled the sap down?
EH: Yeah, right.
GH: They’d use old wood from the orchards, trees that were cut down, to keep the fires going. And Ed
was showing me this arch where the syrup was...
EH: We’d have the big pan...
PK: So, your family was in that business, too, then.
EH: Well, it wasn’t a business. We were just doing it for ourselves.
PK: Oh!
EH: Yeah.
NS: Home use.
PK: You didn't put your label on…?
EH and GH: No, no.
EH: No, it was all canned by my mother and we…
PK: I wondered where maple syrup came from.
GH: It takes a lot of sap to make the maple syrup. And those trees are still there, but no longer tapped.
But it was in that arch that you presented me with this engagement ring.
EH: Oh, that’s right!
GH: And I didn't fall into the fire. [Laughter] It was a great surprise.
PK: How many gallons of sap… [Inaudible] [Laughter].
GH: I don’t know. Yes, but besides that, did your mother can a lot of fruit or not?
EH: Yes, we had that whole basement… well, you've been down in the basement.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
GH: Oh, that’s right.
EH: Remember, we had all those cupboards of things she’d canned that would be used during the
winter.
NS: But when you were a kid, she still worked at the school?
EH: Well, not too long.
NS: Just a little?
EH: Long enough to get us established going there. But I think by the time I was in second grade, she had
stopped teaching and was just homemaking, but we were still going. And of course, often we would
walk to town to school and walk back on the railroad tracks. And that was always a challenge to try to
walk on the rail and not fall off as we were walking home from school.
GH: The tracks that are now the Rail Trail?
EH: The tracks that are now the Rail Trail.
GH: Okay.
PK: Which run right through what I think of as the Rennhack...
EH: What?
PK: The Rail Trail runs right through the… what I have always thought of as the Rennhack orchards,
right?
EH: Uh huh.
GH: Yeah, those were the Hawley…
PK: Which were the Hawley orchards.
GH: Uh huh. Those were the Hawley orchards.
PK: Your niece is married to a Rennhack? Or is her maiden name Rennhack?
EH: No, that’s her married name.
PK: She's a Hawley who married a Rennhack?
EH: No, she’s a Piegols. Because she’s my sister Martha Ann Piegols… Martha Ann Hawley Piegols’
daughter. So, her original name was Piegols and now it's Rennhack.
PK: May I drop your name the next time I'm there?
GH: Absolutely! [Laughter]
EH: Well, certainly.
PK: They're wonderful people.
EH: Yeah, we agree.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
PK: I’m all done; are you all done?
NS: We can be; it's kind of up to you. I could ask you, frankly, I could sit here and ask you both questions
all day.
[Laughter]
NS: All day. But I think that, you know, there's a limit to what you can... I could think of more and more.
It's up to you.
GH: I remember something that has to do tangentially with the orchards and apparently what they
produced and financially. And that is that when we went to East Africa with our World Board and I had a
baby three months after we got into Tanzania, they had to... they flew over to visit their new
granddaughter. And I remember Monroe Hawley saying that he did that because he had a good apple
crop. So that was an apple trip financed by the apple crop. And then when we moved up six years later
to Nairobi, they decided to come again and he said that was a plum trip.
EH: Oh, that's right. I had forgotten that! [Laughter]
PK: Did you hear echoes of that rhythm from other families? I'll give you an example, but I'm wondering
if… well, let me tell you the example and you can tell me whether you have other examples.
I interviewed Barbara Bull and Barbara Bull, as you know, is an alumna of Mount Holyoke College. Her
younger sister is an alumna of I don't know what, but at any rate, it’s not one of the seven sisters. And I
said to Barbara, I said, “your sister is a brilliant pediatrician, I believe. Now, how come you went to
Mount Holyoke and she went to some state school?” And Barbara's answer, just like that, was: “because
we had a very good cherry crop the year I went to college.” And you're echoing that.
GH: Uh huh.
PK: Do you find that with other picker families, excuse me, other grower families, too? That, of course,
your income is so totally dependent on the weather and other things you can't control that there must
be an enormous variation from year to year.
EH: Yeah.
PK: Whether you can go to East Africa or wherever.
GH: Yes, they make two trips over. He also went to horticultural meetings in England - Monroe did.
PK: And were those on the years that there were good crops?
GH: I expect they would have been, but I don't know. And the horticulturalist from England that he met
there came and visited the Hawley Nurseries here.
PK: Really?
GH: In fact, you're still in touch...
EH: Well, Duane is, anyway, with one of the families because they’ve had kids come over and work on
the farm. The man that Dad knew was the editor of a gardener magazine in England. Thought I would
have the name of it come to mind, but it didn't. And so, I think he had come to the States first and
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
somehow met Dad at a meeting. And then they got to corresponding and so that got quite to be back
and forth and went on to the next generation. That's the son of the man that my Dad knew that Joann
keeps in touch with and who we've been over to visit and had their kids come over or a kid come over
and spend the summer working on the farm.
GH: So, there's an international exchange that goes on.
PK: I thought I was all done, but I guess I'm not because each of you and Gretchen have just touched on
something that surprised me very much.
I’m, as you know, I'm only a summer person here, but I was brought up on the shore of Lake Michigan in
Ottawa County at Port Sheldon. And I expected when I bought my cottage thirty-two years ago, and I
expected when I bought it, that the citizens of Oceana County would be people whose worlds were very
small, very circumscribed by just the local environment. And I was surprised the very first year and have
been surprised ever since repeatedly by the breadth of connections in the world of people in Oceana
County.
And do you think… have you just told me what the answer to this dilemma in my mind is? That it's
because of commercial and agricultural missions and visits, do you think that’s what really is essentially
behind it?
GH: And going to conferences over in England and all. And I remember Monroe saying none of the apple
varieties in England were what he grew here. They were all different.
PK: Well, you probably noticed that there is an unusual - I think it's unusually high - student exchange
between families in Oceana County and families abroad. Is this part of… do you think that this mood for
wanting such exchanges was set by these earlier...?
GH: I don't know.
PK: And of course, I don't know whether it's higher than it is in other countries in Michigan now,
because I left Michigan when I was sixteen years old and didn't come back until I was seventy, so…
[laughter].
GH: Oh, my.
PK: I don’t know what’s happened in the meantime.
GH: I remember when - I don't remember the year, but - when the cherry pickers first… the picking
machines first came in, that Monroe, very excitingly, had us watch how they operated.
EH: The shakers.
GH: The shakers... that picked all the cherries at once. Not the sweets, they still had to pick the sweets
by hand. Is that right?
EH: Yeah.
GH: But the tarts, they could use the shakers and they’d come down in a curtain of red down to a
canvas.
NS: Was he happy with how it worked?
27
�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
GH: Well, the old orchards, when the trees would be shaking, the old branches would go flying. You had
to be careful not to get hit. But now they're planting the orchards and with shakers in mind because
that's what they use. And so, you don't have the old twigs hitting you on the head when they use them.
And of course, the trees now are much shorter than they were. And they had three-legged ladders that
the pickers used. And you can still see some of those around because they could fit under the tree. They
had the regular ladder with a third leg.
PK: Are those sweet cherries still picked by hand? Even now?
GH: I don't know, are they?
EH: I think so, but I'm not sure about that.
GH: Well, during the last few years, didn't you and your sister have to pick cherries and leave the stems
on because he got more money for them if they were on the stem?
EH: Yeah, that's true.
GH: Yeah.
NS: I guess one of the questions that was on there, too, that some of what you had said does remind me
of, I wonder if we might get to it a little bit, is your dad and some of the other people went to meet with
other horticulturalists, maybe trade varieties or talk about different techniques or even find out about
the cherry picker machine shaker thing. Did they participate in different organizations that were for
nurserymen or growers or farmers?
EH: There’s a Michigan Horticultural Society that meets every December and usually in Grand Rapids, I
think, maybe in other places. And Dad was always active in that. And he and my mother would plan to
go down to Grand Rapids. We had, well, my sister, Ruthie, was down there anyway, so they had a place
to stay. And they would spend those three days in Grand Rapids for the Horticultural Society meeting.
And Dad was the one who went to the meetings, and my mother and Ruthie did whatever they wanted
to do.
I'm going to mention one more thing that's on my list, and it's not really very direct, but we would...
because the nursery actually had a southern branch that my uncle, Ed - all of his side of the family called
him Harry, I never quite figured out why - he was Uncle Ed to all of us, but he was Grandfather Harry on
that side. But anyway, his wife, I was a little embarrassed when we would go down because Uncle Ed
would have some areas for budding patches and we would go down to spend maybe four or five days in
his budding patches. And it was always an adventure because he’d put us all in the back of the truck
and, of course, no seatbelts or anything and then drive madly down these country roads to where we
were going to be working that day.
PK: Where was that? In southern Michigan?
EH: Fennville.
PK: Oh.
EH: He, actually, his...
PK: You mentioned Ganges.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
EH: Well, originally Ganges is where our family came from.
PK: That's right on the lake, isn’t it?
EH: Right on the lake, that's right. In fact, Dad showed me the house once that I think I remember
correctly. There was a river or big creek or something that empties into Lake Michigan and just on the
south side of that creek is the house he said is the family house, but I don't know if I could go back and
find it.
PK: I hope that house is still in the family because lakefront property at that latitude is worth an awful
lot of money. [Laughter]
EH: We have kind of shirttail relatives who live in a house in Douglas County that is south of where the
road got washed out many, many years ago. But they don’t have lakeshore property, but they are part
of a common area of homes that do have access to Lake Michigan. And they're trying to sell their house
now, and even though the lake is so high and there's so much erosion, just the fact that they're hoping
to visit us next month. And he's a very skilled jazz musician.
PK: Oh, wonderful.
EH: But they're trying to sell their house and it's tied to the fact that there is this lake access, even
though it's down a lot of steps to get there.
NS: So, what you wanted to tell us about going to the farm in Fennville?
EH: Oh, yeah. The connection is that Uncle Ed's wife was a Plummer - her family name was Plummer.
And I didn't know that until later. I had stayed with her, but what her maiden name was never came up.
And when I finally learned it, I realized that I lived in a co-op house at Michigan State and one of the
other members of that co-op house was also a Plummer and probably we had some kind of an indirect
connection there with the two families.
But then Charlie Spencer was [inaudible] but Uncle Ed's grandson still was when he was living. And he
died maybe fifteen years ago, so fairly recently, and his second wife had land on the west side of
Fennville. The train to Grand Rapids goes through his land, basically, by Fennville. And so, he had that
connection and we had stopped to see him, at that time we were in Chicago and driving back and forth
and stopped to see Charlie. He always wanted me to meet his wife's daughter, Ginny, who we would
never quite stay long enough. He’d tell her to come. But she's the one now we’re going to be meeting on
the Fifth of July, when they head up to a jazz event up in Leelanau County and they’ll come by to see us.
PK: Excuse me, see you later.
NS: Yes, I think we might be wrapping this up here.
EH: Yeah, well…
NS: I’ve tired you… we’ve tired you both out, I think maybe. [Laughter] Thank you.
GH: ...quite far afield.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
EH: Oh, I did… I copied out and these are from the book and not the memorial society. This page and a
little bit here are the Hawley… and there was one strange… I may try to talk to Walter about this,
because it gives my grandmother's maiden name as Render.
NS: Mm hmm.
EH: But it was actually Bender.
NS: Oh, it's not correct.
EH: So, somebody couldn’t read somebody’s writing, obviously.
NS: That happens sometimes.
EH: In fact, it goes on here later to talk about her brother, Jim, and calls his name Bender.
GH: Are you leaving that with her?
EH: No.
NS: Well, let's go over to the place where they have the scanning machine.
EH: Okay.
NS: And we can talk to the woman who might know about the copyright thing you said earlier and see
what they have to say.
EH: Okay.
NS: I don't know, but I'm going to make sure I'm not supposed to say anything at the end.
NS: Thank you both for your time. I’m supposed to say…
GH: He's so excited about doing this.
NS: Oh, thank you. I'm supposed to say, officially, this concludes the interview.
EH: Okay.
30
�
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a8c8a7bd816438fe21727bff5eccef2b.mp3
f25b14434abd191b9ea0af332a1f4d17
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Oceana County Migrant Labor History Collection
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Shell-Weiss, Melanie
Description
An account of the resource
Collection contains images and documents digitized and collected through the project "Growing Community: A Century of Migration in Oceana County." This project was a collaboration between El Centro Hispano de Oceana, the Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society, and Grand Valley State University funded by a Common Heritage grant from the United States National Endowment for the Humanities. The materials in this collection document the history of communities in Hart, Shelby, and Walkerville and explore themes of migration, labor, religion, family, belonging, national and cultural identities, regional, national, and international connections, and citizenship.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Oceana County (Mich.)
Source
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Grand Valley State University. Kutsche Office of Local History
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
El Centro Hispano de Oceana; Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society
Relation
A related resource
Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage project)
Identifier
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DC-06
Format
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application/pdf
image/jpeg
audio/mp3
Type
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Text
Image
Sound recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
spa
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oceana County (Mich.)
Hart (Mich.)
Shelby (Mich.)
Farms
Farmers
Migrant agricultural laborers
Hispanic Americans
Account books
Diaries
Oral history
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
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DC-06_Hawley_Edward_and_Gretchen
Creator
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Hawley, Edward
Hawley, Gretchen
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-06-18
Title
A name given to the resource
Hawley, Edward and Gretchen (audio interview and transcript)
Description
An account of the resource
Oral history interview with Edward A. Hawley and Gretchen Hawley. Interviewed by Nora Salas and Paul Kutsche on June 18, 2016 in Hart, Michigan. English language. Edward Adair Hawley was born in Hart Township, Michigan in 1923. He graduated from Hart High School in 1941, followed by Michigan State University in 1944, and a joint degree from Chicago Theological Seminary and the University of Chicago in 1949. Edward married his wife, Gretchen Hahn Hawley, in 1958 and was a part of the family business known as Hawley Nursery, which played an important role in the agricultural heritage of Oceana County and was responsible for producing a high percentage of all the fruit trees in the county and the west shore of Lake Michigan.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Salas, Nora (interviewer)
Kutsche, Paul (interviewer)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oceana County (Mich.)
Hart (Mich.)
Farms
Farmers
Fruit growers
Nursery growers
Michigan State University
Chicago Theological Seminary
University of Chicago
Audio recordings
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/mp3
application/pdf
Language
A language of the resource
eng
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4d45004f5d39d1d2ac503ca35680bb03.pdf
c3eae841389cc2cb653aef9182731e47
PDF Text
Text
Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
Carl Fuehring Interview
Interviewed by Alan Moul
June 18, 2016
Transcript
AM: This is Alan Moul and I'm here with Carl Fuehring. Carl, I’m going to ask you to spell your name.
CF: Alright. Last name is spelled F-u-e-h-r-i-n-g.
AM: And today is?
CF: The eighteenth.
AM: The eighteenth of June 2016. This is an oral history project being collected with a grant from Grand
Valley. It's called the Growing Community Project. It's about Oceana's agricultural history, growing and
migrants and the whole works. And I'm glad Carl is here today. He's going to tell us about what he
remembers and knows about his operation, his family and Mears, Michigan, and we'll go from there. So,
Carl, start us out with how you guys got here and what you remember.
CF: Alright. Well, Al, thank you very much for inviting me to this program. I think it's important for the
future generations to have an idea of where the ancestry of our county came from. My parents met and
were married in Chicago after the war, the Second World War. My mother escaped Nazi Germany and
was brought over by the underground. And my father and his parents were born here in Chicago.
Anyway, the story goes that my grandparents always wanted to be farmers, and so he weaseled and
wiggled and connived with some of the other people in downtown Chicago because he was a maître d’
at a hotel to get a piece of property in. And the first property he got was in northwestern Wisconsin and
they went up there and darn near froze to death as well as starved because it was pretty barren. So, he
came back to Chicago and complained to the realtor. The realtor says, I'll trade you sight unseen for a
piece of property on Crystal Lake in Hart Township here in Oceana County. So, by train, they moved their
belongings up, hired a team of mules as the story goes, and they dragged their meager belongings out to
a ramshackle house that was on Crystal Lake. They didn't have any farm to speak of at that time. It was a
sandy, weed-infested corner of the earth. Well, Dad - my father, Rudolf - started the farm with picking
strawberries and he had down in a wet area because he didn't have irrigation. You’ve got to realize this
is back in the ‘30s. He had strawberries and he picked strawberries and peddled them to Hart. And as
they say, that’s the rest of the story.
From then on, my father and his brother, who was in the Merchant Marines, eked out a living doing
strawberries, some cherries, some apples and some pears. My Uncle Carl was a good builder, house
builder, and so he decided that that would be a way for him and he left the farm and moved to the
Shelby / Stony Lake area. My father and mother, whose name was Margaret, proceeded then to develop
some cherry orchards. In the meantime, things were tough. And my dad, as well as a neighbor who lived
at Crystal Lake by the name of Eugene Cooney, got into cutting Christmas trees and they would go up to
the Manistee National Forest and cut the ends off the big tall trees and bring them back, hang them out
in our garage, my father's garage, and my mother would decorate them with tin foil and so forth. And I
remember as a little kid in the Willy’s Jeep taking twenty-five of these trees to Grand Rapids or
Muskegon for fifty cents apiece, selling decorated Christmas trees. So that is how Rudy and Eugene got
started in the Christmas tree business. They realized there was a market for domesticated trees, so the
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
two of them started planting Christmas trees. So now we've got cherries. They had a few apples and
Christmas trees. And that was the mainstay of the operation that started.
AM: Can I stop you really quick?
CF: Yep, please.
AM: Were they the first in the state to do the Christmas trees?
CF: Yes.
AM: OK.
CF: Those two guys were the first to start that. And Dad was the first president in the Christmas Tree
Growers Association. And it was pretty simplistic back then. Nothing as sophisticated as we have today.
Obviously, today's problem is that the artificial tree is decimating the live tree business. Well, Rudy
amassed a lot of acres, almost fifteen hundred acres at one time because it took a lot of acres for
Christmas trees. In the meantime, he also developed, as well as his neighbors, who your grandparents
and your parents did in around the Crystal Lake area. This is in Hart Township, cherries. And we started
the cherry business, I can remember as a kid harvesting them with a group called the “Braceros.” And
the government allowed these Mexicans and many of them were Indians to come in and help pick,
hardworking. And the only thing that I distinctly remember that was the fun part since I was a little kid is
we didn't have what today's worldview and I have housing for our people. They had tents, army surplus
tents, and we had a city.
AM: This would have been in the late ‘50s maybe or early ‘60s?
CF: Yeah, it would be in the ‘50s.
AM: OK.
CF: Yeah, I was pre-teen then. Yes. And I didn't know that these kids were Mexicans or Braceros or
whatever they were. We just had a good time. And from early morning to late at night, we hung out. No
shoes, a pair of shorts, short shorts, and no shirt. And we ate together and we had a good time. Things
started to change in the labor business at that time. And we got labor then from Louisiana. And I don't
know, Al, if your folks did or not, these were all Blacks coming up here. And that was the first time in my
life that I realized there were different races and we had these different races, different ethnic
backgrounds, different work abilities put in our field at the same time. An education, as you and I both
handled buckets and pails and ladders and all the things that were required back then. Plus, one picked
good branches off a tree and the other one… oh yeah, it was an education. We’ll leave it at that about.
The next part that I remember on tart cherries happened behind my father's shop and a guy by the
name of Friday, what was his first name? Dave? Powell?
AM: Down southern Michigan?
CF: Down southern Michigan, had developed a limb shaker. Well, Dr. Monger had...
AM: Was it Paul Friday?
CF: Could have been Paul Friday… sounds like it. Anyway, he had developed a mechanical means of
shaking the cherries off the trees. And the first shakers were nothing more than this mechanical arm
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
attached to a tractor and it would grab a limb and shake it violently. And they had tarps and totes or
something under a tree…
AM: Wooden boxes?
CF: Wooden boxes that they collected them in. I know Russ Robbins ran it the first year and it
completely demolished the tractor and he lost - I don't know how many - pounds of weight because this
thing just vibrated. Well, the outfit that Friday had brought up to our farm was self-propelled, which
meant that he had cobbled up a couple axles off of a Chrysler or something. And the canvas was... it was
all mounted on these - how do I put it politely - contraptions?
AM and CF: [Laughter]
AM: Were these the incline catch frames?
CF: The Friday incline… yes.
AM: OK.
CF: With the Friday Limb Shaker, the Friday Girdler. And it was a matter of about three years or four
years and everybody that had one was losing their orchards because it girdled the branches. And we
didn't know that at the time. But the thing that bothered - or not bothered, but I remember about the
whole thing - was we were harvesting cherries with this new machine right alongside the people that
were picking by hand. And I can distinctly remember seeing them in the trees, watching this go by them,
and that was the end of their way of life.
AM: Yeah.
CF: Yeah, it was kind of surprising. Today, it means more to me than it did back then.
AM: Did you ever hear of any vandalism of machines? I know I heard of a few, maybe the one year, and
then after that it was kind of all over.
CF: Yeah, and it was a sporadic thing that happened. Some of the crews were… well, that was the end of
their income, you know?
AM: Sure, sure.
CF: And that's how they picked. Today, we still have handpicked fruit and handpicked asparagus. I don't
know how much longer it's going to be with the advent now of the new minimum wage. If anybody's
done any simple math, it's humanly impossible to do a piece rate and make minimum wage. So, the next
advent after that was all of us, including your folks, we got the new trunk shaker and that was another
mechanical device. And now, matter of fact, we're back to the incline plane again. The... I don't know if
it's a better idea, but the salesman thought so. [Laughter] So we harvest the cherries. Asparagus… I
started planting asparagus when I was a teenager, single bottom plow. Martha Washington crowns
produced a good, sweet, big asparagus, but today's marketers want a standardized spear. We have most
of our acreage in asparagus, but the biggest issue we have, as well as your farm and all the other
neighbors in our neighborhood - what's going to happen harvest-wise with the labor situation? Twenty
years from now, it's going to be interesting if they even still have asparagus here in this country. So
those two and Christmas trees. The Christmas tree that we started with was the Scotch Pine, and it was
a very reasonably priced, fast-growing tree, not a lot of shipping required, but as America grew and got a
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
little more tasteful and demands, they wanted the trees sheared and that's a way of shaping a tree. And
as a youngster, I remember having a pair of huge scissors that we'd cut the tree, which took a lot of
effort. So, they had to come up with a different way. And a neighbor of ours thought that maybe a good
sharp knife would work. Well, he went and bought some butcher knives. Now, these are these five- and
ten-pound meat cleavers, will scare the bejeebers out of you!
AM: Take your leg off! [Laughter]
CF: Well, as you swung that baby, you couldn't stop it and down she'd come. We knew almost instantly
that it did a beautiful job, but it would kill somebody or cut their leg off. So, the next thing we came to
was a beef carving knife. And most of them came from Germany, had good steel, was flexible. You could
still buy the same brand a knife today. They're about fifty bucks a piece now, but that's what we shear
with. In today's world, everybody has automatic equipment and we are using, just like you do around
your house. It's like a weed whacker, except instead of a string on the end of it, we have a square metal
blade and they can very successfully shear a Pine tree. And a quarter of the time they can with a knife,
they have a better perspective because they're standing away from it. And guess what? They don't cut
their knees all to heck. [Laughter] So, anyway.
AM: Which makes OSHA happy. [Laughter]
CF: Well, God help us.
AM: We don’t want to get into that. [Laughter]
CF: We try to avoid MIOSHA or OSHA or we try to keep the guys as safe as possible and we do use leg
irons, which is a piece of tin wrapped in canvas that they carry on their leg in case they slip and whack
themselves. But I could show you twelve stitches over here that I got. So anyway, that gives a brief
overview of what our family's farm did as well as the whole neighborhood.
Why don't we just stop for a brief second here and…
Alright, we took a little break there. The next section that we talk about is how our farm evolved and got
all this work done labor-wise. When I was a youngster around the house, we had chores to do, no
livestock, but we had chores to do around the home. But the two of us, I had one brother, and it was the
deal that we could get our homework done and then we could go out and play. And God forbid, if my
grandkids do it at the age of seven and eight, we were driving a tractor, not exactly safety-approved
tractors. And all your folks and we had hand clutches, mechanical springs, a seat that was a stamped-out
piece of metal, hot, terribly hot, dirty, dusty. But guess what? It got the job done. So as a youngster, I
grew up watching other teenagers and young adults work on the farm. And when I came back from
Michigan State, I went and got my degree and I thought…
AM: In horticulture?
CF: No, I never took an Ag. [agriculture] class the whole time I was down there.
AM: OK.
CF: I really wanted to get away from it and get into something else. And I decided to go into
Administration Teaching and School Administration. So, I'll just give you a little quick synopsis on how I
got from that to farming and then I'll get back to the labor. My father died when he was ninety-three,
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
when he was in his late fifties and I was just back from Michigan State and I had a comfortable job. I was
a school administrator. We had a young family. It was Christmas. And my dad said, “What do you plan
on doing in the future?” And I said, “Well, we're teaching and I've got a good career there.” And he says,
“I'd like to retire.” He says, “Why don't you come back and work for me a couple of years?” Well, I was
mid-twenties and he lived another forty years and I still work him. [Laughter]
AM: [Laughter]
CF: I don't know if he ever thought that he was supposed to retire in there. That generation of my dad
and Burmeisters and Brandles and the Trommaters and the O'Reilley; once they were in it, they farmed
until they died.
Well, the other story on labor might be a little more interesting: is since I was young, energetic, I knew a
lot of other young people in the area and most of them were about ten, twelve years younger than I
was. But they needed jobs. Back in those days, there wasn't that many McDonald's or city jobs that we
had around here, and most of the kids wanted to earn something that would give them some money, as
well as that they would be able to see the practical purpose, because that was about the only industry
we had in the area was Ag. related. So, we had over a period of time and I looked back on this between
two and three hundred teenagers, and I've got their names and all the hours they were…
AM: The old check stubs?
CF: The old check stubs... that worked for us and these guys would come out after school, just like you
did with your family. There was about eight of them that I can remember very distinctly, and we would
pick - from three thirty until dark, if had to - asparagus fields. Twenty-five… never give it a blink. If I
asked my grandson today to go pick asparagus, he's not a laborer. He just drives equipment, so. But we
did everything: we planted the asparagus, we planted Christmas trees. This mechanical device, the
shaker that we had, we shook the trees with that. We thought we were pretty hot stuff. It was a team
effort. I don't know, Al, how many you had, but in our group with one roll out, we were, I think, about
eight or ten guys and we ended up putting mattresses in the barn because we would start at five, fivethirty. And for them, most of them didn't have a driver's license. So, they, at night, the folks would take
them home or somebody would take them home. They would shower and eat. And pretty soon they
would all wander back and dead tired. So, we'd sleep there and I'd go down and wake them up. About
seven, seven thirty, my wife would have amassed a huge breakfast and everybody ate; it didn't matter
what you had, you ate. And then we worked the full day, maybe nine o'clock at night and started it all
over. Did this for three weeks straight. But everything, Christmas trees, were all harvested with these
young guys. Your neighbor, Mark, he worked; Rich De Ridder. [?]
AM: If I remember right, you developed a real sense of camaraderie doing it, too. I mean, the guys were
kind of like a team.
CF: It was; it was a team. And I know that my son and his friend, Tim Tubbs, nobody could beat the
Tubbs. That was just the way it was. Well, there was several days there that one summer that we were
getting a hundred tanks in eight hours. And Dwight would go right over and tell him Tim, you know, yeah
talk about… [laughter].
AM: Now, we’ve got to get a hundred and one, right?
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
CF: You guys are slackers. [Laughter] But everything was done until about, I would say, two thousand
five or six. And pretty soon there just wasn't any high school kids. Not that they weren't available. It's
just there was other jobs opened up. We have this huge resort area here. Why do you want to go out
and drag a tarp when you can stand out at a concession stand with cute little girls and air conditioning
and pop; it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that one out. [Laughter]
AM: [Laughter] That's genetics, man.
AM and CF: [Laughter]
CF: Yeah, well, that's why we only have Hispanics working on our farm. And I would dare say that the
younger generation is really missing out on the training. I have had… two years ago, I had the example,
we went to a family wedding and this young man came up to me, now he's pushing fifty? And he said,
“Mr. Fuehring” and I looked at him, I says, “What do you mean, Mr. Fuehring? That's my dad.” Well, he
said, “You don't remember me, I'm Kurt.” I says, “Okay, it's been a while.” Well, he’d moved to California
and he said he just couldn't handle it, staying home here anymore. There was really no jobs for him. So,
he went to California and his first day out there, he got a job as a laborer digging a trench for
underground gas lines. And he said, “I started that early morning and by noon I was in charge of the
crew.” And he said, “Two weeks later, I was a foreman on that crew.” And today he's got several of
these units that he directs. And he brought his son here from California who was a teenager, just like he
was when he worked for me. And he says, “I want you to meet the guy that showed me how to work.”
And Al, you know, this is a fact. You've got many relations and many friends and you worked all different
kinds of businesses. These young men and women, anywhere they went they were successful because
they worked on these farms. They knew how if something had fallen down or broken or tripped or...
grab it, fix it, do it. Don't stand there. I feel, like I said, kind of sorry for the next generation. They have
no incentive, so grab a kid and put them to work. [Laughter]
AM: Yeah, exactly.
CF: …if they could. I’ve got to tell you a little short story here. I'm starting to bore everybody. I had a
neighbor, Mike Fenton, great kid, strong as an ox, and the guy could do anything. Well, he had two
friends. One of them now works for the United States government in some military capacity, and the
other one works here in the state. And they were both very, very sharp young men in computers. Well, I
hollered at the two of them in the shop one day to change the tire on a baler. This is an outfit that wraps
Christmas trees. And a few minutes later, I came out of the office and here they are on their hands and
knees, laying alongside this thing, looking at this machine. Well, Mike came walking in. And I said, Mikey,
show those two Einsteins how to change a tire. You know, they could write a computer program. So,
Mike showed the boys how it's a simple thing, changing a tire, you know.
AM: They wanted to redesign the tire...
CF: Redesign, reinvent the wheel - you bet.
CF: Well, what we've got a tangent on here is old versus... ways and new ways of horticultural practices.
And what we had talking about briefly with the microphone off was what varieties are coming up in like
Christmas trees or fruit and so forth, and the costs, different costs of putting them in. We'll start with
the last one that Al and I were talking about, Christmas trees. In today's world, it's very difficult to sell
fresh Christmas trees. The costs have increased because our input costs have increased. But the
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
American public is extremely fussy and they're not tolerant of new ways in trees. One of them is that
they want the newest, the best, the fanciest, the cutest. And that would be the Fraser fir, which was
developed in North Carolina to try and compete with our Douglas fir. We have two varieties of the
Douglas fir: the regular [?] and then the white Concolor fir and we can grow them around here, but they
require a huge amount of hand labor. Now, the Concolor fir, Noble fir in Europe, they - the public in
Europe, Germany, France and so forth - do not have a tree, a sheared tree, it's a wild tree. And I've seen
this several times. I was taking lots of pictures when I was over there trying to show my customers they
don't need to shear them. They have a very natural tree. Here in the United States, there's a few
markets that people will sell us out of a thousand trees, maybe ten or twelve naturals, but they've got to
have this cone shape. To get a tree started today in the ground, anywhere from 15 cents to 50 cents to
plant it. And then on a Douglas fir, you've probably got ten or twelve years before you could even
harvest. In that time, you've got shearing, you've got to keep the bugs away, you've got fertilizer. It's
very expensive. And the return is diminished because the popularity of live tree. We're going through a
change here; we've got to have the artificial tree and they are gorgeous. And you've got to realize both
spouses are working. They leave the house in the morning. If they have children, those are gone.
Nobody's there to water the tree. When they come home at night, they have to prepare a meal. And if
they then had to go pick up pine needles or water a tree, pretty soon this is just way too much work and
there's a lot of allergies with them. So, I'm not trying to not sell Christmas trees, but it's a fact of life.
Now, back to what you and I do the best is planting fruit trees. And we were looking at a picture here
that's going to be in this that his grandfather had when I first started and I'm not as old as his
grandfather was when this picture was drawn. We would measure... physically measure out an orchard
and plot it and steak. If we had a thousand trees, we had a thousand stakes in that orchard where every
tree went. And then they would, originally, with these high school kids, I went out and the first job we
would do and it would take a week to do it on that one block by my house, is we physically dug the
holes. We didn't have a mechanical auger. That was a big invention or improvement, I should say, as
we'd go out and dig those. Today...
AM: Until you hit a rock.
CF: Until you hit rock and then you had to dig everything out. Yeah, and then what are you going to do
because this rock is huge and that's where a tree's supposed to be. In today's world, you pick out where
you want your first row at the distance apart from each other. And I don't know how to do it, my
grandson does. You program this into this computer and the tractor drives a straight row. We can plant
four thousand trees in eight hours easy. And I think they're in better than the other way. Varieties, now
you get into the fun, you want them blue, green, yellow, white, every apple. How many would you guess
varieties you could have? A couple of hundred?
AM: Easy.
CF: Yeah. With all the different rootstocks. It's the same with cherries; not so many, but we've got
choices of rootstocks. You got an investment, I'm going to throw some numbers out, you tell me how far
off I am. On a regular tart cherry, in today's world, by the time I get it in the ground and this is a five
eighths inch diameter tree with a wrap on it. I've got ten bucks into that tree. Is that about right?
AM: I would say.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
CF: Alright, now the good stuff starts. [Laughter] You’ve got to - and I haven't until I saw the results that
my neighbor was doing - you’ve got to put irrigation in. The mechanical part of irrigation is a dollar a
tree. If you couldn't get away with it. What really kicked me down was it had to be done, but I guess the
way I did it was kind of dumb, is I told the guy to drill a well and I got the bill after it was in. [Laughter]
Oh, mercy. This is not my grandfather's two inch well. [Laughter] Yeah, very high tech. So, you've got
another thirty, forty thousand dollars. Now on these high-density apples that your neighbor and my
neighbor has put in, you can have twenty-five, thirty thousand dollars I think in an acre of just the trees.
Then you've got the irrigation, the trellis, deer fence. I think [?] block out here, I think that fifteen acres
was almost four hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
AM: Those are the...
CF: SweeTangos.
AM: SweeTangos.
CF: Yeah.
AM: You know…
CF: That’s a lot of [?].
AM: Well, and that's a big, big risk. And we've seen it go south and there goes your... well, it takes the
money away from other stuff that's making money and pretty soon you’re…
CF: Yeah, and we haven't talked about the tractor, the special little tractor, because you can't have a
regular size orchard tractor, you've got to get one of those. And that with a cab is about what, sixty-four
thousand, if I remember right. The sprayer... Mark just got a PTO sprayer to fit down that and that's
thirty-five thousand. The engine drive, the same thing is seventy-two grand. And we haven't got an
apple one yet. Yeah.
AM: I used to get a kick out of the neighbors who weren't in farming, many of them were then, but now
they see your truck go around the corner with fourteen tanks of cherries and they've seen the paper and
it says they’re thirty-five cents a pound this year and they know there’s a thousand pounds in the tank
and they think, man alive, there goes fifteen grand of cherries.
CF: You rich farmers. Yeah. That's all. And they've got this all figured out before you even talk with them
how much you've made on this thing. But they have no concept of the eight years that that cherry tree
is in the ground before you can shake one cherry. Every year it's got to get fed fertilizer. It's got to get
pruned. It's got to be sprayed. That's what we're just finishing now.
AM: What would you tell somebody that wants to get into farming? A young person that maybe is a
sharp business person, hardworking, but thinks they want to farm. What would you tell them? Could
you even do it or what would you tell them?
CF: Marry the boss's daughter. [Laughter] Well, you know, that's a very legitimate good question. And it
would be very pertinent to this thing that's going on today. First off, I don't believe if this person were...
let's start over. If this person was not connected, family-wise or marriage-wise, to somebody in an
existing farm, the chances of that person getting into or succeeding would be zero or less. The
purchasing of the property, first of all, is one or renting or leasing it; if it was profitable, that farm, the
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
payments, depending upon the year, you probably couldn't make payments just off of that farm, you
have to have some other collateral. Equipment, I'm going to say something, Alan, you throw your sense
in there. Without being a spendthrift and having to buy all brand-new stuff, just to go in and get stuff
that's operating and not junk. I don't know if you could do it for under a million dollars. Tractor,
sprayer...a cab tractor today and a sprayer engine drive is a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Mower twenty thousand. The trucks, the wells, everything.
AM: The harvester that sits there eleven months out of the year.
CF: Yeah. [Laughter] That's kind of discouraging to the young person. They had a program and I don't
know if Michigan State still has it or not. But they used to have a program for that person that was not a
son or grandson or had an uncle or something, that they would team up with elderly or older farmers
that would like to retire but don't have any way of transitioning this farm. This is what, Fred, how Fred
got started with the farmer north of Hart, because he was from Hart. He didn't have anything to do with
farming.
AM: Fred Tubbs?
CF: Fred Tubbs.
AM: Really.
CF: And he - and I don't know the farmer's name - he was well known and he befriended Fred. And Fred
was a very strong, willing guy and he was a quick learner. But…
AM: I think more of this is going to have to happen. I talked to Brad, who's connected with going out
and procuring fruit. And one of the questions that was given to him was ask the growers how they are
going to pass down their farms and who's even interested in farming coming up. And I think he told me
almost 50 percent have no one coming up or to transfer to. What's going to happen? Big concern here.
CF: Yeah, there’s two avenues for these farmers: sell out to a neighbor and that guy gets bigger and
bigger, bigger, which is what my neighbor is doing. He's got three sons, I guess, and they've tripled in
size. A normal man, that was a one-horse operation. Yeah, you have basically two choices: either sell out
to somebody or have somebody come in that you could work with. It's a huge undertaking on both parts
because the older man, that's his retirement. And if the young farmer can have a successful operation
and give him some payments, but if you have a bad year or let's say the guy is - how do I put this nicely?
He's not attentive to what he's doing and he blows a crop. Now they're both out and this elderly man
would have a huge financial risk at hand. Yeah, it would be very tough. I don't know if the other
interviewees would be given that question, but I think that would be interesting to see what other kind
of answers you get.
AM: Yeah. What do you think about the - this is shifting gears here - the quality of the land itself? Now,
I've seen a lot of pictures in the past. The trees were bigger. Are we depleting our soil or do you think
we're doing a pretty good job of being a husband and, you know, of keeping it… passing along in good
shape?
CF: Most of the young commercial farmers, I think, are extremely attentive to what they're doing. There
are a few farms in the area within a few miles that lack the husbandry; they just haven't fertilized, they
are depleting it. Yeah, you can drive by and the leaves are going, yeah. Yes, there is problems on certain
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
things. Most, in today's world with the pressure of watching out for what's going on. I have this
asparagus tour to think about and they come up and that is just about the second or third question
every time. What are you doing to the soil? Are you putting on pesticides? What kind of fertilizers are
using? What are you doing for safety? Fifteen years ago, nobody would have even thought about it. But
in today's world, if you as a farmer aren't paying attention to what you have, boy, you're in deep
trouble. I don't see how you can't.
AM: It's almost difficult to get loans and get financing if you're not doing good practices, too, isn't it? I
mean, they’ve pretty well got you locked in now.
CF: Oh, yeah. I just keep telling the guy from the bank any time he wants to come out, I got a cushion for
him to sit on the picker. [Laughter]
AM: [Laughter] Well, I'll speak just for real briefly. We'll wrap this up.
CF: Alright, Sir.
AM: What do you think in general about farming life? You know, there's a lot of different ways to be
raised, to be brought up. I've got my own feeling on it. But what do you think about the rural life and
being brought up on a farm? What's it done for you? And what do you… what are the strengths to it?
CF: Well, that's about a six-hour discussion. [Laughter] You know, at my age, and I'm a tad older than
you are.
AM: Tell me how old you are.
CF: I'm seventy-three.
AM: OK.
CF: And I have had a good life, I've had the opportunity to live in the city, I've had an opportunity to
work in a city, I had the free choice to make decisions, what I wanted to do. I am very thankful at the life
that I have had and that I have chosen. You're, no matter what, you're always envious of some friends
that have done something different. And I wished that I would have had the opportunity to do some
other things, not different careers, but just some other opportunities. But just like you, Al, we picked
and choosed and we did and stuck with it. For me and my personal lifestyle, I really enjoy the rural area,
but it is a lifestyle. You have to realize that when there has to be something done, you do it. And if
there's a party in Muskegon or somewhere else and you have to get a spray on, that's just tough. I don't
know if the younger generation realizes that because everything we do, we see the direct results.
AM: You’ve got skin in the game,
CF: You got skin in the game. The mentality of the rural people - and I deal with this all the time because
I'm on a township board - a lot more common sense, down to earth, and I think they are closely related
to what God gives you, God can take away and we’ve got to watch what we've got. They don't fritter
away life's things; they enjoy it. It's just, my wife and I were discussing the other day the lightning storm
that came in. We turned all the lights off and we sat for an hour and a half watching the lightning storm.
I have some other friends that we talked to and my God, they were just having a canary because of this
lightning and they couldn't go out and the TV wasn't working. And I'm thinking, you know, that's one of
the pleasures that you have going out on the patio and just no TV, no radio, just listening to it rain. Now,
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
maybe I'm committable. I don't know, probably depending on who you're talking to, but those are
pleasures that you get from appreciating the lifestyle...
AM: Yep.
CF: ...we’re in and where we are.
AM: We're blessed.
CF: We sure are. Well, Al, I really want to thank you for stopping by the other day and inviting me. This
has been a pleasure.
AM: Thank you, for sharing. I think future generations are going to enjoy listening to this and shaking
their heads and laughing at the old guys anyway. [Laughter]
CF: [Laughter] Well, you're not old, but it's always been a pleasure talking with you.
AM: Okay, this is Al Moul. I don't know if I even said that in the beginning of doing the interview. And
this is my neighbor, Carl Fuehring, and I appreciate him coming in. So, thanks, Carl.
CF: Thank you.
11
�
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4b572b97806912d780f8216d02d73985.mp3
395e70734a0c2fbd0834fe0536331aac
Dublin Core
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Oceana County Migrant Labor History Collection
Creator
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Shell-Weiss, Melanie
Description
An account of the resource
Collection contains images and documents digitized and collected through the project "Growing Community: A Century of Migration in Oceana County." This project was a collaboration between El Centro Hispano de Oceana, the Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society, and Grand Valley State University funded by a Common Heritage grant from the United States National Endowment for the Humanities. The materials in this collection document the history of communities in Hart, Shelby, and Walkerville and explore themes of migration, labor, religion, family, belonging, national and cultural identities, regional, national, and international connections, and citizenship.
Coverage
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Oceana County (Mich.)
Source
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Grand Valley State University. Kutsche Office of Local History
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives
Contributor
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El Centro Hispano de Oceana; Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society
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Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage project)
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DC-06
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application/pdf
image/jpeg
audio/mp3
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Text
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eng
spa
Date
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2016
Subject
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Oceana County (Mich.)
Hart (Mich.)
Shelby (Mich.)
Farms
Farmers
Migrant agricultural laborers
Hispanic Americans
Account books
Diaries
Oral history
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
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DC-06_Fuehring_Carl
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Fuehring, Carl
Date
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2016-06-18
Title
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Fuehring, Carl (audio interview and transcript)
Description
An account of the resource
Oral history interview with Carl Fuehring. Interviewed by Alan Moul on June 18, 2016 in Hart, Michigan. English language. Carl Fuehring was born into a fruit and Christmas tree growing family in the Crystal Lake area of Hart, Michigan. He spent his youth helping around the farm and later went on to study Administration Teaching and School Administration at Michigan State University.
Contributor
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Moul, Alan (interviewer)
Subject
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Oceana County (Mich.)
Hart (Mich.)
Farms
Farmers
Fruit growers
Christmas tree growing
Michigan State University
Audio recordings
Source
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Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage)
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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Sound
Text
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audio/mp3
application/pdf
Language
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eng
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/944be5d9d5b24b7a826ff449d3b1fffb.pdf
7645257c4b9ecb261a34ba25a5fcc804
PDF Text
Text
Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
Ralph Dold Interview
Interviewed by Walter Urick & Kimberly McKee
June 18, 2016
Transcript
KM: We're all set.
WU: My name is Walter Urick and I'm here with Dr. Kim McKee. We're here today on this June 18th,
2016, in the city of Hart Community Center at Hart, Michigan, for the purposes of obtaining the oral
history of the Ralph Dold family. And obviously, Ralph is present today. And this oral history is being
collected as part of the Growing Community Project, which is supported in part by a grant from the
National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Program.
Ralph, I want to thank you for taking the time to visit with Dr. Kim and myself today. We're both
interested to learn more about your family history, your experiences living and working in Oceana
County. And so, we'll start out with some easy questions and we'll work from there. First, when and
where were you born?
RD: I was born in Detroit in 1931.
WU: The exact date of your birth is?
RD: November 13th, Friday. That's what started the… [laughter].
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
WU: [Laughter] Friday, the 13th. Well, tell me a little bit about your parents, their names?
RD: I had real good parents. Frank Xavier didn't like that middle name. Frank was my father and
Magdalena was my mother. They both came from Illinois. Father was a carpenter and of course, from [?]
farming. He grew up on a farm and my mother grew up on a farm. My dad was a first-generation
immigrant and my mother about the second generation.
WU: From, what...?
RD: Germany.
WU: All right.
RD: There's a clutch of Dolds in Freiburg, Germany.
WU: Really, the Black Forest area?
RD: [Laughter] Yeah.
WU: Very familiar with it.
RD: My [?] owns the brewery.
WU: We have relatives in the Black Forest. So, your dad and mom were first generation Americans?
RD: My dad was first generation, my mother the second generation.
WU: Now, apparently you were born in Detroit.
RD: Born in Detroit, East Side.
WU: And your dad was a carpenter?
RD: Yeah. Except at that time there wasn't much building going on because we had a phenomenon: The
Depression.
WU: Right. What about your mom? Was she working outside the house?
RD: No, she never did that part. Dad thought that was not proper. Figured if you had to have your wife
work, you were a poor excuse for a man. [Laughter]
WU: Did you have any siblings?
RD: Yeah, I have a sister who is still alive and two brothers. One brother died last year. Ninety-four. My
sister is ninety-three now and still going strong. So, we're long livers. And one brother died of a heart
attack fifteen years ago, so.
WU: Well…
RD: Detroit, that was a nice place when we lived there. I mean, it turned into a high crime area later,
but... and now it's turning into a brownfield, about everything was torn down.
WU: Well, I want to talk about your childhood or try to get you to talk about your childhood a little bit.
Were you raised in Detroit?
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
RD: Yeah, up until nineteen forty-six I lived in Detroit.
WU: So that would have made you fifteen years old or thereabouts.
RD: Yeah, that's right.
WU: Let's just briefly go through that period of your life.
RD: You know, I can remember, like I said, it was the Depression. I can remember things about like four
or five years old. You start remembering things and I remember that it was awful hard to find money. Of
course, unemployment and market collapse didn't mean much to a five-year-old, you know.
WU: Were you're living in a group home of sorts or a single family…?
RD: No, it was a… we had our own home. It was a red… of course, houses were close together. You
know, I could reach out like this and touch my house in the neighbor's house. [Laughter]
WU: But it was a single-family home?
RD: Yeah, single family.
WU: And east side of Detroit.
RD: Yeah, and I went to school at Stevens Elementary School, which has recently been torn down, and
they must have ran that right under the ground because it was old when I was going there. So, they got
their full use out of that building.
WU: So basically, at least through an educational standpoint, you were a city kid up until age fifteen or
so.
RD: Yeah, that's right.
WU: Did you have any reason to go into the countryside during the summers and so forth?
RD: My dad was tired of the city and, you know, the neighborhood was going to pot already anyway.
And so, I figured, you know, it would be better out in the country, be better for me. And well my brother
was already gone from home by then. Yeah, and so we moved out to White Lake area, which is west of
Pontiac.
WU: Okay, White Lake, west of Pontiac, not the White Lake that I’m thinking of.
RD: No, not this one. I think there's probably a couple more. I went to Huron Valley School [?]
consolidation. And it was in the process of consolidating with all the usual complaints and what have
you. I have a history of going through consolidations. When I got work in New York, they were going
through a consolidation, the same complaints. And when I got here, they were consolidating. Same
complaints. [Laughter]
WU: Before you moved out of Detroit, just since we’re doing sort of an oral family history, are there any
special childhood memories that you had that you'd like to share with us or with whoever might be
reading or listening to this years from now?
RD: Well, like I say, the Depression was going on. Our playground was the alley and we had our own
games: Duck on the Rock, you played with tin cans, and Tippee, that you played with broomsticks. And
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
then one of the things was trying to kill rats [laughter], the sport of kings. So, they had big garbage
containers. There was a four-family flat next door, and they had a big garbage container, and you dump
the garbage in the top and then they shoveled it out the other end onto a garbage... city garbage truck.
So we would throw a match in the top and get stuff burning and the rats that were in there had to make
a break for it. And then we threw rocks at them. [Laughter]
WU: So those are some of your vivid childhood memories.
RD: [Laughter] Kind of a warped childhood.
WU: But so, you finished… what, you must have been about a sophomore in high school when you left
Detroit?
RD: I was a... finished half of the ninth grade because Detroit went... they ended one half the grade in
the spring. And the second half, you know, they had…
WU: And then you had a November 13th birthday, which put you in a little different category, I guess.
RD: So, when I got out to Milford, I finished the ninth grade at Milford and then tenth played football.
And it wasn't very active in the social life because we lived about nine, ten miles from Milford.
WU: But you were living on what... was this a home or was it a farm?
RD: We had... it was about like an acre of land and we built a house there. I helped my dad build. He was
a carpenter, so.
WU: So, you build your own home or your dad did?
RD: Yeah.
WU: With help from you and your brother or whomever.
RD: Yeah, and so that was a good experience for me. Yeah.
WU: Did you have any…
RD: We had some chickens.
WU: ...animals? That’s what I was alluding to.
RD: But nothing very... much bigger than that.
WU: You didn't have a cow…
RD: No, no.
WU: ...or a horse or anything like that?
RD: We did have a big garden. We grew just a lot of stuff.
WU: And basically, for home consumption?
RD: Yeah, basically for home consumption.
WU: Like what do you remember?
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
RD: Potatoes, of course. And I used to keep cabbage at the root cellar. One of the things, and this kind of
goes back to the German background. One of the things my folks always had on hand was honey.
Bought a sixty pound can of honey every year. So, Germans like honey.
WU: Did you get into the bee business or anything at all?
RD: No, we could buy it. And, of course, the other thing we always made was sauerkraut, you know, so...
I still make sauerkraut once in a while.
WU: So, those are some of your childhood memories of living at home?
RD: Of course, White Lake, because we were on the lake we spent a lot of time in the water.
WU: And you're talking about swimming and…?
RD: Swimming and fishing. But swimming a lot, four hours a day swimming or something.
WU: During the summer months.
RD: Yeah.
WU: So, you graduate from high school in what year, Ralph?
RD: [Nineteen] forty-nine.
WU: And at that point?
RD: I started at Michigan State that fall.
WU: Okay, and you went to Michigan State for any particular?
RD: Crops and soils. Went there for four years
WU: What caused you to pick that?
RD: Well, I was interested in growing things. We had the garden and I guess I just and I had won a
scholarship; I was in the FFA in high school.
WU: So, in high school you were active in the FFA. You were active in trying to grow crops like the
natives and whatnot.
RD: So, I majored in Crops and Soils and it was pretty uneventful for four years, I guess, just doing what
everybody does. I had fairly good grades - three-point-four average, I think.
WU: And you graduated what year, you said?
RD: Graduated in [nineteen] fifty-three. Graduated in June, went active in the service and...
WU: So right out of Michigan State, you end up in the service. What branch of the service?
RD: After basic, I was an officer ROTC.
WU: You were in ROTC at State, correct?
RD: Yeah.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
WU: Okay, and so now you're in what branch of the service?
RD: Army. And so, I went through basic in the officer’s course for a few months and went to Germany.
And I was ammunition supply officer for a Berlin command and I didn't do very much because we were
within the city, you couldn't shoot anything very big without disturbing people. And so, like I say, it was
pretty easy, a little bit of small arms and grenades and a few things like that. But mostly we just sat on it
and…
WU: ...had it ready to go if you needed it.
RD: Well, yeah, we wouldn't have lasted long if the flap went up because we were surrounded
[laughter]. They could’ve put up a division against every platoon, we wouldn't have been there very
long.
WU: So, your service, is this a couple of years or?
RD: Two years, yeah. And then got out of service, went to work in New York for the Cooperative
Extension Service.
KM: In New York City or?
RD: Oh, Chenango County, New York.
KM: Could you spell that?
RD: C-h-e-n-a-n-g-o.
KM: Okay.
RD: The pill works [?], Norwich Coracle Company [?]. Truckloads of Aspirins. [?]
WU: Tell me, help me understand, what part of the state of New York that was?
RD: That would be Southcentral.
WU: Largest town that I might be familiar with?
RD: Binghamton is just a little south of us.
KM: Okay.
RD: Syracuse was quite a ways north of us. Hamilton was just a little ways north.
KM: Okay.
WU: Well, that helps. So, now you are working for the state of New York?
RD: It's a combination thing, a combination of Chenango County and the state; a good deal like they
have it set up here.
WU: So, it's the extension service?
RD: Cooperative Extension Service. Actually, I was hired by Cornell, somebody at Cornell.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
WU: So like Michigan State is sort of the college that keeps our programs going here. Cornell University
was doing the same thing in the state of New York, is that a fair…?
RD: Yeah, it's their agricultural college. And I was there a couple of years and I kind of wanted to get
back to Michigan and I had a chance to come to work in Hart.
WU: Well, now let’s wait because I've lost track of the Michigan connection. In fact, I'm not so sure
we've made it yet.
RD: Just the fact that I was from there. I was from there. I was from Michigan.
WU: Oh, Michigan. I was thinking of Hart.
KM: So, what year did you come back to Michigan?
RD: I came here in nineteen fifty-seven and that's why I think I'm a relatively recent arrival. Why am I
having anything to do with the history?
[Laughter]
RD: But so, I arrived here, Bill McClain, you probably remember...
WU: Oh yes.
RD: ...County Agent. I was a 4-H Agent here for - I can’t even remember - until sometime in the nineteen
sixties. And I don't know if I was ever really very good as a 4-H agent. I don't know that I really did a
super good job.
WU: Before we go much further, I want to make sure I understand the transition. True, you grew up in
Michigan?
RD: Yeah.
WU: But you had no connections with Hart, Michigan?
RD: Not up until I arrived.
WU: Or Oceana County, is that true?
RD: Yep.
WU: So, then you're working in New York, you're gaining experience working with the agriculture
community.
RD: Yeah, 4-H.
WU: And Bill McClain, who was… was he the County Extension Agent at that time?
RD: He was the County Extension Agent.
WU: How did you even find out that there was an opening?
RD: Michigan State had a locator service.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
WU: I see. So, that's how you heard that there's a possibility in Oceana County for a 4-H agent. You
obviously applied; this is how you showed up in Oceana County. Was that a quick summation of it?
RD: Yeah, that’s about right.
WU: Now, were you single or married at that time?
RD: I was single at that time.
WU: Okay, and the year was nineteen fifty-seven that you showed up?
RD: Right.
WU: A year I remember well. That's the year I graduated from Hart High School.
RD: So anyway, Bill McClain was the County Extension Agent. Bob Hopkins, who you probably
remember…
WU: …very well.
RD: ...was District Horticultural Agent. And Barbara Culver was the Home Agent.
WU: Barbara Culver, okay.
RD: I fixed that, I married her!
[Laughter]
RD: And we didn't quite make it to our forty-fifth anniversary before she died.
WU: Well now help so I understand her background. The builder Culvers, is that…?
RD: No connection that I know of.
WU: No connection. Okay, well I know enough about your background that it made me wonder: is that
how you got into electricity? But that’s another subject.
RD: No, that’s different...
WU: Yeah, let's not go there yet.
[Laughter]
WU: Alright, so we have you in Hart. You're working with Bill McClain and you're working with the 4-H
folks.
RD: Right.
WU: And in that situation, at least help us understand, what 4-H was doing at that time and how it was
working with agriculture?
RD: Well, and at that time there were a lot of 4-H clubs that were Dairy clubs. We had a lot of small
dairies at that time and they've sort of faded, you know. But anyway, so we had...well, the kids had all
kinds of projects from rabbits and gerbils up to cows, you know, and a big thing was trying to develop
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
leadership in the kids. And we had some bookkeeping projects; when they had like a cow, how much
they put in and how much they got and so forth.
WU: Yeah, keep track of everything…what you fed them...
RD: Yeah, a little basic economics.
WU: Okay.
RD: And I went on, I can't even remember just exactly when I quit, but Charlie Halbert hired me for Farm
Bureau services, selling farm supplies but a commission if I sold buildings. Pole buildings were getting big
then because farms, like I say, the small farms were fading out of the picture and the big [?] were
coming in, they needed big machinery and expensive machinery. So, we got to have big open buildings
to store that stuff in and handle it. That’s where pole buildings came in.
WU: Okay, so at this point you’re in Oceana County and we talked a little bit about the 4-H program. I
know 4-H and the county fair was one big…
RD: Oh, yeah.
WU: Just briefly describe how 4-H and the county fair sort of work together and what the kids were
trying to accomplish at that stage?
RD: The kids, of course, it was a lot of exhibits, still is. You know, probably most of the exhibits are 4-H.
Of course, like I said, the kids had projects and the county fair was the culmination. You know, if you had
the grand champion or so forth, a feather in your hat and so forth. But that hasn't changed much, I
guess, it’s still about the same thing.
WU: Well, now do you remember the year that you started to work with Charlie and Farm Bureau?
RD: It must have been about [nineteen] sixty-one.
WU: Okay, now were you married at that time?
RD: Yeah, by then I was, I think.
WU: You had married Betty by then?
RD: Been married about a year. That was another thing, being a 4-H agent and being married was kind
of a conflict because we had to be out for meetings on so many evenings.
WU: Never home, indeed.
RD: Well, and that didn't go over very good. So, Barb didn't like that idea. I didn't either.
WU: Excuse me, it's Barb. Did I call her Betty?
RD: Barbara.
WU: It’s Barbara, yes. So then, I can say that I went to work with Charlie at Farm Bureau. And it wasn't
very long before I stopped selling just about everything except buildings, the first year or two I sold a
few buildings. And before we got done, well, first of all, I had three crews running. Before long, we were
building - I don't know how many by then - and that was keeping me busy, but it was fun work.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
WU: Was the Farm Bureau doing that? Or was this Buildings Plus?
RD: No, they didn't exist yet.
WU: Okay.
RD: Yeah, and then Harry Lynch came to work for me - you remember Harry.
WU: Very well.
RD: Okay, so there were two salesmen and he was well acquainted up around Custer so we could get
our business up there. And like I said, the first year it was one or two buildings. Before long it was a
hundred and fifty.
WU: Where is it? I am being called to start another interview.
RD: Yeah, go right ahead.
KM: I’m going to finish...
WU: ...and she's going to take you through the rest of your oral history and get a chance to work with
you on some of those issues. So, excuse me, I'm very pleased that you're willing to share all this.
RD: So, like I said, we had a lot of pole buildings going. Harry Lynch came to work for me. And then by
that time, we had five building crews going and one of the crew leaders sprung off and became our third
salesman.
KM: So, around what year was this?
RD: Well, it went up until about all through the [nineteen] seventies. And we had some big projects: the
bowling alley out north of town was one [laughter]. Like I said, big buildings and the city maintenance
garage and so forth. That's a big one, but a lot of them were just... a lot of thirty-six-point-forty-eights
because they would hold a Friday cherry shaker.
KM: Oh, okay.
RD: So, we built a lot of farm buildings and a few commercials. So, this went on, had a little debate with
the building inspector on one, and then we had a big hassle with the electrical inspector. We had a hog
house going, a big one, and just before the pigs are due to arrive, he came in and said, you're not
meeting the electrical code. The Michigan legislature accepted the bill - the agricultural bill - from the
building, from the electrical bill. I said, “we don't have to have that.” They says you do.
Well, the owner was getting peeved, he says, if that building ain't ready by the time the pigs get here,
I'm going to put half of them in your basement and the other half in the electrical inspector’s
basement.” [Laughter] So, okay, we complied with the law. Even though we weren't supposed to, we did
it real quick. That bill cost us about thirty-five hundred bucks. So, after the dust had settled, I called
down to the State and found out I was right. We didn’t have to send the supervisors a bill for thirty-five
hundred.
KM: Did they ever pay you back?
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
RD: They said, “we won't pay.” Pretty soon I got a call from a prosecuting attorney. I go up there with all
my books and he says, “don't even open your book.” He says, “you're right.” But the supervisor still
wouldn't pay. I said, “you will pay!” They said, “okay, we'll see you in court.” So, I sued the county.
[Laughter]
KM: Did you win?
RD: I collected, but not the full amount; that attorney caved in. So anyway, the building business went
on and in nineteen eighty we could begin to see Farm Bureau Services was making some bad decisions,
big mistakes. This company is teetering. So, we had one fellow in our crowd there, Les Sieber [?], who
was good with legal things. He went and we started to set up a corporation called “Buildings Plus.”
KM: Okay.
RD: And thought we'd have that on the shelf if Farm Bureau collapsed. We never got it on the shelf;
Farm Bureau collapsed. They just wanted to get rid of the building business, they wanted to get rid of
everything. So when we opened the doors of Buildings Plus, we had a hundred thousand dollars’ worth
of sales! They just gave it to us. So, Buildings Plus went on pretty good and went on quite successfully.
KM: And so, you only had the one partner?
RD: Oh, there were ten of us.
KM: There's ten of you?
RD: ...in the corporation. Les Siebert [?] shot himself, not because the corporation, I know he had bad
family problems. We had one of the members die, and so forth. We’d have them over [?], they would
get paid off if they retired or quit or whatever.
KM: Sure.
RD: And this went on until Charlie, as manager - the manager before - he retired, got paid back and I
took over as manager.
KM: So, do you remember what year that was?
RD: It was nineteen eighty-seven and I stayed manager for about seven years and retired.
KM: Okay.
RD: Yeah, and the company then, I don't know, some bad decisions were made or whatever. They
collapsed. Not because I left [laughter], but the company collapsed and this just left me all alone. Oh, I
should go back a little bit. The electrical business.
KM: Yes.
RB: Okay, after that practice with the electrical on that hog house, that kind of t’d [ticked] me off and I
said because, “this guy is
going to have us have to have a license to screw in a bulb; by God, I’ll become an electrician.”
KM: So what year did you become an electrician?
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
RD: Well, it takes time. So, we fudged a few figures because I’ve done some electrical work. And I don't
know, it must have been sometime in the [nineteen] seventies, I went down and took an exam to be…
the Journeyman’s exam, which I passed. And then I waited two years and then I was eligible for the
Masters, which I did. And we were doing pretty good electrical business before long. We had two
electrical crews working, the buildings we built and others, I mean...
KM: So how many building crews did you have at that time? So, you had the two electrical crews and?
RD: Two electricals and I think about five buildings. We went up, at maximum, I think we had about fiftytwo employees then.
KM: Okay.
RD: Because we had a bookkeeper because, of course, computers arose, which I'm not much of a
bookkeeper to start with and with a computer, forget it, you know? [Laughter] But she was good. So
okay, we went through several before we got one that was really good. And we had a receptionist and
had some people at the counter because we also did retail sales. And so, I went over the electrical
business, so that's kind of fun. I enjoyed that.
KM: Okay.
RD: So, after I retired, I still got a little electrical work. Let’s see, Barb died. That was eleven years ago.
Yeah, about eleven and a half years ago, and, you know, the first while after she died, that house was
awful empty. So, I did a lot of work. If I remember right, I did about thirteen thousand dollars’ worth of
electrical work just on the side.
KM: Oh, wow.
RD: And I wasn't trying to do, you know, just whatever came along. But anyway, so I stayed in that until
about... I ran out of gas, so I just got to where unfortunately I'm not as strong as I used to be. I’m slow; I
can't charge people for working like that. So, I don't do much of anything anymore.
KM: So, then you retired and you said nineteen ninety-four from Builders Plus?
RD: No, no. About two thousand two, I think.
KM: Two thousand and two, okay. And then that's when you started the electrical?
RD: Well yeah, we've been doing electrical for about...
KM: Well, I mean…
RD: Buildings Plus had electric crews.
KM: Sure, but you had been working and doing stuff at Buildings Plus until two thousand two.
RD: Yep.
KM: And then you started to take on more electrical.
RD: I just did electrical on my own. Buildings Plus was still doing electrical at that time, they were still
operating under my license.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
KM: Okay.
RD: Which last January I let all my licenses go. I didn't want to pay the bill for them because I can't do
the work.
KM: Sure.
RD: And I'm kind of proud of the fact that a lot of the people that we started at Buildings Plus went on to
do electrical work, including the line superintendent for the city hired. Oh, you know, and a lot of the
people that we got started in the building business went on. I feel good about that. We got people
started out on good things, you know.
KM: That's great.
RD: So that's about it.
KM: Well, let's go back in time because we talked a lot about what you did in terms of work, but you got
married?
RD: Yep.
KM: And so, when you first arrived in Oceana County, what was it like? What was it like to be in Hart, at
that time?
RD: Oh, it was a lot different and it was different socially. We had many more migrants then because
cherries were picked by hand and they were all thought of - the term “Latino” hadn’t become involved they were Mexican. Probably most of them were. And they had the Mexican fiesta downtown. Of
course, downtown was a different looking place due to several fires. Some buildings disappeared, some
were rebuilt. Some got the top floors knocked off. You know, they were… so the landscape changed a
little bit.
And, like I say, the small farmers who were good fellows and all that, nice people, but dairy is very time
consuming. You're stuck fourteen hours a day if you can do the chores in two hours and that's got to be
oppressive. And so, the small dairies went out and the dairies that remained were big enough to where
they could have many people. You didn't have to be there all the time. And then the shift came to… we
always had asparagus, it was always big stuff and of course, there’s a lot more now and the tree fruits,
of course, but then we started in with the truck crops like carrots, squash, pickles... cucumbers. People
always laugh, they aren’t pickles until you pickle them.
[Laughter]
RD: So, yeah, we had a lot more of the farm crops. I mean, like corn, especially corn.
KM: Okay.
RD: We had, well, some very fortunate years where the corn belt had a terrible drought and we didn’t.
And so, and of course, I always was familiar with cherries and like I say the “tree foods” were always big.
But, yeah, Hart changed a lot, like working at Farm Bureau still had the old feed mill. People brought in
grain and had it ground and mixed and so forth. Well, one of our electric projects was rewiring that and
we pulled the old feed mill out and junked it.
13
�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
KM: Okay.
RD: It no longer, I mean, nobody does that anymore.
KM: What year was that?
RD: I can’t tell you for sure.
KM: Decade?
RD: Huh?
KM: What decade?
RD: Oh, it must have been probably early middle [nineteen] eighties, maybe?
KM: Okay.
RD: No, wait a minute. Yeah, it would have been about the middle [nineteen] eighties.
KM: So, when you first moved here before you got married, did you live in sort of downtown Hart or
were you further out?
RD: I rented a room over here for about, oh, six to eight months. And then I built a garage to live in until
I could build a house; that didn't work out too good. I couldn't get a well, so we jacked it up and moved
it and got a well where we moved it to. And that was the house that Barbara and I started; it was real
small.
KM: So where did you move the house?
RD: Over to the west side of town.
KM: The west side of town?
RD: Originally it was on the east side.
KM: Okay.
RD: Yeah, you know this business about you're supposed to be able to be the guy that divides the water
with the… you know, goes along with… the stick dips when he goes [?].
KM: Yes.
RD: We had two of them, one who was sort of an amateur with the stick and one [?] who was supposed
to be super at it. They laid out this van [?] of water. They drilled six holes, three holes up. None of them
had water. I had a hole three hundred and eighty feet deep and no well. I paid half price at that time.
KM: Sure.
RD: So, it was still darned expensive to find out there wasn't water there. So anyway, we moved it over
and they got a good well there, so they're still going.
And I say that was the house that Barbara and I had when we got married. It wasn’t very big. And so we
went along pretty good. We adopted a baby.
14
�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
KM: Okay.
RD: That was okay. The adoption agency said it was pretty small, so by the time we said we're going to
adopt a second one, they said you’ve got to have more room. So, we built the house we’ve got now.
KM: Okay, and where is that still on the west side?
RD: South of town on top of the hill. And I pulled off some of the guys from my crews and got the thing
framed in and we did a lot of work ourselves. Of course, we hired the plasterer. We hired some work,
we hired a lot of the work. Fortunately, we had some money on hand and could finance the thing. Still
kept the small house.
KM: So what year did you move to the second house?
RD: Well, it must have been about fifty years ago. That would make it when? Sometime in the [nineteen]
sixties.
KM: Yes.
RD: Because the first baby we adopted is fifty-one now.
KM: Okay.
RD: And that went on. Then we adopted another one who he lives here in Hart and adopted a girl. And if
we were to be sure we could get another girl, we would have tried adopting a fifth one. But the agency
says, you know, enough already.
KM: What agency did you go through?
RD: Catholic Social Services.
KM: Okay.
RD: You could guess by my mother's maiden name or first name, Magdalena.
KM: Yes.
RD: Who else?
[Laughter]
RD: So that, of course, kids went through the whole school system here at Hart and I think they all got a
pretty good education. I think Hart’s got a good system here, yeah. But, I say there's been a lot of
change in Hart and I think, you know, one of the things kind of impressed me. Like I say, the little
farmers went out and of course, land became so valuable, farmers had access to credit now. And most
of them knew how to do what [?]. I'm really impressed by what some of the young farmers are doing. I
mean, this is computerized and controlled by satellites. You know, we are a long way from what I know
about. And yeah, they go across the field in the fertilizer, putting on more or less fertilizer because the
satellite up there is telling it what to do. So, like I say, this is kind of beyond my scope.
KM: So, do you have any memories besides the ones you've shared about living at Hart?
15
�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
RD: Oh, I have to think about that a little bit. Well, I knew a lot of interesting people. You know, when
you were doing building work, you met people. Oh, I knew Walter, here, you're from fixing his sprinkler
system, which was an annual occasion, it seemed like. [Laughter] And his garage door operator. You
know, you just met a lot of... went to a lot of interesting places.
KM: Okay.
RD: And some are more interesting because they were pleasant and some are more interesting because
they were unpleasant.
KM: Sure.
RD: Yeah, you know, some of the places you did work, you put your boots on to go in.
KM: So, you mentioned one of your children still lives in Hart?
RD: Yeah, Gregory, my youngest boy.
KM: Okay.
RD: He lives in Hart. He works on a farm and he has worked in industry, too, but he likes to work on a
farm. And my daughter lives in Whitehall, so that's not too dreadfully far away. But she did six years in
the Air Force before. And my second oldest son did four years in Germany. Unfortunately, the oldest boy
wanted desperately to get into the Coast Guard, but he could only see with one eye, he was blind in one
eye and they wouldn’t take him. And the youngest boy, would have tried to get into the service, but he
has had seizures and they won’t let him in. They’re pretty picky.
KM: So, do you think one of the reasons why they wanted to go into the service was because you were
in the service?
RD: I think it was just expected that people did about then. You know, I mean they had the draft; it was
Vietnam and we still had the draft running.
KM: Sure.
RD: So, you joined, I think maybe Mark was drafted. I can't remember.
KM: Okay.
RD: Anyway, you know, I went in ROTC and if I hadn't, I'd have been drafted.
KM: So, and I forgot to ask you this earlier when you were talking about your parents, since your dad
was first generation and your mom was second generation German, did you grow up speaking any
German?
RD: I wish I had; they both spoke German whenever they wanted to talk about something they didn't
want us to know. [Laughter] But I should’ve learned German then.
KM: Okay.
RD: My uncle spoke German; I should have. I couldn't recognize things in German when I got to
Germany. But Germany is like here, there's a lot of difference between South Germany and North
Germany. You know, just like Georgia…
16
�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
KM: Sure.
RD: ...and New England.
KM: Okay.
RD: Where did you come from? Are you…?
KM: So I'm adopted. I was adopted from South Korea.
RD: Oh, okay.
KM: Yep, and I grew up in western New York actually. So, I grew up in Rochester.
RD: Oh, yeah. Rochester is in the Lake Plains region.
KM: Yes.
RD: That's the fruit growing region for New York.
KM: Yes, it is.
RD: That's kind of an interesting background. You ought to put something… [laughter].
KM: So, did any of your children get into building then? You mentioned your one son did a little bit.
RD: He worked with us at Buildings Plus for a little while.
KM: Oh, okay.
RD: He didn't get along the best… he isn’t a person that works good with other people. But we were
building at that time a big structural steel building and he was good at that because he wasn't afraid of
heights.
KM: Oh wow, okay.
RD: So, you know, he could get up there.
And I had a couple of people that were very good at heights, you know. One guy, whether it was three
feet off the ground or thirty - it was all the same. You could walk around then, so, you know. And it's
kind of sad. He comes to our church now and he's got Alzheimer's disease and you think, boy, how able
he was and now, you know, it's kind of sad.
KM: And so, what do you think of Hart today?
RD: I think Hart’s doing good. You know, the buildings are up. Well, they're having a little trouble
keeping some of them occupied. But, you know, the town is in good shape. We don't have a slum. Well,
we don’t have a slum area or anything like that. They keep the streets up nice, the town looks good, and
I think Hart's doing very well. And which is pretty hard to do in small town USA because your businesses
can't compete with the big box stores. So, it's just hard to keep a business going in Hart, supermarkets,
that type of thing - food.
17
�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
But we had a very good clothing store here, Powers [?], and they had to shut down; they couldn't
compete. I really hated to see them go because they were really helpful. And well, we’ve got one
hardware store left in town. We had two or three. Of course, again, the same thing - how do they
compete?
KM: Yeah.
RD: But I think Hart is keeping the town looking good and reasonably prosperous for a small town. I
think they're doing good.
KM: Okay, so remember that this interview will be saved for a long time.
RD: Oh, okay.
KM: So, when someone listens to this tape fifty plus years from now, what would you like them to know
about your life and community?
RD: I don't know; I don’t know what they'll be interested in then.
KM: Well, what do you think is... from all of your fifty some odd years living in Hart, what do you think is
something that you want people to remember?
RD: I think I’d like them to remember some of the people here that I think were so good. Some of the
people in our church that I always thought were so remarkable. One of the farm families out here, Helen
Gilliland, and I think everybody ought to remember her. She was such a remarkable woman; not that
she had years of college, but, boy, she was intelligent. I don't know, I guess, I think some of the people
that built things up here or some of the farmers that established. I think Greiner Farms out here that
started processing their own fruit and have grown very large. Todd Greiner out here… around here,
when you say Greiner, that doesn't narrow it down very far - there’s a lot of them.
KM: Okay.
RD: But anyway, Todd Greiner did the same thing, build up a very successful business. Yeah, I think they
ought to remember people like that and how much they did.
I suppose you ought to remember some of the politicals. Yeah, we've had, I think, some outstanding
mayors and some not so outstanding.
KM: So, can you give me an example of maybe an outstanding mayor?
RD: So, I’m trying to think. I think Harry Lynch did well, the guy that was a salesman for us. I think, I can't
pick out… of course, I'm not in the city.
KM: Sure.
RD: But I think, you know, I can't pick a particular one, but I think they've done a good job with the
town.
KM: Okay.
RD: And then, of course, you also have city managers. And I think the one we’ve got now - oh, I ought to
know his name. I'm getting old, I don't remember a thing like that.
18
�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
KM: That’s okay.
RD: We had some that I thought were really poor, but hey, I wasn't paying their wages so I guess I
shouldn't say too much. [Laughter]
KM: So, do you have any advice to a young person who may be listening to this tape?
RD: I guess my ID's are pretty outdated, but I think people ought to look for getting into a job that
produces a tangible result. Everybody is producing printouts and pictures and games, but I think we
ought to go back. We ought to have some engineers and we ought to have tradesmen.
KM: Okay.
RD: Boy, it is hard to find people who can take the blueprint and build something out of it. I mean, you
know, polymer sheet metal workers, mechanical contractors; the ones that are here do very well.
KM: Yes.
RD: But it's hard to find people to do that. And kids aren't interested in it. They want to do things that
are to do with computers and what have you. So, I think… well, I guess what I thought is they ought to
look into the trades.
KM: Okay, and then is there anything else that you'd like to share that I have not asked you?
RD: I think we've covered an awful lot. [Laughter] I think you’ve got it.
KM: Alrighty, well, thank you so much for your time and for sharing your memories with me.
19
�
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/abf077a2a53c54c7afd9dce147755bed.mp3
fefc2059101959bdad91a7bd497128d7
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Oceana County Migrant Labor History Collection
Creator
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Shell-Weiss, Melanie
Description
An account of the resource
Collection contains images and documents digitized and collected through the project "Growing Community: A Century of Migration in Oceana County." This project was a collaboration between El Centro Hispano de Oceana, the Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society, and Grand Valley State University funded by a Common Heritage grant from the United States National Endowment for the Humanities. The materials in this collection document the history of communities in Hart, Shelby, and Walkerville and explore themes of migration, labor, religion, family, belonging, national and cultural identities, regional, national, and international connections, and citizenship.
Coverage
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Oceana County (Mich.)
Source
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Grand Valley State University. Kutsche Office of Local History
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives
Contributor
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El Centro Hispano de Oceana; Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society
Relation
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Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage project)
Identifier
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DC-06
Format
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application/pdf
image/jpeg
audio/mp3
Type
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Text
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Sound recording
Language
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eng
spa
Date
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2016
Subject
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Oceana County (Mich.)
Hart (Mich.)
Shelby (Mich.)
Farms
Farmers
Migrant agricultural laborers
Hispanic Americans
Account books
Diaries
Oral history
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
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The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
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DC-06_Dold_Ralph
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Dold, Ralph
Date
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2016-06-18
Title
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Dold, Ralph (audio interview and transcript)
Description
An account of the resource
Oral history interview with Ralph Dold. Interviewed by Kimberly McKee on June 18, 2016 in Hart, Michigan. English language. Ralph Dold was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1931 as the son of first and second generation German immigrants. His childhood was spent in Detroit during the Great Depression before moving to Milford, Michigan for high school. Ralph later attended Michigan State University and majored in “Crops & Soils” after being a member of the Future Farmers of America while in high school. After graduating from college and serving in the army, he relocated to Hart, Michigan in 1957 where he served as the 4-H Agent and later worked for Farm Bureau Services.
Contributor
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McKee, Kimberly (interviewer)
Subject
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Oceana County (Mich.)
Detroit (Mich.)
Hart (Mich.)
Farms
Farmers
Future Farmers of America
Michigan State University
Audio recordings
Source
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Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage)
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
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Sound
Text
Format
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audio/mp3
application/pdf
Language
A language of the resource
eng
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/89178933013f4019c6fdb8ff257d0b69.pdf
cb5031c1aa558df4d19712edcad28135
PDF Text
Text
Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
Larry Byl Interview
Interviewed by Walter Urick
June 18, 2016
Transcript
WU: My name is Walter Urick, and I'm here today with Larry Byl. We're at the Hart Area Library in Hart,
Michigan. The date is Saturday, June 18th, 2016. And the purpose for this meeting is to obtain the oral
history of the Byl family. The oral history’s being collected as part of the Growing Community Project,
which is supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities Common
Heritage Program.
Larry, I just want to thank you for taking this time to talk to me today. I'm interested to learn more
about your family history and your experiences living and working in Oceana County. Now, your full legal
name is what, Larry?
LB: Walter Lawrence Wesley Byl.
WU: And your date of birth and place of birth?
LB: Date of birth is March 7th, 1957. And the location was Grand Rapids, Michigan.
WU: Now, do you have any siblings?
1
�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
LB: I have three brothers and one sister.
WU: Would you name each one for me?
LB: Sure. The oldest was Margaret, followed by Paul, me, brother John, and then Tom.
WU: And let's talk about your parents for a few minutes. Your father's name?
LB: My father's name is Peter Byl. No middle initial or no middle name. And my mom was [?] Byl
WU: And her maiden name?
LB: Her name. Her maiden name was Westers.
WU: Tracing the background of your parents and may get you to your grandparents…
LB: Yep.
WU: Sort of describe, as best you can, how your family eventually ended up in Oceana County and
where did we start?
LB: Sure.
WU: In the Netherlands or some other part of the world?
LB: Sure. I'm going to go way back because I think you might find it interesting on my mother's side, if
you go back far enough, back when Napoleon was the ruler in France, they conscripted soldiers,
including a fellow from Algeria, which would have been a great-great-grandfather of mine. And he, I'm
going to say, abandoned… he didn't see eye to eye with Napoleon, so he deserted them, Poland's army,
before Waterloo and went to Holland because the Netherlands was one location that accepted people
regardless of race and religion. While his name, they couldn't pronounce it, so they called him France,
which is French [?], which means outcast. So, my grandmother's maiden name was [?]. And so I come
from a varied background. He obviously fell in love with a Dutch woman and they got married. And my
dad's family came from the northern part of the Netherlands called Friesland. And in Friesland, they're
known as either farmers, predominantly dairy farmers, because there's a lot of grass there or they were
known as a fisherman. So, my dad's family came and they're also known as being hardheaded. So, my
mom and dad actually didn't meet until 1948 in a boat coming from the Netherlands to the United
States. And I'm going to give you a tiny bit of background to that. My dad's family was farmers and my
mom's family... my grandfather was a Christian school principal and he moved around to several
different schools. Well, you have to understand, during World War II, Germany occupied the
Netherlands for about five years. So, my parents were both in their early teens during the war, which
would have been a horrible time. And so, they both knew what it was like to live under martial law. And
also, they knew what it was like to not have food all of the time. My parents, my grandparents, this
would be my dad's mom and dad, their farmhouse on January 1, 1945 was accidentally bombed by the
allies. What would happen is the Canadians and the Americans and the British would fly into Germany
and if they had any bombs left over, they would look for opportunities to let those bombs go. And it just
so happened, my grandparents lived fairly close to a railroad track. So, they let the bombs go and they
missed the railroad tracks and accidentally hit my dad's house. So, for six months to a year, they had to
live with another family. They were able to salvage the bricks and rebuild a smaller house like the typical
Dutch. But you have to understand, they had nothing. I mean, they had two cows, I think, at the time of
2
�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
the war. And the night that their house was bombed, one of the cows was killed and taken away. So,
but, I never heard my grandparents complain. But in 1948, they had an opportunity. A man by the name
of George Welch, who was the mayor of Grand Rapids, was visiting the Netherlands. And he was doing
that because he was, I believe, the president of the United States Mayors Association. And he was
looking at the rebuilding of Europe at that time. And one of his business partners was a lady by the
name of Margaret de Groot. George Welch and Margaret de Groot owned a newspaper in Grand Rapids
and she owned a farm just east of Grand Rapids in the Rockford/ Lowell area, and she was in need of
some crop farmers to share... to work that farm and share the crops with her. So, my dad's family, when
they met George Welch, they set up an interview and within three or four weeks, they went through all
of the process. And because their house had been bombed by the Americans, they were put on a fast
track to come to America. Well, my mom had just finished college in the Netherlands and she came to
the United States to spend six months with some of her [?] family members who were...
WU: Can you spell that name?
LB: No, I cannot.
WU: All right. I know the recorder/ transcriber is going to have difficulty with that, but continue on.
LB: It starts with [?].
WU: [Laughter]
LB: And they... she went to Chicago to stay with some cousins for six months because she really had a
traveling bug. So, she had finished her college and she met my dad's family on the boat. So that's how
my mom and dad met.
WU: Was your dad on that boat, too?
LB: My dad actually had flown to America just before the rest of the family because my dad had an
invitation to join the Dutch army and fight in Indonesia, which was seeking independence. And they said
if you leave now, you do not have to join the Dutch army and fight in the jungles of Indonesia. So, my
dad was already over at the... what we call the Marcadia Farm, and that would be the farm located at
992 6 Mile Road, Rockford, Michigan. And that's where my mom met my dad because my mom enjoyed
my dad's family. And when she went to Chicago, they said, well, gosh, you're close enough. Why don't
you spend a month over there? Because she always enjoyed rural living. And this got her out of Chicago
for a month. Well, she fell in love with my dad, but what happened then was she had to go back to the
Netherlands because she applied for a permanent visa and they said that there's a quota. We only allow
so many Dutchmen in the United States at any one time. So, she had to go back to the Netherlands for
two years. She did and just about the time her two years was over, my dad, this would be 1950, had an
invitation to join the U.S. Army and fight in Korea. So, my dad was in the U.S. Army, but instead of being
stationed in Korea, he was stationed in Germany because he knew German, Dutch, English, and he was a
medic there in Germany with the U.S. Army. So needless to say, my mom then came to America and she
actually worked with my grandparents on the farm at Rockford for two years until my dad got out of the
army. So, they got married and within the next seven years had five children.
WU: Now, the farm in Rockford, as best you know, what type of crops or what kind of farming activities
were involved that your dad apparently had to participate in or...
3
�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
LB: My grandfather and father were both dairy farmers from the time they were little. This was... we
considered it a huge dairy farm. There were between 30 and 32 cows that they milked. And it was a
pretty modern farm with all of the tractors and they raised most of their own crops. And it was a
wonderful place to live.
My mom, on the other hand, hated the idea of being tied down twenty-four hours a day, seven days a
week. My mom loved to travel and explore, so she convinced my dad because my dad took over that
farm when my grandparents, after working the farm for five years, had saved enough money to buy
their own farm. She convinced my dad to let her go back to college with five little kids at home and she
went to Calvin College because that was very close and also because they could read the Dutch
transcripts from her college days in the Netherlands. So, they gave her about two years credit and over
the course of the next five or six years, she got her teaching degree from Calvin College. And in about
1966, they purchased an eighty-acre fruit farm in the western end of Oceana County.
WU: How did it happen that they got to Oceana? Was there a story behind that or is it just they found it
somehow?
LB: Now, how did they find… did they run out of gas as they were heading up north? I think it came
down to they asked friends from their church. Many of the Dutch, especially the Dutch, they came to
America, go to either... either went or currently attend Reformed and Christian Reformed churches. And
that's been the case from about 1860 on. And so, I'm sure my parents were talking with other friends in
church and they were put in touch with some friends in New Era Reformed Church. And one of the first
area farmers that they met was Gord Vanderslice’s parents. And there was a farm for sale. There were
several. One was in Ferry Township and one was in Benona Township. The one in Benona was owned by
an estate of Pete Burmeister and they looked that over. They asked Mr. Vanderslice to look it over and
he said, wow, a lot of blow sand and it's not the most productive, but it was pretty. There were a lot of
old apple trees. My parents didn't realize the old apple trees weren't necessarily an asset, but it had
peaches and sweet cherries and they could see a future. And more importantly, my mom could see that
she wouldn't be tied down to the farm seven days a week.
WU: Did away from the cow situation.
LB: The cows, where you had to milk twice a day every day. And so, my parents, I told Mrs. de Groot
they had purchased their own farm. So, there actually was an auction sale and the equipment on the
other farm was sold and the cattle were sold. Other than my dad could not get away from cattle
altogether. So, when they moved to Oceana County, my dad brought one cow with him. Now you'd have
to realize how much milk one cow produces. Even with five kids and with cousins staying with us most of
the summer, that cow was producing so much milk that my dad would make buttermilk. Well, you make
buttermilk by taking sour milk and churning it. That was a lot of work. My dad, actually, and mom had an
extra washing machine, so they used that extra washing machine to churn the sour milk and turn it into
buttermilk. And then there's a dish. It's called [?]. And I'm sorry, Walter, I can't spell that either. But [?] is
a Dutch buttermilk pudding. And I just remember when I was ten years old having [?] for breakfast,
lunch and supper. And to this day, I can't stand it. And so, that's how my parents got started here. And
within the following two years, between 1966 and ‘68, they purchased another hundred acres of
agricultural land from a neighbor by the name of Leo Dzur, D-Z-U-R, and Leo was an immigrant from
Germany, and he had two daughters who had both moved out of the area and it was time for him to
4
�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
give up farming. So, that's how my parents got really started. And my mom, true to her word, started
teaching that fall the year that we moved here.
WU: Where did your mom teach?
LB: My mom taught in Ferry’s school for the first two years and then moved to Shelby’s school, where
she taught for seventeen more years.
WU: Did she teach actually at Shelby or out at Benona or?
LB: She taught right at Shelby itself.
WU: And what...
LB: Fourth and fifth grade.
WU: So, she was the fourth and fifth grade teacher.
LB: Yes.
WU: That's quite a story. So now, let's see, you had an eighty-acre farm and a one-hundred-acre farm.
LB: Yes.
WU: So now your dad is in charge of one hundred and eighty acres, correct? Did that... all I want to do is
briefly trace the farming experience of your father before we go further. Did he acquire more land or
was one hundred and eighty acres basically his farm?
LB: My dad was able to, over the next ten years, acquire another forty acres at the end of Shelby Road
and Scenic Drive and another 40 on Woodrow Road next to the Dzur farm. And that was pretty much it
until my oldest brother, like a lot of farms, the oldest son stayed on the farm and farmed with their
father. My brother Paul went to Michigan State University for a two-year Ag. degree, and when he took
over then fifty percent ownership, they acquired some additional land after that because obviously
farming became even more mechanized as more modern sprayers, faster tractors and things like that.
WU: OK, so basically, he had probably over three hundred acres that they actually owned.
LB: Yes, by 1975 he had three hundred acres that they owned.
WU: So, he had about three hundred acres they actually owned. I don't know if he went out and leased
property?
LB: He did not.
WU: Okay, so what I'd like you to describe is the type of farming activities that were involved in this
three-hundred-acres. I'm not sure if it was asparagus, cherries or the whole nine yards. You sort of
describe it.
LB: Yep. And, Walter, if it's okay, I might describe a little bit, too, us boys, the Byl boys, because there
were four of us, from time to time, we could work for a neighbor by the name of Vernon Bull, who was
one of the pioneer food processing and growers from Casnovia, who bought a second operation in
Oceana County next door to my dad. And over the course of thirty years, when my dad would try and
buy a farm, invariably Vernon would be there and once in a while they'd have to flip a coin to see who
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
could buy it or try to outbid each other. It was a relationship that was OK, but I'm sure there were times
when it wasn't the best. But Vernon was able to hire us, along with a number of other young men in
Oceana County for both horticulture purposes and for cherry processing. He had one of the first cherry
processing plants along the lakeshore. And I remember asking Vernon why he wanted to get into the
food processing business when just raising crops was a full-time job. Vernon explained to me in his
particular case, he was largely along Lake Michigan, which meant that he was about a week later than
the cherry crops closer to Hart and Shelby. Typically, along the lake, it's a little bit cooler and that holds
back the fruit in the springtime and then the summer. It might be eighty degrees in town, but it'll be
seventy degrees close to Lake Michigan. What Vernon had a problem with since he was on the tail-end
of the production, if he brought his cherries in at that time to either Hart or Shelby, but if the processing
plant had fulfilled their contract, they were no longer interested in processing more fruit. So, by Vernon
having his own food processing/ cherry processing plant, he felt he could then market the processed
fruit. He ended up building freezer plants to go along with the food processing plant so that he could
store it. So, my dad was able to take advantage of that from time to time, as well, because that's the one
thing we found out. You really want to have multiple food processors as opposed to being so reliant on
only a single food processor. And basically, you're at their mercy.
WU: Well, I'm going to want to talk to you more in detail about your youth and working for Vernon Bull.
But before we get there, I want you to describe as best you can your father and maybe your brother’s
farming operation at its peak. What are you producing or growing? And approximately how many acres,
if you know.
LB: Yeah, my father, when he first started in Oceana County, he had to learn everything. I mean,
everything from the standpoint of what we call stone fruit here, peaches and cherries. He was used to
corn and hay and cattle. There's a difference, but it's not all that great. And, you know, we had a
wonderful neighbor with Vernon Ball. One of his employees helped us if my dad had questions. And of
course, the chemical dealers were always happy to help you and sell product. My dad's main crops the
first few years, when we bought the farm, there were probably twenty acres of apple trees with
probably twenty-five different varieties. You had varieties called “Snows.” You had “Kings,” you had
apples that we would call them today, vintage varieties. And like the snow apple, for instance, would be
a lot like a Macintosh. But when you bite into it, it's really white on the inside. And that apple’s specialty
was as a caramel apple because once you had caramel and you bite into it, it was really wonderful to see
that white.
Now, Pete Burmeister, when he had all of these trees planted, had his own little packing plant and
would bring apples to various vendors. Well, my dad didn't have the patience to learn about all of the
varieties. And at that time, cherries were becoming a bigger and bigger thing because cherries in about
1966, when we moved here to Oceana County, you really started seeing more Shaker's. Now, what the
shaker did was it took away your need to have hundreds of pickers to harvest the cherries. So, my dad
planted a lot of cherries. We had probably fifteen acres of peaches, largely Clingstone. A Freestone
peach would be the type of peach that you would sell in the store. A Kingstone peach, we used to sell to
Gerber's and that was used for food processing.
My dad also, on the whole, Leo Desoer farm, the one hundred acres, he ended up planting asparagus
when he bought that, it was open and old cherries. Over the course of about six or seven years, he
removed the old cherries and we planted all of that into asparagus. My dad was probably one of the
larger asparagus growers in the early ‘70s.
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
WU: So, cherries... peaches, and asparagus…
LB: …peaches and asparagus. And really moved away from apples completely until maybe ten years ago.
WU: Well, now I want to take you back to your boyhood days and give an idea, first, what it was like
growing up and what kind of farm chores, if any, you had to participate in. First, maybe at home and
then maybe Bull Orchard?
LB: At home, when we moved to Oceana County, the biggest job was, of course, harvesting of the fruit.
And we were not large enough to own a cherry shaker. So, all of our cherries were harvested by hand,
starting with about three to four acres of sweet cherries, which doesn't sound like very much today. But
that job kept us busy for probably two weeks and then we moved to the sour cherries. Then, of course,
just before that was thinning the peaches and then the harvesting of the peaches. And by that time, we
were just so happy to have school started. We were... most of us were happy to get off the farm and
back to the school.
WU: So, basically what you're saying is you're one of the harvesters.
LB: Yeah.
WU: And this is at an age of ten or eight?
LB: Yep.
WU: As you get into your early teens, did your father have to hire harvesters outside of family and
neighbors and so forth?
LB: Because my mother's family, she has four siblings and they all moved to the Grand Rapids area. And I
have probably twenty-five cousins, about the same age as our family, little younger. And most of those
cousins in the summertime spent two or three weeks helping harvest.
WU: So, this was a family - extended family - effort.
LB: It was very much an extended family effort. We, at that time, we saw quite a few migrants, including
some blacks that maybe came up from Chicago, but our farm did not employ it. It's not that we wouldn't
have, but we had enough family members where we were able to harvest with our family.
WU: Do you have any vivid memories, good or bad, of when you were a kid working on the farm, that
you would care to make part of our interview here?
LB: Sure. One of our cousins would not like me sharing this, but I had a cousin by the name of Peter
Westers and he was one of the youngest cousins. He was two. Now, these were the days when you had
the whole family out in the orchard. My aunt, typically my aunt and all of the kids, several aunts. And
Peter was two and he was very fond of eating cherries. The problem was he would eat cherries, pits and
all and he was still in a diaper. And about ten or eleven o'clock in the day, he would start crying because
as he was sitting, those cherry pits would become very uncomfortable. So, we always used to tease
Peter about that.
Another memory that I have was our first year here in 1966, Vernon Ball had purchased some existing
orchards in close proximity and those orchards were being transitioned - this was a cherry orchard - to
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
mechanically harvesting. So, what you had was, we call it a double incline shaker, with a little limb
shaker - didn't shake the whole tree, just the little limb. But in order to get the tarps underneath the
trees, you had to cut the lower branches. Well, before they cut the lower branches, they asked all of the
neighbors if we would go and, for fifty cents a bucket, pick the lowest limbs. Well at fifty cents a bucket,
I remember one day as a ten-year-old picking like twenty-five buckets and earning an ungodly amount of
money, at least from my perspective, and my mom keeping all of us in toll and which was a whole lot
nicer than picking my dad's orchards, which required a ladder and to reach all the way to the top.
WU: Well, I'm going to switch subjects and go on to your educational background. Starting in
elementary, I’m not sure if you ended up in the village of Shelby or if you were out in the Benona
schools. I assume it was the latter, but…
LB: Yep, I am fortunate. I say fortunate in that for my first three years of school, I actually went to a tiny
one room schoolhouse. This was back near Lowell... Talbot. And we had around eighteen students and
four of those eighteen were Byl kids. And I tell my children and now grandchildren that I can still name
all of my classmates in first, second and third grade, both of them. So, when we moved in 1966, we went
to Benona school, which had around twenty kids per class and some classes had two grades, most had
one grade, and that went through eighth grade. And some of my fondest memories there were you
didn't have to try out for the basketball team, you automatically made it. And we had the most fun on
Wednesday nights playing against New Era, New Era Christian, Weare, Golden. We didn't play against
the big schools of Shelby and Hart, but we played at the State Street gym here in Hart and gosh, I was
just very... those are fond memories for me.
WU: Any teachers in your elementary years that stand out in your mind that maybe helped mold you or
mentor you in any way?
LB: I had very decent teachers in Benona. Probably the best English teacher I had was a lady who... Mrs.
Hammond. And she was one of those individuals who was very frank with you. And this is in seventh and
eighth grade. She taught English and spelling and some of the others, but she hated math. So, she and
Dennis Tucker traded places for those classes. And I remember her giving me a dictionary, which I still
have. And she said, “Larry, you're smart, but you can't spell worth a damn. I want you to look up your
words whenever you have a question so that you don't get it wrong.” And that was probably a very good
thing in the seventh or eighth grader to have a teacher be that honest. And I still have that little
dictionary.
WU: So Benona schools took you through the eighth grade. Is that what you're telling me?
LB: Yes.
WU: Okay, so you finished the eighth grade and where did you go from there for high school?
LB: From there I went to Shelby High School with a class of about one hundred and ten kids and I took
your normal classes, except I did take various what I call FFA - Future Farmers of America - classes.
Shelby had... Hart had a very good auto mechanic class where some of my friends went to Hart for two
hours a day for that with Larry Wagner. Shelby had a very good Ag. program and a shop program with
Tom Carey, a woodshop and a metal shop. So, they really had some very good vocational training back
then between the two schools.
WU: Between the two schools…
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
LB: Yeah, between the two schools. So, I took agriculture classes my last three years and FFA became a
bigger part of my life along with my brother. And I learned parliamentary procedure and I took a forestry
class which I didn't do real well in. But, in general, it was... I enjoyed it immensely and it served me well.
WU: In terms of your high school experience, again, is there a high school teacher that stands out in
your memory or is special?
LB: In high school, I would say I had a… it's amazing how you connect with people that are close to your
age. And we did have a single female teacher who by the name of Becky Gill, and she taught English and
it seemed like most of us really could relate to her. And then also another English teacher by the name
of Shirley Haeg. And one reason why I could connect with Shirley, her maiden name when she was first
at Shelby High School was Bylsma. So, there was a little bit of kindred spirit there and she taught drama.
And so, for plays, I had her and again, just a very good teacher. And she ended up becoming a minister.
She was a minister at the church here in Hart Congregational for several years.
WU: Her last name is…
LB: Haeg, Shirley Haeg.
WU: Yes, that’s interesting. Before I get you into college, I want to go back and visit the Bull situation
and your work experience there. Just briefly, what you and your brothers were doing for...
LB: Sure. The first time we worked for the Bulls was, of course, when Vernon Bull purchased this orchard
close to our farm. And we got it as ten, eleven, twelve-year-old kids picking all the low branches. So, we
thought Vernon was the best because we always didn't get paid when we worked for our parents. So,
we really wanted to work for Vernon. Vernon, in 1971, there was a pretty big cherry crop and he needed
more people to work in the cherry processing plant. And that was about three weeks, three and a half
weeks, worth of work. And at age fourteen, he first of all, grabbed my brother Paul, who was sixteen. I
was fourteen. So, I went there the next day asking him if I could work. And then he ended up hiring my
brother John, who was thirteen at the time. I was... the only criteria, Vernon said, was if anyone asks,
tell them you're 16. So, I got to work, what they called an IQF, which is an individual quick freeze. And
what that would do was take the sour cherries after they're pitted and a certain amount of those
cherries went through the IQF machine and I was to box them up and to keep it running. And so, I filled
boxes and stacked it for about three and a half weeks. And then my brother, John, was able to run the
cooling pad with the forklift outside and Paul was running one of the three shakers.
WU: So, the Byl boys were running this plant that... teenage years, basically, with some adult
supervision.
LB: Some adult supervision. And of course, we felt very special because I was working with folks like Kim
Griffin from Shelby and another fellow who I think is an attorney or a judge in Kalamazoo, Doug
Burmeister. And so, they were all older than us, but they treated us... as long as we did our job, they
treated us as an equal.
WU: Well, briefly, describe your years, your educational years after Shelby High. From there you went
where?
LB: OK. From Shelby High School, I went to Hope College. And, actually, by the time I was sixteen, I
worked on Dad's Farm and Vernon Bull and I have a little bit of my mom's blood; I wanted to do some
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
exploring. So, I asked my parents if I could go out west and work for an uncle who was the head
gardener for Henry Kaiser from Kaiser Steel and Aluminum, who had a summer estate in the Puget
Sound off Seattle. And it was probably a three-hundred-acre estate with seven homes and greenhouse.
And I was one of seven gardeners. And I got to use my farming skills, which was spraying, weeding,
mowing, and I really enjoyed that.
WU: This was the summer of your junior year or going into your senior year?
LB: I actually worked out there for three different summers.
WU: OK.
LB: So that gave me just a little different perspective because like a lot of kids, when you’re sixteen,
seventeen, eighteen, you know, mom and dad isn't the brightest. At least they didn't seem that way at
the time. And you want to spread your own wings. And I just really credit my parents for saying, OK, as
long as Paul stays because he's the most gifted in terms of driving a tractor and helping out with the
farm. But I know my interest was not going to be the farm. At least I thought that was the case. And so,
then I went to Hope College for four years and got into real estate my sophomore year of Hope College.
WU: What type of program were you on at Hope from an educational standpoint.
LB: Econ and Poli Sci.
WU: Okay, and then you started to tell me about getting interested in real estate. So, let's pick it up
from there.
LB: Sure. My sophomore year at Hope College, I talked to Pete Wickstra, who I knew from church, and
he had a son a few years older than me who had dropped out of law school and had gone back into their
family real estate business and was obviously doing very well financially. And that looked like something
of some interest to me. And Pete Wickstra was interested in mentoring someone who could work with
Jim Wickstra and so that was the start of what would eventually become a partnership. And then
eventually I bought out Jim Wickstra as he retired early.
WU: So that's what you ended up as your life's work, basically?
LB: My life's work was real estate. But an interesting aspect if we get back to the agriculture...
WU: Yes, that's where I was hoping...
LB: In ‘91, ‘92, I was involved in my largest development project. I, and two other partners, purchased a
Girl Scout camp at School Section Lake, and we subdivided that into forty waterfront lots and cleaned
that up and sold that. And I did very, very well in that project. Now, what I did with the profits from that
project, I turned around and purchased a one hundred sixty-acre asparagus farm in Walkerville. So here I
went from couldn't wait to get away from the farm to wanting to purchase a farm and recognizing how
capital intensive a farm is because in addition to the land, you either have to have trees or in my case,
asparagus roots, which is going to cost you another ton of money and then the equipment and then
making sure you have labor to harvest, which might mean housing. So, I got into a pretty good-sized
asparagus operation and one of the reasons was I had three young children and I realized my children
did not have to work. I had to work growing up. There was no... never any question. If we wanted to eat,
if we wanted a bicycle, if we wanted anything, we had to work for it. My children did not have that
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
luxury. I mean, they were… I'm not going to say they were born with a silver spoon, but how could I say
we can't afford to buy you a new bike? So, by purchasing this asparagus farm and intentionally I stuck
with asparagus because pretty much by the Fourth of July, you're done with the crop. You're done
harvesting. You've closed it and there's still some minimal upkeep, but it's not like cherries and peaches
where you're slaving and working hard all summer. This still gave... I expected my kids to work hard and
I paid them well. And being the Dutchmen that I am, by paying them well, they could then pay for part
of their college. I could deduct the amount that I paid them and write it off as an expense.
WU: And they reported income at a lower bracket.
LB: ...at a lower bracket. So, it worked out well. Plus, if I would have simply paid for their education,
which I could have done, it… I don't think they would have appreciated it as much. Now, they had their
own money to decide, “Hey, do I really want Hope College.” And my three kids went to Hope college,
and one went to Northwestern in Chicago, and my daughter went to Syracuse. Now the one that went
to Northwestern was about double what Hope College was and Hope College was fifty percent more
than U of M, where he had been accepted. But Northwestern just had the feel for him and for him that
was the right choice. But he knew he would never have a car while at college like my son, oldest son, did
at Hope. You make sacrifices and that's okay.
WU: Probably to fill out your family tree, so to speak, you were married when?
LB: I graduated from Hope College and got married in 1979.
WU: And your wife's full name?
LB: My wife's full name is Ann Chase Davenport. And now, of course, Ann Chase Byl.
WU: Right.
LB: And she is from New Jersey. Her father... she's the youngest of four children and her father was a
CPA at Rutgers University. And Mom was a stay at home mom who ended up doing some tax work later
in life.
WU: And you met Ann where?
LB: At Hope College.
WU: And was she in your class or?
LB: She was in my class.
WU: So, both of you graduated about the same time from Hope.
LB: Yes.
WU: And right from college, did you come back to Oceana immediately or was there an interlude there?
LB: No, because I was working in the real estate business in the summers. By the time I was a senior at
Hope College, I had a Monday night class, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday; Thursday night I was back
here in Shelby working real estate Friday, Saturday...
WU: With Wickstra?
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
LB: With Wickstra.
WU: Okay.
LB: So, I was working three days a week at Wickstra and my wife was a business major and right out of
college she got a job at Silver Mills Food Processing in Accounts Payable.
WU: Henry Perlowitz [?] and his gang came to town.
LB: Yes.
WU: Gosh, Dan Bernson [?] was a great friend of mine and I really miss Stan. [?] He's still alive, but I just
don't get a chance to socialize with him like I did once upon a time in my life, but that's an aside. Why
don't you name your children and best you can, at least, the years they were born.
LB: Sure. I have three children. My oldest is Ben. He was born in or around 1981. Then I have Jacob.
Jacob was born around 1983. And then I have Christa, who was born around 1986.
WU: And all these children, I'm sure, are out of the nest now.
LB: They are all out of the nest. They are all married. My oldest, Ben, went to Hope College and this is
going to tie in with the farming.
WU: Okay.
LB: Ben graduated with a history degree. Now, why my kids were liberal arts instead of having
something practical, I don't know. But he was a history major and out of college, he really didn't know
what to do. So, he actually went into the Peace Corps and was in Madagascar for two and a half years
where he worked in ecology, they called it, and in agriculture. And that really stirred his interest in that
area. So, when he got back, he asked me to continue with the farming operation. In fact, we bought
another 40 or 80 acres in just east of Shelby for fruit production and Ben then went and enrolled in a
two-year master's program at Michigan State in Ag. Research, Fruit Tree Research, and started farming
full- time and met an absolutely wonderful gal from Kent City, Amber [?], whose parents are big apple
growers and neighbors of Vernon Bull. And so, Ben, today... she, Amber, was also in the Peace Corps and
they had met at a Peace Corps event. And so, Ben is farming with his father-in-law, which allowed me to,
as I semi-retire, I ended up selling my asparagus farm two years ago to Ryan and Chris Mahlberg. [?] I
was holding the farm back in case Ben wanted to farm full-time, recognizing it’s so capital intensive. If
there isn't some help from the parents, it's never going to happen right away.
WU: Right. But at this point, it's more or less working. Did he marry this gal?
LB: Yes, he married this gal; that is his wife.
WU: And so, he's working with his in-laws?
LB: And he's working with his in-laws. He puts on a lot of miles with his little S-10 pickup. He still has the
eighty-acre farm here in Shelby, and that's largely cherries and apples, some cherries. And so, he and his
wife, she works for Gordon Food Services buying products, especially fruits and vegetables for them
because of her background. And they do a Farmer's Market on Fulton Street and in Rockford on Fridays
and Saturdays. And they help run the family farm at Kent City, as well as the Shelby farm,
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
WU: Well, I'm going to lead you into community activity because I know you're very much involved in
that. And then we'll see if there's anything special you want to say and items that I haven't touched, at
least for the purpose of today. Just briefly, you're involved in your County Commissioner to begin with,
correct?
LB: Yes.
WU: And you've been there for how long?
LB: I have been a County Commissioner for around thirteen years. Before that, I was on the Shelby
Village Council for about twelve years, including Village President.
WU: And are you from a church or a service club situation? Why don’t you describe that?
LB: Within the church family, I'm a member and the chairman of the Deacons of New Era Reformed
Church. And for organizations, I am a member and have been for over thirty years to Shelby Rotary Club.
And I'm a member of, of course, Farm Bureau, member of MSU Extension Advisory Committee. And that
would be a four-county committee. And part of being a County Commissioner also puts you in with
other activities. One is I'm a member of the Michigan Works and that would be the West Central and
that would be a total of six counties. I'm one of three members representing Oceana County. So, we
look and we have an office here in Oceana County and Shelby and we work hard to get enough
employees with the farmers, which is becoming a bigger problem.
WU: Just to get the help needed.
LB: Just to get the help needed. And part of it is, when I was in high school, all high school kids worked.
Today, that isn't the case. I'm not saying they're lazy, but they've got band camp, they've got football
camp, they've got cross country camp, they've got basketball camp. They've got all kinds of things going
on.
WU: And in what ways have you seen our area change since your boyhood days?
LB: Since my boyhood days, I would say when I was in school, I'm happy to say we've always had pretty
good race relations. And that, what I mean by that, is the Hispanics that were in my high school class
were friends and they still are friends. But that probably represented five to ten percent of the class.
Today, I think both Hart and Shelby, probably forty to forty-five percent of the student population would
be Hispanic. I'm not saying that's bad or good, but, you know, that's probably the biggest change. And
what I have found, Hispanics - in general, and I'm generalizing - but they really value hard work. They
don't value education. You're going to see a lot of the parents will encourage the boys at sixteen or
seventeen: Why continue with school if you're going to... if you can work elsewhere.
WU: And make some money right now.
LB: Right.
WU: Well, if someone listens to this interview or reads the transcript that eventually will be made, say,
thirty or forty years from now. What would you most like them to know about your life and the
community?
LB: Well, one of the things... I'm going to borrow a phrase from my old or former Shelby High School or
Shelby School Superintendent, John [?]. John said he couldn't wait - as he was growing up on a farm - he
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�Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project
A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant
Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department
couldn't wait to get away from burning wood. He said it seemed like every Saturday we had to go out,
chop down trees, cut wood. And he said, you know what happened? Of course, he started building
homes in the summer. And he said, as I got older, I went back to burning wood because I needed the
exercise and I enjoyed it. And I think back probably my least favorite thing to do in the wintertime was
cutting wood on Saturday, using a two-wheel drive pickup, getting stuck, and having to cut wood with
my dad and brothers and not liking that at all. Hey, the last two or three years, I’ve really enjoyed
cutting wood and stacking it and burning a little wood along with my gas.
WU: Well, is there anything that you would like to share that I may not have asked you about? Sort of an
open-ended question...
LB: Sure.
WU: ...to give you a chance to say something that you think is important to, as part of this interview.
LB: And again, this interview primarily ties in with agriculture. I am hopeful that we will continue to
remain to have a strong, viable agriculture community. Obviously, we have the food processing plants,
Gerber is very important, Peterson is important. But when I first moved here, in fact, when I graduated
from college in ‘79, there was no such firm as Peterson’s Food Processing. Things are always changing
and embrace that change. And hopefully you will get some dynamic people like an Earl Peterson who
will continue to invest in the area and that we have smart enough government officials that basically
stay out of the way when you have a responsible person like Earl who's willing to invest. And you can go
through history over the last one hundred and twenty years, those individuals have stepped up. And it
just seems to me like government is doing what it can to put a harness and hold back some of those
folks. And I'm hopeful that in this area will continue to see people - again, I use the word “responsible”
people - who won't leave a legacy of pollution like they did in the White Lake area. But that will continue
to employ people, buy products here, and do what we call value-added services to our agriculture.
WU: Well, I see the time that we had allotted is about to expire here. Larry, I just want to thank you for
your time and for sharing your memories with me. And this formally concludes our interview. Thank you
very much.
14
�
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c816ace3fec8a9d7c1ec5c3235a0d7d9.mp3
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Oceana County Migrant Labor History Collection
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Shell-Weiss, Melanie
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Collection contains images and documents digitized and collected through the project "Growing Community: A Century of Migration in Oceana County." This project was a collaboration between El Centro Hispano de Oceana, the Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society, and Grand Valley State University funded by a Common Heritage grant from the United States National Endowment for the Humanities. The materials in this collection document the history of communities in Hart, Shelby, and Walkerville and explore themes of migration, labor, religion, family, belonging, national and cultural identities, regional, national, and international connections, and citizenship.
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Oceana County (Mich.)
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Grand Valley State University. Kutsche Office of Local History
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Grand Valley State University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives
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El Centro Hispano de Oceana; Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society
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DC-06
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eng
spa
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2016
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Oceana County (Mich.)
Hart (Mich.)
Shelby (Mich.)
Farms
Farmers
Migrant agricultural laborers
Hispanic Americans
Account books
Diaries
Oral history
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
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DC-06_Byl_Larry
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Byl, Larry
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2016-06-18
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Byl, Larry (audio interview and transcript)
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Oral history interview with Lawrence (Larry) Byl. Interviewed by Walter Urick on June 18, 2016 in Hart, Michigan. English language. Larry Byl was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1957 as the son of two Dutch immigrants. Larry and his family moved to western Oceana County in 1966 and created a life for their family on their eighty-acre fruit farm, which over the years grew to become a three-hundred-acre farm. He attended Shelby High School where he took Future Farmers of America classes, and later graduated from Hope College in Holland, Michigan before finding his life’s work in real estate. Larry also served many years as County Commissioner and Village President for his community of Shelby, Michigan.
Contributor
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Urick, Walter (interviewer)
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Oceana County (Mich.)
Shelby (Mich.)
Farms
Farmers
Fruit growers
Future Farmers of America
Hope College
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Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage)
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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audio/mp3
application/pdf
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eng
-
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PDF Text
Text
Al Weener interviewed by Ken Kutzel
June 2, 2018
KK: And it's on. This is Ken Kutzel, and I am here today with Al Weener at the Old Schoolhouse in
Douglas, Michigan. Today is June 2nd, 2018. This oral history is being collected as part of the Stories
of Summer project, which is supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the
Humanities Common Heritage Program. So I'll thank you for talking with me today.
AL: I'm glad to be here.
KK: I’m interested to learn more about your family history and your experiences od summer in the
Saugatuck-Douglas area. Can you please tell me your full name and spell it?
AL: Allen, A L L E N, Jay, J A Y. Weener W E E N E R.
KK: OK. And you don't use any accents or anything.
No. No umlauts. You know, none of that.
KK: Tell me about where you grew up.
AL: I was I was born in Holland, Michigan, and Saugatuck was the place to go if you wanted to. The
first liberal area south of Holland. My Uncle Harry used to come down here deer hunting, which was
actually he just came down here to drink. He was a well-known businessman in Holland. His last
name was Plugamars. He owned many of, you know, quite a few buildings downtown.
AL: But anyway, Saugatuck, when I was finishing high school, I came to Saugatuck and I worked on a
fishing trawler with the Peetle brothers on a boat called the Chambers Brothers. Peetles also were
fishermen.
KK: And that's P E E L right?
AL: Yeah, right.Right. Some of them, they're still around. And so that was my introduction. Catching
alewives. Which brings back memories to some for sale, I think they went to Japan. Then after high
school, there's some cloudiness in my memory, but I was I helped build the stage and put on the pop
pop festivals and working for SRC as a temporary job. So that brings, you know, some of that.
KK: There was at Pottawattamie Beach, right?
AL: Right, yeah. And I was actually backstage during the kerfuffle, which there were. That's another
history. Part of, you know, part of Saugatuck. Let's see. What would you like to know?
KK: Well, you talk about if you want.
AL: Oh, okay.
�KK: Talk about that if you... If you want to talk about the... Well, the pop festival, I would have asked
you about it anyway.
AL: Oh, okay. Well, I was backstage. We helped build the stage. I was just 19 years old. And or 18, I
forget. And I was hanging around this, The Frost, which was... I think he was .... And the MC5 were
there and B.B. King, not B.B. King, Muddy Waters, Arthur Brown, Alice Cooper. MC5, that sort of
scene. You know the bunch.
KK: They're all in the poster.
AL: Yeah. Mama Lee Thorton never showed, and there was a big rush toward the stage, And I guess I
missed all the excitement. I mean, I was in the middle of it, but everything around the edges? Didn't
see it a thing.
KK: Yeah, they did that two years, right?
AL: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
KK: Okay, what are some of the most vivid memories from your childhood.
AL: Saugatuck? I had…
KK: Well, either, either place.
AL: Oh, I don't know. Let's see. Well, my dad always took us swimming in the area. So we're were, I
was kind of always around Lake Michigan. In fact, I've pretty much lived within 10 miles of the
lakeshore my entire life, so. Lake Michigan beaches.
KK: OK, tell me more about your family and your family history.
AL: My grandfather, Frank Weener, owned gas stations in Holland at one time and an oil company.
And on the north side. And, his house actually was moved from Ottawa Beach. His house on Van
Dyke Street, which is now gone, was a root beer stand that they moved from Ottawa Beach. He lived
there quite a long time.
KK: Oh, really?
AL: And my dad, their family home was right where the North Side Russel's is now. So that's where
they grew up on River Avenue.
KK: Oh, OK.
5:09
KK: Why did you first come to Saugatuck-Douglas? And of course, you mention, you know, a little bit
about it. But what made you come here?
�AL: Oh, I just thought it was an interesting little fishing town. And then by getting my feet wet, as it
were, out in the lake, learning, working with the trawlers for a while, then playing music with with the
locals. We had a band way back then with Pete Hungerford and many... Jack Wulkan. Dave Rafinauld
on Leo.... these guys are all dead. But I'm not.
KK: You're not.
AL: Jack is still living in Kalamazoo.
KK: Did you guys play in, like, the local bar?
AL: Oh, yeah. We played the Sand Bar and the Butler Blue Temple Woodshed Boathouse. Which bar
am I missing? That's just about all of them. [Laughs].
KK: Some of them are gone.
AL: Yeah. Woodshed's gone and Blue Tempo's gone.
KK: Well, you know, as long as you brought it up and, you know, would you tell me what you can
about the Blue Tempo?
AL: Well, we just were looking for any place to play and we were playing a lot of original music.
And Toad was had no problem with that. Som we would set up.
KK: And Toad was the owner?
AL: Yeah, Toad was the owner.
KK: Yeah.
AL: Toad Davis.
KK: Yeah, Davis.
AL: Yeah. And it was a long stairway down and we'd set up. We played there a couple times. It was
we didn't get a big crowd but a local crowd. I can remember some fathers weren't real happy that
their teenage daughters were at the Blue Tempo.
KK: You were. Were you playing more to the straight crowd or the gay crowd or straight?
AL: Oh, just the locals.
KK: Oh, yeah. Yeah, because. We know that that you know. That was a gay bar.
�AL: That was a gay is a gay bar at certain times. The notables played there. You know, great jazz
greats played. Yeah.
KK: So, who do you know of that that was-?
AL: Well, it seems like Dizzy Gillespie played there. I'm not sure. These are all hearsay because I never
talked to Toad about it. But, uh, you know that was a it was a fabulous little club. And I hope that
you've talked to Bill Steininger, because he could give you more.
KK: No, we haven't, but I will write that name down. So, tell the story, because I know you were
instrumental in acquiring a sign.
AL: Oh, yeah. And it caught on fire.
KK: Yes. I want to tell what you know about that.
AL: Well, it was a sad day when any institution catches on fire. And I don't remember how. I've just
hanging around, drove up and and saw that that roof had sagged and Toad was standing out front.
And we're both gonna go. Go. Boy, this is pretty rough. And I can't imagine what he felt like. But the
roof had sagged and it was still the fire was out. And I suppose there is yellow tape around it. But I
just asked him if I could have the sign and he said, I don't care. or something to that effect. So, I just
walked out on the roof and pulled it off with a hammer.
KK: OK.
AL: Far as I can remember.
KK: So, it was up on the roof.
AL: Yeah, it was on a roof. Yeah. And the roof had sagged down due to the fire. So it was dangerous.
But who cares?
KK: But we know you so. Oh, let's see. Can you share any particular memories about, you know, your
time here about living here and when, you know, things are moments that are especially memorable
to you?
AL: Oh, I was thinking of Sally Erlandson, who just passed away, and I believe she was instrumental in
having the gazebo built along the water Wicks Park and. And we used to play there. And when it was
actually when it was just. Instructed, we had an informal bunch of locals and we we painted it in just
to help out.
KK: Good!
AL: So, Sally was always interested in her and what we were doing.
�KK: Can you tell me about your friend Fred? Because I know he was sort of involved in the music
world here.
AL: Oh, Fred Glazier.
KK: Yeah.
AL: Oh, and he was.
KK: What can you tell me about Fred?
AL: Well, he was a freelance writer and he grew up next door to in Chicago area somewhere. Then he
was friends with a lot of the oh, man.
10:07
AL: This is this is a brain’s... Mike Bloomfield. So, we did an oral history of Mike Bloomfield. One of
his last works. And he'd collect art from.
KK: Where was it?
AL: I don't know, Chicago very well. But they had the area that everyone was a grand sort of
fleamarket. And anyway, he had a lot of art that was on the floors of his his closets kind of in disarray.
And before he passed away, I took it and I tried to sort it out and flatten it. And then. So I had a
bunch of his art. Anyway, he he was a he wrote for the commercial record as a stringer, I believe, an
elegant paper.
KK: Didn't he have a little magazine?
AL: I think he may have yeah. Yeah. I think all about music in the area. Oh, he may have tried and he
tried just about everything I've seen and everything, but working for a living. I don't recommend it at
all. Manual labor doesn't suit you.
KK: Well, that's true. Oh, were there any places or institutions that you know, are really important to
you here in Saugatuck-Douglas?
AL: Well, we used to play at Jocko's and Jack Wilkins still being a friend of mine. We'd kind of camp
out in the back yard and throw parties there.
KK: Where was Jocko's?
AL: It is now east of the Dune scooter rides on the rise of the hill. It was a Jocko Wilkin, Jack's father,
who owned that. So, yeah, he had a Lake Road Hotel Motel.
KK: Were those inside the cabin?
�AL: Yeah, those little cabins behind you.
KK: Oh, okay, yeah.
AL: Yeah. And then the restaurant was in front.
KK: Yeah.
AL: Yeah, I think they did a quick shot in the Road to Perdition back there.
KK: Yeah, that. OK. Any special places you like to eat in the past during that period?
AL: Oh, I was somewhat unkind to the local restauranteurs.
KK: How so?
AL: No I won't go into that. Oh, I mean, The Douglas Dinette was a popular spot. And then The
Redwood which is now... Donna Peel passed away.
KK: Yeah.
AL: The Ways- The Waypoint. That was the Redwood. Yeah. Way back then. Oh, I don't know. Let's
see The Elbow Room, which is now The Southerner.
KK: Yeah, The Southerner.
AL: Yeah. Yeah. I just think you know The Southerner. That was a great spot. And The Butler. My dad
always loved to go to The Butler when we're having a family get together.
KK: You never had any contact, really, with the School of Art, did you?
AL: Oh, yeah.
KK: Oh, you did? Tell me about that.
AL: Yeah, I worked there. Then my old girlfriend way back was a model out there and. And so I
actually have the stove. Well, I did a lot of work out there and I played out there for fundraiser's
many times. And actually before I gained my my present stature, I did that. [Laughs Loudly].
AL: She and I both did modeling out there.
KK: Yeah.
AL: And I met a lot of people on there and let Sally… Oh, they had The Pumphouse for many years.
KK: What were their names?
�AL: They lived in The Pumphouse. Which is now The Pumphouse. The Pumphouse Museum. Sally. I
forgot the last name. And there was a cottage.
KK: And it was…
AL: Yeah, that's how I got involved out there.
KK: Oh, OK.
AL: In part. So, let's see. I remembered strip volleyball games and stuff like that where I was wearing
a pair of shorts and some women would be festooned in scarves and other extraneous... [Both
Laugh] They had they knew the game.
KK: Let's see what else we have here.
AL: Shorey. Sally Shorey.
KK: Sally Shorey. Okay.
AL: Because I was living across in Saugatuck and helped remodel The Pumphouse. Way, way back.
15:00
KK: Yeah. And now, you know, you talked about you did work here and you did. What actually do
you do for work?
AL: Some people say not much, but back then… Well, I was a Mason tender. I was project supervisor,
which means that when they were out of town, I would try to direct traffic. So we toured the slate
roof off, patched that.
KK: That's at the at the Pumphouse.
AL: Yeah, The Pumphouse, which I think I gave you a few slates.
KK: Yeah.
AL: Yeah. Which I, yeah, fortunately still had a couple laying around. What were you asking me? Oh
the Pumphouse. Well, what I did for a living?
KK: What you did andAL: Yeah. Well I was. I was. Well, I painted a bunch of them for quite a while down here, but then
transitioned more into construction.
�KK: And you were involved a lot in New Richmond, weren't you?
AL: Oh, yeah. I bought The New Richmond Hotel from a friend of mine. He says, "Careful what you
wish for."
AL: I said, "You know, if I owned it, I would do this and that."
AL: And he said, "Well, I'll sell it to you on a land contract." And then so I did remodel that or we did
that for quite a few years. And then it caught on fire. Top floor burned out. Fixed that. And then used
it as a vacation rental some years successfully, some years less so. And that was the design syrett for
the park and raised a little bit of money. And I was on the fundraising committee for the bridge.
KK: Why don't you explain exactly what that meant? I mean, what were they doing with the bridge?
AL: Oh, at the time Kevin Ricoh was the Parks and Recreation Director for the Allegan County. They,
along with the road commission, Bill Nelson was the head of the road commission at the time,
were able to secure a federal grant to rebuild the bridge. Subject to not using the caveat was to not
have a use for vehicle traffic and to rebuild it being the oldest swing bridge in its act, in its original
location. So that bridge is capable of being turned with the crank. I think they spent $800,000
building that. That spans the Kalamazoo Kalamazoo River where New Richmond was, is.
KK: New Richmond is, was. Yeah. It was more of a town at one point, wasn't it?
AL: Oh, yeah. The train used to stop there five times a day. OK. And from what I understand, it was
an Indian trading post prior to that in the 1830s. There are hotels which I had the last, the last
structure. A lot of them burned down at the Great Fire, but... The mail used to come to New
Richmond. Go by stagecoach to Saugatuck and Holland, sometimes by water, but stagecoach to
Holland. And I had relatives living in the East Saugatuck. So, they may have come through Ellis Island
and gotten off the train in New Richmond. And, you know, by ox cart or snail... By snail. [Both laugh]
By snail or tortoise. Yeah. Sledge lived in East Saugatuck.
KK: What... Talk about downtown Saugatuck and or downtown Douglas back, you know, in in like the
70s, 60s, 70s. What do you remember about them?
AL: Well, The Over Ice Lumber was still in Douglas as well as there was a hardware store. It was
struggling at the time. My girlfriend and I painted The Dutcher Lodge way, way back when it was still
a Masonic Hall upstairs.
KK: And was it still being used as a hall?
AL: Yeah, it was kind of the end of the end of its tenure as a hall .And I remember there were huge
bees nests and even more warm weather came that would drip honey through the floor.
KK: I've been up there.
AL: Yeah?
�KK: Yeah, I did. There's still a stage up there.
20:01
AL: Oh, yeah. Yeah. There's still a stage. I don't know what they've done to it, but I remember
working for Virgil Lloyd was one of the one of the old timers who wanted it was part of the lodge.
Burin Van Osterberg another. He lived on the other side of the water on the other side of the river.
And his wife was Chuck Glummer's sister, she was crazy as a loon. [Chuckles] She was
institutionalized.
KK: Oh, really?
AL: He would take her out of the home, drive around on a regular basis. Her hair was never combed
and she never talked at all. Chuck Glummer was was... lived in Ganges, had the tractor repair.
KK: Oh.
AL: Which is that... Oh, there's the plumber house there.
KK: Yeah. Is it across the street from it?
AL: Right.
KK: Yeah.
AL: Yeah. OK. Yeah.Yeah. I've forgotten his wife's name. Chuck was lived in Ganges Township. And
they, they had a hedge your business and repaired crackers. I remember going in there and asking,
"What can I get for, you know, the tune up my engine for ten bucks?"
AL: And the mechanic opened the hood, looked at the engine, closed the hood and said, "That'll be
ten dollars."
KK: Oh, it sounds like it, you know.
AL: Yeah. You stay at the Texaco station where where they would carry a pistol when they're
pumping gas.
KK: Really?
AL: Yeah, the Brown, Browns owned, had that old, Al Brown. Jim Brown. There was Joe Brown. And
they were either township or county one with Joe Browns, County cop and, you know, nice.
KK: Was it right? Was that the one that was downtown or down near Bluestar-
�AL: By Bluestar. Now, it's a real estate.
KK: Yeah. Lighthouse, I think, Reality.
AL: Yeah. That was a Texaco Station. I know there was one over there. And, Al Brown was there, you
know, from the south. But very you know, once you get to know them well, you go in there and play
guitar for a couple of minutes at the gas station. I'm no guitar player, but enough to break the ice.
KK: Well, and then when you came down here, you spent more time in Saugatuck than in Douglas?
Or did it matter?
AL: Didn't matter. There were just one little town.
KK: Do you have any memory of the Greeson School of Art at the Footy of Center Street? There's a
little art school there.
AL: Down here?
KK: It was just in one building. Yeah.
AL: Oh, no.
KK: Yeah. I always ask that question because not too many people remember it.
AL: No, I remember Oxbow. Yeah. There was no I'm not aware of that one.
KK: Did you ever come down? You know, it would be would be up from... Yeah. Down from Holland
on the wintertime or what was it something guys in all that all year or was it just mostly summer?
AL: Oh well I would come down pretty much any time. Mostly summer jobs.
Oh, okay.
AL: But when we were painting houses we used to put in as a single ad in The Commercial Record
with the phone number. Not even a phone number. I mean, just an address. Post office box. And we
were living in New Richmond at the time, so I had a post office box in New Richmond. Somebody
would write me a letter, send it via post. I would get a letter from them, send a letter back. You know,
this is all is very slow. And then we would quite often get a painting job that way.
I didn't paint forever, but it seemed like it. Yeah.
KK: So that would be about what time? The 60s?
AL: Yeah, and early 70s.
KK: Early 70s.
�AL: Yeah.
KK: So, you were already living out in New Richmond.
AL: Yeah. And my girlfriend and I also live right downtown Saugatuck in the old Masonic Hall up
above in which is now kind of an atrium building the upper floors. Like upstairs from the- on Butler
Street from where Butler Pantry was. Yeah, right. Hey there. I think the Leland building was. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. I did a bunch of work on the Leland building with the first- the initial remodel, my cousin
and I tore the north side of the building up and removed the brick and put beams in for windows
and also build a back stairway in there.
25:08
AL: Put bay windows on the front, which are now gone. Let's see, yeah, I hadn't thought of that for a
while. Yeah. So, what else you got? What what?
KK: You know, Iet's talk...
AL: Nice list.
KK: Well, this is for all kinds of different things, you know, here. This is one for your shenanigans.
How would you describe Saugatuck-Douglas, to somebody who had never been here before?
AL: When I first came, it was a little fishing town. You can still buy smoked fish in Saugatuck. You can
get smoked Chubb's. The Hungerford's had a boathouse on the river, which is no, you know, a
glorified cottage. They lived up on the hill. It was a very relaxed little town, very small.
KK: OK. And with the summer season was about how long?
AL: Three months. Yeah. You can set your watch by it.
KK: Yeah. In the summer, where was your favorite place to go?
AL: Well, I spent a lot of time on the sandbar or just houses. We played a big party at Tower Marine
and that's why I brought up Bill Dillerard, because the tower was still up at that point. And, I
remember there is a big house and it had a grand piano in it, and we threw a big party or they threw
a big party up there. And that may have may be because they were going to tear down the tower or
something like that. You'd have to ask Bill. But that's why Tower Marinas....
KK: Yeah.
AL: -has the name.
KK: That name.
AL: And of course, Tower Marine had a big boat shed and built river queens there.
�KK: What was your impression of the law enforcement in Saugatuck?
AL: Oh, I remember Lyle Jones. He was a chief of police who was pretty relaxed guy. Not at all what
we have today. We did.
KK: Right.
AL: We were we wrote songs about the locals. So, we do have... There was a song written with Lyle
Jones named in it.
KK: Oh, really?
AL: Yeah. Those are- "Called the Corner" Jack Wilken, I bet has a copy of it. Wow. And Dick Hoffman
was the mayor for a while. He was a cool guy. And Greg Hoffman, his brother, always rode a bike and
delivered papers. Another local.
KK: Do the Hollanders come down here a lot?
AL: To drink.
KK: Yeah, but did they admit it?
AL: Well, if they were, Saugatuck was the first place... Ottawa County was pretty much dry. So, the
Saugatuck was some place you could get away.
KK: You know, there were the. There was that racetrack here.
AL: Oh, yes.
KK: At the time. Well, what can you tell me about that?
AL: I worked for Al Masters, who owned Holiday Hill. Al and Fran and he and partner put on the jazz
festival there. And I worked for them for at least 10 years off and on. And I noticed in his basement
he had a bunch on reel-to-reel tapes. And after pestering him for a while, I was able to get those
tapes of the Jazz Festival 1961. And I brought him to a friend of mine in Grand Rapids who owned a
recording studio. And they were transferred into a digital medium. And they're probably copies in
this building somewhere.
KK: If I remember correctly, we do have them.
AL: I hope so.
KK: Mike Sweeney has been very, very involved.
AL: So, yeah, I gave them to Mike.
�KK: Yeah.
AL: And so, I had those transferred and that had Duke Ellington, Dave Brubeck and many other
interesting Hollywood or Las Vegas senior stuff. Yeah. Hilarious. Four hours at least. And I remember
he lost a lot of money and recorded it had it had A West Michigan sound out of Muskegon recorded
for him, and he had no rights to do that. And so that's why they sat in his basement, because RCA or
the parent companies who had the recording rights for these artists wouldn't let him release or do
anything with the with the sound recording.
30:08
KK: Oh, that's interesting. Do you know, when they hit the rock festivals there. Talk to me or about
what was it like with all those people coming into town? As I've heard stories about it. Do you have
stories about it?
AL: I was backstage the whole time, so. Or right in the in the festival itself. I remember we were... not
inebriated, but my memories are somewhat, hazy. [Both chuckle] I was never in town because I was
right in the middle of middle of the action. Because I know there are stories about the traffic.
KK: And, yeah, them literally shutting the town down because nobody can get in or out.
AL: Yeah. I just... Well, being in the middle of it, I didn't need to go anywhere.
KK: That's okay.
AL: We'd go swimming at Pottawattamie Beach was like 50 cents. They had a big water slide or a
diving platform, which you couldn't do anymore.
KK: You know, you're involved in playing music. Now, why don't you talk about that?
AL: Oh, well, I'm not doing a whole lot, but occasionally I have the… I can play at Marrows in
Saugatuck. Hopefully that'll kick in and in June. Otherwise, we had a band called Planet Seven at the
time when we were still in our teens and. Yeah, well, that was with local local guys, some of which are
not no longer with us. Leo Vischer was the bass player for a little on. Drank himself to death. There
was other ones. Chuck Daly was another local. We also had a country band. Tom Edgecomb was
another notable, notable guitar player and songwriter.
AL: His father was Morgan Edgecomb, which the fireboat is named after, after Morgan. He was an
interesting guy who worked on larger vessels and was First Mate for Evel Knievel for a long time.
KK: Oh, was he?
AL: As well as... You know, He didn't talk about it either. He didn't talk about his clientele because
they, you know…. I think Tom said that he worked for the Kennedys. And, you know, and whoever
they also Tom is the only guy that I knew my age was. He had been in Cuba with his dad.
�KK: That's Tom Edgecomb.
AL: Yeah. He passed away 15 years ago.
KK: Wait, there was something I wanted to ask you. Tell us about your work with the fish.
AL: Oh, you know, the sturgeon. Yeah, we're we have an on again off again nonprofit organization
and we partner with we do a little bit to help to assist Fisheries and Wildlife DNR and then the Gun
Lake Tribe, the Gun Lake Tribe is now taken up most of the heavy lifting due to budget cuts,
governmental budget cuts. But the Kalamazoo River Sturgeon for Tomorrow is is we're trying to keep
the sturgeon in Kalamazoo River by using native stock. So there is a small fishing fish hatchery. They
called it streamside rearing facility on the north side of New Richmond at the county park. It's a
seasonal small trailer funded by Fisheries and Wildlife. Federal money.
KK: And so, what do what are they actually do there?
AL: They catch native stock in the Kalamazoo River, rear them to a size in a few months sometime.
They start with eggs or spawn. And by the time they let them go, they could be five to seven inches
long, and then they're able to escape predators. But a small and a juvenile sturgeon is covered with
kind of spiny, sharp plates and fins. So, once they get that big, they have a better chance of making
it. OK.
35:01
AL: And the largest sturgeon in the last couple decades, caught and released in the Kalamazoo, from
the Kalamazoo, was 6'9".
KK: Oh.
AL: And weighed in in excess of 200lbs.
KK: Wow, that's a big fish.
AL: A big fish. They've been here forever.
KK: Are there more and more of them now?
AL: They're still a remnant population in with a little help from or not doing any damage to the
habitat, I think they'll be here for a long time.
KK: Well, that's good.
AL: There's more, more habitat. Habitat enhancement funded by the Gun Lake Tribe and the DNR
just below the dam. The Allegan Dam on the Kalamazoo.
�KK: What are some of your hopes for the future, for, you know, for the area? What would you like to
see happen?
AL: Oh, I would like to see the small-town atmosphere. I'm not a Luddite, but I do appreciate good
architecture. So, Saugatuck could keep its quaint look by not building a lot of storage facilities to
store people's junk, which they should donate to charity and or, you know, just tacky architecture
and fast-food joints.
KK: That’s interesting. You know. What would you consider some of the nicer buildings?
AL: Oh, well. That the old.... let's see... Well, the let's see, the Episcopal Church is a really nice
building. Let's see, and some of the buildings downtown that the sandbars, a nice unrestored
building for the most part. Killwins, that's a pretty cool building. And some of the buildings along on
Butler Street were moved from Singapore. So, and I've worked for some houses in homes, private
homes that were moved up the ice from Singapore. So, back when we had real winters.
KK: Yeah, I know.
AL: Oh, that was real common.
KK: I know.
AL: Yeah. For months, kids pull them, pull them up with oxen or whatever.
KK: Yeah. Yeah. Assuming that somebody 50 years from now is going to be listening to this tape,
what do you want to say to him? Or her?
AL: To him or her, life is short. Anybody that will be there. Life was short, don't make the same
mistakes we did. Make some new ones. Be tolerant.
KK: OK. Anything else you want to add?
AL: No, just. It's… it's a pleasure that it's nice that we have a historical society.
KK: Okay. We will… [Recording ends in middle of sentence].
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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Summers in Saugatuck-Douglas Collection
Creator
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Grand Valley State University. Kutsche Office of Local History
Description
An account of the resource
Collection contains images and documents digitized and collected through the project "Stories of Summer," supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant. The collection aims to document the twin lakeshore communities of Saugatuck and Douglas, Michigan, as they transformed through the state's bustling tourism industry and acceptance of minorities.
Coverage
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1910s-2010s
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Various
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/UND/1.0/">Copyright Undetermined</a>
Subject
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Michigan
Saugatuck (Mich.)
Douglas (Mich.)
Michigan, Lake
Allegan County (Mich.)
Beaches
Sand dunes
Outdoor recreation
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University Libraries. Allendale, Michigan
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Saugatuck-Douglas History Center
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Stories of Summer (Common Heritage project)
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image/jpeg
application/pdf
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Text
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English
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2018
Oral History
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DC-07_SD-WeenerA_2018-06-02
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Weener, Al
Date
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2018-06-02
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Al Weener (audio interview and transcript) 2018
Description
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Al Weener describes his connections to West Michigan as well as his time as a fisherman in Saugatuck
Contributor
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Kutzel, Ken (interviewer)
Subject
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Michigan
Saugatuck (Mich.)
Douglas (Mich.)
Outdoor recreation
Fishing
Fishermen
Gay bars
Allegan County (Mich.)
Oral history
Audio recordings
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Stories of Summer project, Kutsche Office of Local History. Grand Valley State University
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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Stories of Summer (Common Heritage project)
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audio/mp3
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eng
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/3669e2c00b9e62d5f2e5bf4f55fcd550.mp3
4a714357b91d0b257ed2237b543de74f
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/89d21ff5f41b6cf87fb446a554decd1d.pdf
d1b327e4d499648914d89b2f7d5eb3c7
PDF Text
Text
Cynthia Sorenson interviewed by Gina Asman and Ken Kutzel
July 21, 2018
GA: Now what you’re doing is working.
Ken: Alright, we're headed down, just hit the record.
Okay we'll do that. Thank you very much, Ken.
Ken: You’re welcome.
GA: As they leave… What do I have in my mouth? I don’t know. So, we'll get started alright.I
got some questions here that I supposed to be asking you. This is Gina Asman and I'm here today
with Cynthia Sorenson, my friend, and we are downstairs in the Old Schoolhouse in the place
where Cynthia is very very comfortable. Today is July 21, 2018. We are in Douglas, Michigan.
and this oral history is being collected as a part of The Stories of Summer project which is
supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities Common
Herritage program. That’s quite the name. Thank you for coming today and taking the time to
talk with me. I know I kinda twisted your arm to do this tonight. This is not your favorite thing I
know I'm gonna ask you some different questions I hope because before I think they talked about
the, the robbery at the bank was in that. Weren’t you interviewed as far as that was concerned?
Well, the second time, yeah. Pat Devenhost and I were interviewed.
GA: Okay, but what was the first time about then?
CS: My sister and myself.
GA: Okay the two of you, so you and Marge were interviewed now. Okay. Well anyway, I
wanna learn more about your family history and your experiences that you've had here in the
Saugatuck-Douglas area and I have to ask you this can you please tell me your full name and
spell it, even though I know how.
CS: Cynthia Anne Petertyl Sorensen.
GA: Now, that is an interesting name. Spell it for me, please?
All of it?
�GA: The whole thing, especially the Peter, that’s where I get the Peter.
CS: C Y N T H I A A N N E P E T E R T Y L S O R E N S E N
GA: I bet Sorenson is often misspelled, isn’t it?
CS: Yes.
GA: And that's not very nice because it's a good Scandinavian, I think.
CS: I think it's Danish.
GA: Oh, Danish! Okay I’m sorry I was wrong there. Now, tell me about the Peter, because I’ve
heard.
CS: Petertyl.
GA: I know but I've heard him calling you Peter or Pete. I guess it’s Pete.
CS: It’s a nickname. A family name.
GA: Tell me about that.
CS: Oh, my grandmother my mother's mother's maiden name was Petertyl.
GA: Your mother's mother, okay.
CS: My grandmother. It’s Bohemian.
GA: Oh, its Bohemian? Now, how did Bohemian and Danish get together
CS: I don't know.
GA: They just did.
CS: They met in Chicago, my mother did. They met in Chicago. Now, what else did you need?
GA: Well I just think it's such an interesting name and I heard your niece, Joan, say…
�CS: No, my cousin.
GA: Your cousin, that’s right. She said, “Pete was there” And I said, “Pete? Who’s Pete?” “Oh,
you know, Pete.” So, I thought, oh, and that’s why I had to ask you.
CS: My family nickname and then of course when I worked in the restaurant with my aunt, she
would call me Pete. The customer's would call me Pete.
GA: Well, tell me about that restaurant. I know it's called The Hollyhock, right?
CS: The Hollyhock House.
GA: The Hollyhock House. Tell me about that.
CS: My aunt had that for many many years. she it was the best restaurant in town.
GA: Your aunt's name was?
CS: Emily Leon.
GA: Ellie Leon
CS: Emily. Emily Leon.
GA: And then the building is still there, isn't it?
CS: No, Marrows took it over and extended their restaurant.
GA: But, it is where Marrows was, correct?
CS: Well, Marrows was on the corner.
GA: The corner, right.
CS: And they took the property in between the lot and my aunt’s house.
GA: Oh.
CS: So, there’s actually three lots there.
GA: See, I was incorrect because I thought that the back part of the side part that runs along the
road there was The Hollyhock House.
�CS: It was facing Water Street.
GA: Water Street, yes. Because it kind of bends in there, doesn’t it?
CS: Yeah.
GA: How long did you work there?
CS: I started when I was fourteen.
GA: Oh my word.
CS: Helping in the kitchen. I worked there for twenty years.
GA: So all through high school and so on, then.
CS: Yes.
GA: And I’m sure that probably during the summertime you were really, really busy, weren’t
you?
CS: Very busy. There would be lines of people waiting to get in.
GA: Well, I can remember hearing about it. I don’t ever remember eating at it but I can
remember hearing people talk about it, that it was a very good place to eat, and it was very…
What should I say? A neat place to go, a different place to go, not your typical hamburger or
whatever.
CS: It was all homemade food, homemade cooking.
5:08
GA: What was your favorite?
CS: Well, probably her vegetable soup. [Chuckles]
GA: Her vegetable soup. Did they have other kinds of soup?
CS: Oh, yeah. She made it all.
GA: Was there different soup on different days?
�CS: She made all sorts of kinds of soups. I don’t remember if it was one a day or how she did it,
but all of her soups were good.
GA: But vegetable soup was your favorite?
CS: Yeah.
GA: What did they have for dessert? I love dessert.
CS: Pies. All sorts of pies: Lemon meringue, butterscotch, and chocolate, coconut cream…
GA: So, a lot of cream pies, then?
CS: Oh, yeah.
GA: And why did she call it The Hollyhock House?
CS: She liked hollyhocks, and there were hollyhocks in the vacant lot next door.
GA: Ah… and these were probably the old-fashioned ones, the singles.
CS: Yeah.
GA: Did you ever take them apart as a little girl?
CS: Oh, yeah.
GA: Make dolls?
CS: Make dolls, yes.
GA: I did that too. So, vegetable soup, lots of pies.
CS: Lemon meringue.
GA: Lemon meringue, was your favorite lemon meringue?
CS: Yep. And she made a lot of sweet rolls. Her cinnamon rolls were the best. Everyone liked
her cinnamon rolls.
GA: So, she was probably open for breakfast then?
CS: Oh, yeah.
�GA: What time did you have to go to work?
CS: I can’t… let’s see. I think she opened at 8:00. She started out serving dinners and decided it
was easier to do breakfast because there wasn’t a lot of waste. Eggs just kept, you know. Then,
she decided that breakfast was too hard because everyone wants it to be perfect. People like their
eggs a certain way.
GA: Scrambled, over-easy.
CS: Yeah.
GA: Oh, this is too hard!
CS: So, she went back to dinners.
GA: Oh, really?
CS: And, that’s when there were line ups because the pavilion was there then.
GA: Right across the street, really.
CS: Mhm. And, she went back to breakfast and lunch. So, I was a waitress. I didn’t do any of the
cooking.
GA: Well, that’s more fun. You didn’t have to clean up, either, doing dishes?
CS: No, I didn’t have to do the dishes. There were high school girls that came in and did the
dishes.
GA: What was the décor like inside? When you remember, what did it look like? I imagine it
being sort of light, bright colors and so on?
CS: Yeah. She used a lot of yellow.
GA: A lot of yellow, okay.
CS: Just all kind of. It was kind of open. There was a porch, a glassed in porch. The windows
could be open. It was very cheerful.
GA: And I assume there were tables out on the porch? Were you serving?
�CS: Yeah, we served tables on the porch. In the regular restaurant, she had vases of flowers on
every table.
GA: Fresh flowers, I’m sure.
CS: Yeah. She had a big flower garden in the back because she liked to garden.
GA: So, these flowers probably came right from her garden.
Yeah.
GA: Neat.
CS: I don’t remember… Well, I was there when the pavilion burned.
GA: You remember that, then?
CS: We were open.
GA: Because that was early May, wasn’t it?
CS: May, yes May of 19…60?
GA: May 1960, yes. So you were working that day, then?
CS: Yeah. It happened right around noon hour.
GA: So, it was right across the street from you.
CS: Yeah.
GA: Oh, my word.
CS: You hear the fire whistle. They had a fire whistle at that time. Everyone was running down
between the pavilion and The Crowbar because there was smoke down there. And I said, “Oh,
there’s a boat on fire.” I looked across the street, and there were flames inside the building way
over in the far corner. And, we were full of customers, of course. I said, “Everybody better
leave.” Nobody wanted to leave, they all finished their lunches, paid...
GA: Oh, you’re kidding! Just kind of watched everything?
CS: Yeah.
�GA: Oh my word.
CS: Firetrucks were pulling out of the front.
GA: Well, they had the front row seats.
CS: Yeah. My sister worked at Harris Pie, in the office of Harris Pie then. She and a couple of
her friends came for lunch and they were waiting for a table. And they took their lunch with
them back to the office.
10:10
GA: To go, yeah.
CS: Finally, we got everybody out of the restaurant, and I happened to think to grab the cash
box. We had a cash register, but I thought to grab the drawer and went into the backyard. My
aunt had a dog at the house, so I let him out. Then, I just stood in the back and watched it burn.
GA: Holding the cashbox and keeping the dog company then?
CS: Yes.
GA: Oh my word.
CS: And while, just before we left, this lady from Douglas, Mace Acosta, came. She wanted pie
and coffee. And I said, “Well, you can’t come in, we’re closed.” But she insisted, so I gave her a
pie to take home.
GA: Oh my word!
CS: She wasn’t going to leave.
GA: And she just wanted to come on in, eat her pie and watch the excitement going on across
the street?
CS: Yes, yep. So that’s… My cousin Frank was at Michigan State then, and some of his friends
called and told him what was going on. They came and got his record collection out of the house.
GA: Sure, because he was living at that house then.
CS: Yes.
�GA: The house didn’t burn, did it?
CS: No, but the plane glass window on the front cracked.
GA: On the house?
CS: On the restaurant.
GA: Oh, the restaurant.
CS: Yeah. A couple of the firemen were keeping hoses on the roof of the house, so it didn’t
burn. She also had candles, candles on all of the tables. They melted right over because it got so
hot in there.
GA: Oh my word. And it was probably pretty cool out because it was early in May?
CS: Yeah.
GA: So, it wasn’t 80 degrees or anything.
CS: It was a sunny day, I remember, but… Later after the fire was out, then she opened up and
made sandwiches for the firemen, or whatever they wanted to eat. A friend of hers came and
helped her.
GA: Now, you probably helped too, didn’t you? Or did you have to go and do something else?
CS: I was there, but I don’t remember doing –
GA: Well, you probably helped serve them to the firemen.
CS: Yeah. I don’t remember doing that, but I must have. Of course, I had to hang out with the
dog. [Both laugh]
GA: And you made sure the money was safe, too.
CS: Yeah. My parents were living in Lansing.
GA: At that time?
CS: They were coming over for the weekend and they saw all this smoke in the sky.
GA: They were probably…
�CS: They couldn’t get into town. They weren’t letting anyone into town.
GA: Were you living at that time on Campbell Road?
CS: Yeah.
GA: But your folks were in Lansing, so it was just you and Marge in the house, then?
CS: M-hm.
GA: I didn’t know that! I thought your folks lived there all the time!
CS: No. My dad worked for the State of Michigan, and he worked out of Lansing.
GA: Oh.
CS: They’d come over every weekend.
GA: So, you two girls were just on your own then?
CS: M-hm.
GA: Oh, well, times are…
CS: We were old enough then.
GA: I know, but times are different now. [Laughs] Would you leave your teenagers there, my
word!
CS: Well, Marge wasn’t a teenager, so. She worked at Harris Pie, and I did the restaurant.
GA: Well, now, I know that your house is really, really old. Talk about your house. You said
you lived in that house after you had lived in another house downtown in Saugatuck first.
CS: M-hm.
GA: But this house had already been built on Campbell Road?
CS: Oh, yeah.
GA: But, it’s not a farmhouse. It’s too fancy to be a farmhouse.
CS: Oh, it isn’t fancy.
�GA: Oh, I think it is.
CS: It was a farmhouse.
GA: Well, it’s not a typical, plain old, what should I say, bare boned. Well, the inside wasn’t like
a lot of those houses, Victorian houses.
CS: It was plain.
GA: But the outside is very, very elegant, as such. It was on a hill; it looks really nice there.
CS: According to Jim Schmeecan, it was built in 1867 or 8, I can’t remember.
GA: So it’s… my math… It’s 150 years old.
CS: Yeah. It was the only house on that side of Campbell Road when we moved there.
15:03
GA: Oh, really? The only one? Was there ever a barn in there, too?
CS: Oh, yeah, there was a big barn, food storage building, and a chicken coop.
GA: And a chicken coop! And, you didn’t raise chickens for food?
CS: Nope.
GA: But there were probably already fruit trees there.
CS: Oh, yeah, the whole area was a fruit orchard.
GA: Peaches?
CS: All kinds of fruit. Different kinds.
GA: Hmm.
CS: But at that time, we weren’t running the orchard at all. It was just there.
GA: It was just there.
CS: Yeah. It wasn’t taken care of; it wasn’t sprayed or anything like that.
�GA: How old were you when you moved into that house, do you remember? Were you in high
school?
CS: Yeah, I was in high school.
GA: You came from Chicago?
CS: Yeah. Brookfield.
GA: Brookfield, that’s where the zoo is. So, you came up here because your dad had a job in
Saugatuck, right?
CS: No. He quit his job in Chicago because he was tired of commuting through the loop. And,
what he wanted to do was build. He was a builder.
GA: That’s right.
CS: He wanted to build houses up here. We moved here after my sister graduated from Riverside
Brookfield High School, because she was going to go to Western. My dad liked to hunt and fish
so he wanted to be in this area.
GA: So, this was a perfect place for him!
CS: M-hm. We were here… Well, we came here in October of 41. In December, there was Pearl
Harbor.
GA: That’s right.
CS: So, the company he worked for in Chicago wanted him to come back, because they had a
job out in Nebraska building ammunition storage in the fields of Nebraska. So we went out to
Nebraska for, oh, almost a year.
GA: Where abouts in Nebraska?
CS: Sydney, Nebraska.
GA: I don’t know where that is.
CS: It was just a little town like Fennville.
�GA: I’ve never been. Oh, like Fennville, okay! Is it in the middle of Nebraska, or where in
Nebraska?
CS: It’s more in the southwestern parts.
GA: The southwestern parts, okay.
CS: Because I know we took trips to Colorado and Wyoming while we were there.
GA: Oh! So, you were there a little while then?
CS: Yes. Not a full year, but.
GA: Not a full year, okay.
CS: Then we came back here.
GA: But at that time, you did not have the house on Campbell Road, correct?
CS: No.
GA: Okay, so you lived in town.
CS: Yeah. We lived on… first we lived on Lake Street. That house isn’t there anymore. And,
then, we lived up on Mason Street.
GA: Okay.
CS: Then my dad built the house on Hoffman Street.
GA: Oh! And is that house still there?
CS: Yes, yep.
GA: Do you know the address or anything?
CS: I don’t know. I can’t remember enough.
GA: But you’d know what it looks like, right?
CS: Oh, yeah. They’ve changed it.
GA: Oh, okay.
�CS: That was in the 40s, then, by the late 40s. Yeah. I was in high school, so I could just walk to
school, the old school.
GA: The old school. Because I can remember the Saugatuck High School burned in the middle
of the night, didn’t it?
CS: Yeah, there was a thunder storm and they think it was struck by lightning. That was 1950.I
can remember my dad was good friends with Mr. Wah.
GA: Was he the superintendent?
CS: Yeah. I remember where we lived, and I remember the phone ringing in the middle of the
night, and my dad saying, “Oh, we’ve got to go, Saugatuck High School is burning down.” And,
they were talking about where they could hold classes and so on. Could we loan them books, or
just whatever? Because my dad was in Fennville at that time. So that was in 1950.
GA: Yeah. See, I didn’t remember when it was. I remember that the high school was on a hill.
CS: You weren’t born then.
GA: Oh, well, yes I was. [Both laugh]. The high school was up on a hill, but the gym didn’t
burn, did it?
CS: No. It was attached to the high school building, but it didn’t burn.
GA: So, only part.
CS: There was no damage upstairs. Let’s see, there were four classrooms attached to the old
school, red brick, and the gym was to the other side. It wasn’t near the building that burned.
GA: Okay, so it was separate, then, kind of.
CS: Yeah.
GA: Oh, I see. See, I don’t remember that. [Clears throat]. Excuse me. I remember going to
games in the gym and knowing that was not a part of the school that burned then.
CS: No, it didn’t. I don’t even think there was smoke damage in there, but there was in the red
brick part of the school. And, we had to have classes in the Legion Hall now in town.
�20:07
GA: Probably churches or something?
CS: Churches. Let’s see, where else? Well, that’s about all there was. Then the fixed up the gym
and divided it into classrooms.
GA: Classrooms.
CS: So yeah, we did. We had classes in there.
GA: Because when you graduated, I think Saugatuck was much smaller than Fennville.
CS: M-hm.
GA: How many were in your graduating class?
CS: Ten.
GA: Oh, my word! [Laughs] Now there’s probably, what, 70 or 80?
CS: Oh, yeah.
GA: Over 100 maybe.
CS: Yeah.
GA: See, I don’t know.
CS: Yeah.
GA: Wow. Because I can remember the building being up there, and I haven’t been… Aren’t
there apartments over there now?
CS: Yes, condos.
GA: Condos. They just took down the school, or what?
CS: Well, they took down the old school and built a one-story school.
GA: I remember that too.
CS: Right in that spot.
�GA: Oh, really?
CS: I think they took down the red brick part too. The gym was left. Then they built the onestory, but it wasn’t very well constructed. It didn’t last.
GA: I guess not.
CS: So, then they built where it is now.
GA: Where it is now.
CS: Yeah.
GA: Because that’s state of the art now, as far as. My brother and sister-in-law came over and
moved here from the Detroit area, and they were like, “Wow!” They couldn’t believe what a
wonderful athletic facility they have. They said, “My word, this is better than anything we’ve
seen in a long time.” They were really impressed. Okay, when you were in high school, they
were still called the Saugatuck Indians?
CS: Oh, yeah. Still are.
GA: Is there going to be any change to that?
CS: They’re not.
GA: I hope not too, because it just…
CS: We had a big meeting, oh, two or three years ago, and someone wanted to change the name,
drop the name.
GA: But with the name Saugatuck, that’s an Indian name.
CS: An Indian name.
GA: You know what it means, don’t you?
CS: Bend of the river, I think.
GA: I think.
CS: It has different meanings, but mouth of the river, bend of the river.
�GA: Saugatuck, it’s a neat, neat place. It certainly has been well-known for years and years and
years. So, you lived here, too, then, when they had the jazz festivals?
CS: Yeah.
GA: What do you remember of that?
CS: I didn’t go to those. I wasn’t interested in that.
GA: From what I’ve heard, the jazz festivals were supposed to be out where the racetrack is.
Yes.
GA: But, people, the college kids and such, the troublemakers or whatever didn’t go to that.
They just congregated in downtown.
CS: Came in downtown.
GA: Because they wanted to
CS: Drink.
GA: Drink and riot and just have a good time.
CS: Yeah.
GA: See, you lived then. Well, actually your address in Saugatuck was on the other side of the
river, so you didn’t have to be involved in that.
CS: Right. M-hm. Stayed out of town.
GA: I don’t blame you. I remember seeing pictures of this just jammed with people in front of
the Old Crow and such, and Coral Gables.
CS: I remember, in the daytime working in the restaurant, there were always a lot of people
around.
GA: That would have been about the same time, then, that the pavilion burned. Was that when
they had them, or was that later?
CS: That was later.
�GA: It was later, okay.
CS: The pavilion was gone then. That was just a parking lot, I think.
GA: So, there was a parking lot across from The Hollyhock.
M-hm. Down on the river.
GA: On the river.
CS: I think that property was sold to the Singapore Yacht Club. They had the parking lot.
GA: Oh, okay.
CS: They had their boats docked on the water there. One more thing, going back to the fire. We
were wondering what to do about classes and things. And there was talk. [Coughs] Excuse me.
GA: We need a bottle of water, but we don’t have any.
CS: I don’t need a water. There was talk of merging with Fennville.
GA: Really? Such rivalry.
CS: We did not want it.
GA: I’m sure Fennville didn’t want it either.
CS: We had a demonstration march.
GA: Oh, really?
CS: [Chuckles] I shouldn’t be telling you that.
GA: Well, I went to Fennville as you know, and we would have felt the same way. We don’t
want to join with those Saugatuck Indians! They are our rivals.
CS: That’s when they decided to rebuild.
GA: That was in the – I don’t remember that at all.
CS: I don’t know if we have any pictures of it? We must have pictures…
GA: So, there was a demonstration?
�CS: Oh, yeah. Saying, “No, no, no, no!” And, so, they listened.
25:04
CS: Then there was another… All these people were coming to the restaurant. There was a
group that came it. It was one of the musical groups at that time. I can’t remember the name, but
somebody said that’s who they are. They autographed a paper napkin and left it on the table. So,
I picked it up and kept it. I still have it.
GA: You’ll find it some place and go, “Oh, that’s where it is!”
CS: I can’t remember the name of the group. There were four or five fellows that were in it.
GA: Were they singers?
CS: Singers, instruments and singing.
GA: Ah.
CS: I’ll find it and give it to the archives.
GA: Yeah! You should because that would be special. So, did you have different napkins that
said Hollyhock House on them?
CS: No, just plain white.
GA: Plain white napkins, okay. But somebody autographed it, like The Beach Boys or
something. A well-known group.
CS: Yes, they were well-known at the time. I don’t know if anyone would remember them now.
GA: Oh, I’m sure oldies like the two of us would remember. Now, do you remember what they
ordered? You waited on them, right?
CS: Yeah. It was breakfast. I don’t remember what they had. But I thought, I’m going to save
that. I don’t know why, but…
GA: I’m glad you did! And you’ll find it, it’ll turn up, and you’ll say, “Hey, there it is.” You
probably have it in a book or something to keep itCS: In a box that I’m saving. [Both laugh]
�GA: Did you have other celebrities that came to eat at The Hollyhock House?
CS: I don’t remember. I was trying to remember if Burt Tilstrom came in [Indistinguishable]
GA: Yes.
CS: I remember when he passed by out on the street.
GA: On the street.
CS: And the dragon was hanging out the window. [Both laugh] Someone he knew was eating at
the restaurant. So he stuck the dragon out the window.
GA: That’s neat.
CS: Ollie.
GA: I remember watching that on TV. Cuckoo Friend and Ollie. What year was that, I can’t
remember?
CS: Must have been in the 50s.
GA: Early 60s.
CS: Yeah, 50s.
GA: Okay, do you remember seeing that dragon sticking out of the window, was the pavilion in
the background, or had it burned down by then?
CS: I think that it burned.
GA: It burned. So it had to be after 1960 of May.
CS: Yeah, I’m not quite sure.
GA: You said you worked there for about 20 years, then.
CS: Yeah.
GA: Wow.
CS: Yeah, I started working there in… Let me see. I think it would have been 1965. So, maybe it
wasn’t 20 years.
�GA: Maybe you subbed in somewhere or helped out sometimes, too. I remember because I had a
friend, Bob Breckenridge, who worked in the bank.
CS: Yeah.
GA: And I would mock him and say, “Yeah, you don’t even have a job. You’re finished with
work at 3:00 in the afternoon. That’s no job.”
CS: The bank used to close at 3.
GA: I remember that, yeah. But, you start work at what time?
CS: 9:00.
GA: 9:00. But you didn’t leave at 3:00.
CS: Oh, no, no. We were there.
GA: Because you had to make sure everything was …
CS: Yeah. And, let’s see what else. Well, I was offered the job at the bank. I didn’t apply for it.
GA: Oh, that’s a compliment! So they came to you and said, “Cynthia.”
CS: I was taking a refresher course in typing up at the high school, an evening class. Mrs.
Showers, do you remember Louise Showers?
GA: I remember the name, but.
CS: Yeah, she was there, too, because she was starting to work at the bank. She had to learn how
to type. [Chuckles] And she told the bank manager.
GA: Who was?
CS: Mill Stahl.
GA: Okay.
CS: And she said he should ask me to work there because I was such a good typist.
GA: Ah.
�CS: So, I came into the bank and he asked me if I’d like to work there. It was just part time,
because I had to work at the restaurant in the morning. I could work at the bank in the afternoon.
Well, that lasted a week, and then he wants me full time. And Irene Simonson.
GA: Okay.
CS: She was a customer of my aunt’s who came every day for coffee. She said she’d like to have
a job working the restaurant.
GA: Oh really?
CS: She just jumped at the chance.
GA: So, she filled in for you and you went to the bank, then.
CS: Yeah.
30:00
GA: Okay, may I ask you a personal question? When you worked at The Hollyhock House, how
much did you get paid an hour? Not with tips.
CS: I came across some pay stubs the other day throwing stuff out, and it seems like it was about
a quarter.
GA: Oh, that’s good. Oh, I think so. When I worked at The Redwood, I got 50 cents an hour, and
that was in the early 60s. Oh, so, my word, I didn’t know that!
CS: But, we made good tips there.
GA: Oh, I’m sure you would have, yes.
CS: Yeah.
GA: Well, that was very profitable.
CS: Yeah. When you stop to think about it, it was good at that time.
GA: And when you worked at the bank, you had given up your job to Irene SimonCS: Irene Simonson, yes. Her husband was the photographer.
�GA: Yes. I’ve heard that name.
CS: Carl. Carl Simonson.
GA: I would never recognize her if I saw her, but I’ve heard the name.
CS: Well, you probably knew her son, Bruce. He was village maintenance, head of village
maintenance for 50 years.
GA: I just nominated Tanya, but that’s it. Your cousin, Frank Lamb, I know.
CS: Yeah.
GA: Because he was on the basketball team.
CS: Yeah.
GA: I’ve probably told you, but we used to call him The Nicotine Five. Isn’t that terrible?
Because it was Frank Lamb, name me some of the other guys. Lovejoy. Frank Lovejoy.
CS: Yeah. Ralph Brickles.
GA: Ralph Brickles. Bob Breckenridge.
CS: I don’t know. But Bob was younger… Rick Francis.
GA: Rick Francis, yes! I thought it was Rex, but Rex went to Fennville then.
CS: Yeah. He went to Fennville.
GA: He… [gasp] He changed sides.
CS: Well, he had to.
GA: Yeah, I think there was a little problem there.
CS: He and the coach, who was the school principal at the timeGA: Oh, really?
CS: Had a disturbance…
GA: There was an altercation.
�CS: Let’s see. Frank and Ralph, Oh, Bill Hedgeland, I think.
GA: That’s right.
CS: He was one of them.
GA: Will Hedgeland, yes, he was one of them. Oh, that’s right. Because you had a good team.
CS: Oh, yeah.
GA: They were very good and I know it was always the-. When you played Saugatuck, when
Fennville played, that was the game.
CS: M-hm.
GA: And we played each other twice. Once in Saugatuck, once in Fennville. And those were the
biggest turnouts. They were the most exciting.
CS: Yeah, still are.
GA: The rivalry. I don’t know, when did the rivalry start?
CS: Probably from the very beginning.
GA: From the beginning, yeah. The Blackhawks and the Indians. The Indians were really, really
tough. I remember being in that gym, and it would be so crowded. I know one time my dad was
sitting up at the top, and there were guys with snare drums up above him, and a snare drum fell
off and hit him right in the head.
CS: Oh, gosh.
GA: Isn’t that a weird thing to remember? But, it was very crowded in there, very tight. As I
recall, the bleachers seemed like they were right on the floor. There was not much room at all.
CS: Yeah, it wasn’t very big.
GA: But, it was filled with lots of excited spectators. Wow. Now, going back to, I keep thinking
about The Hollyhock. How long, then, did your aunt have that? When did she close it?
CS: She closed it in 1970, I believe.
GA: So, ten years after the pavilion burned.
�CS: Yeah, she wasn’t well, so she had to give it up.
GA: And nobody took it over?
CS: Oh yeah. I can’t remember their last name, but it probably was Sullivan or something. This
couple took it over and kept the name.
GA: They kept the name The Hollyhock.
CS: They were, they just didn’t have as good of a restaurant.
GA: I’m sure all the clientele figured that out early on.
CS: Yeah. I think they sold to Marrows.
GA: Oh, okay.
CS: Then Marrows was built in the vacant lot next door to build over the house.
GA: Because Marrows has been there quite a while.
CS: Oh, yeah.
GA: Probably since, what, the mid 70s, then?
CS: Probably. I can’t remember the years now. I know there was a couple from Indiana that had
the Marrows restaurant for a year. They would come up every summer and open up. They were
jealous of my aunt’s restaurant because their food wasn’t that good. [Laughs]
GA: And she always liked to cook?
CS: Oh, yeah.
GA: But she’d never been a restauranter like this before? An entrepreneur or anything?
35:04
CS: Well, when she first came to Saugatuck, she worked at The Green Parrot, I think was the
restaurant’s name, so she worked there.
GA: So, she said, “I can do this even better on my own.”
CS: Well, she didn’t start right away. My father and John Ball had a restaurant on Mason Street.
�GA: Oh, really, your dad?
CS: Yes, they just had hamburgers and chili.
GA: Oh, okay.
CS: And my aunt worked there as a waitress.
GA: Frank’s mom?
CS: Yeah. My mother did the dishes and Mrs. Ball made the pies.
GA: Oh, really?
CS: And from there, the Balls opened their own restaurant on Butler Street. John Ball
Restaurant. I don’t remember…
GA: Now is that relation to the John Ball of Grand Rapids? John Ball Park?
CS: No, no.
GA: No relation whatsoever.
CS: And then my aunt opened her… opened Hollyhock House, because my dad went back to
building. He’d rather be building than be in a restaurant.
GA: That was much more his style.
CS: So, my aunt opened Hollyhock House and the Balls opened their restaurant.
GA: So, really, there were quite a few restaurants in Saugatuck.
CS: Oh, yeah.
GA: I remember the Hollyhock, and I remember you used to go downstairs and it was called….
So, it would be in the south end where… What is it called? The Old Crow in the south end? You
would go downstairs and there was something called the…
CS: The Ratskeller.
GA: The Ratskeller, that’s right. I can remember that, and I can remember upstairs.
CS: That was, uh, El Forno.
�GA: El Forno.
CS: And next to that was the Old Crow Bar.
GA: The Old Crow Bar, okay. The Ratskeller, that’s right, it was downstairs. What do they call
it… The Soda Lounge next to the drugstore?
CS: That was on Butler Street.
GA: Oh, that was on Butler Street, okay.
CS: It was kind of at the back of The Hollyhock House, facing the other side of the street.
GA: Ah, because I remember all of the Saugatuck kids going. They called it the Scrounge.
CS: Oh.
GA: What was it called?
CS: The Soda Lounge.
GA: They’d call it the Scrounge. I don’t ever remember being in it, but I remember them talking
about it.
CS: It had been there a long time.
GA: Well, go ahead.
CS: They used to, they’d go on up after the ball games. The kids could come in.
GA: Oh, okay.
CS: I don’t know that they were open every evening, but after aGA: After a ball game of some sort. Basketball, football, something like that.
CS: Yeah.
GA: Oh, no, because Saugatuck didn’t have football.
CS: No.
GA: That’s right, so they had… Did they have a baseball team?
�CS: I don’t know, I don’t think so.
GA: So, just basketball.
CS: Just basketball.
GA: So, no tennis or…
CS: Nope.
GA: Oh, my word. Then, that’s why the guys were so good. They didn’t have to practice
anything else. [Both chuckle]
CS: Then, The Soda Lounge moved across the street. It closed up when they were across the
street next to the bank, because it was the bank on the corner.
GA: Which is now The Garden, right?
CS: Yeah. It was just a small… This was after Mike Kenny died. His wife and her sister had The
Soda Lounge and it was just a smaller place. They ran that for a while.
GA: Had the drugstore always had the soda bar in the back, there, too?
CS: Yeah. Well, when we first came, it was right in the front part, The Soda Lounge. I mean, the
drugstore.
GA: The drugstore.
CS: Over on the north wall. They had The Soda Lounge, a soda bar there. When Christianson
took it over, he added on the back of the building and had it back there.
GA: Is it still there?
CS: Oh, yeah.
GA: I remember, every summer…
CS: They don’t serve all year round. It’s in the summertime.
GA: Okay. Because it was always the neatest thing to come to Saugatuck. It was always kind of,
“This is enemy territory.” Isn’t that terrible?
�CS: It was a bad town.
GA: No, it wasn’t a bad town, it was enemy territory. Oh, let’s go to Saugatuck. I can still
remember that. Did you ever go to Whatnot Inn?
CS: Yeah.
GA: That was, when I think of it, thinking of it now, we used to go there as kids, but it was a bar
then!
CS: Probably, yeah.
40:00
GA: I guess, I would never allow my kids to go to a bar by themselves, but we did. Maybe our
folks didn’t know. I don’t know.
CS: Maybe they knew the people that were running it and it would be…
GA: That’s right.
CS: I don’t remember.
GA: Deanne DeAngelo.
CS: Deanne.
GA: DeAngelos, that’s right! Sure, she was. I remember, she was a very pretty girl. Deanne
DeAngelo.
CS: M-hm.
GA: That’s right. Well, then, I’m sure it was okay with the DeAngelos.
CS: Yeah.
GA: Even if it was a bar. Huh.
CS: It was a family-run place. I was trying to remember when the bank was on the corner.
GA: M-hm. I can remember the bank being on the corner. That’s where the rose garden is now.
�CS: I think it was being remodeled or something. They had to move the money. Every night,
they had to move the money out of the vault over to the drugstore.
GA: Really?
CS: They kept it over there.
GA: Oh, my word.
CS: Then they brought it back in the morning. I think they must have been remodeling at that
time. I wasn’t working there then, so I can’t remember, but that was so funny that…
GA: They’d take the money from the bank.
CS: In the afternoon they’d take the money to the drug store in a wheelbarrow. [Both laugh].
GA: And I’m sure everybody knew what was happening.
CS: Oh, yeah. There was one, two policemen in town.
GA: So, they would escort it over there?
CS: Yeah.
GA: Oh, that’s neat!
CS: And they brought it back in the morning.
GA: With a police escort?
CS: Yeah.
GA: Now, I remember the bank being a red brick, sort of a flat building. Was it always that way?
CS: It is now. It was a two-story yellow brick building on the corner.
GA: Maybe I’m just remembering what it is now, because now it’s back farther than what it was.
CS: M-hm.
GA: Because before it was…
CS: Where the rose garden is.
�GA: Oh. But it was a two-story. I guess I don’t…
CS: Yes, it was a two-story. There was a dentist up above, an attorney, and some lady.
GA: I didn’t know that. What was it called? Not The Chemical Bank.
CS: No.
GA: It was called what?
CS: Fruit Growers.
GA: That’s right, Fruit Growers Bank.
CS: Then, we merged with South Haven’s Citizens’ Trusted Savings, and it became Citizens’
Trusted Savings. And then they decided to build a new building, the red brick bank.
GA: So, that was probably, what? In the 80s or 90s? I don’t know.
CS: 1971.
GA: Oh, 70s!
CS: In 1971, they moved into the new brick building.
GA: So, you remember the move, then, very vividly?
CS: Oh, yeah. We had to help carry all of the stuff over to the new bank.
GA: So, you were working at the bank when they were remodeling and would take it across, or
was that before?
CS: That was before.
GA: That was before. They must have had a huge safe, then, to hold all of the money from the
bank.
CS: I don’t know what they, how they did it.
GA: I hope they didn’t just put it on a shelf someplace. [Laughs]
CS: Unless, well, there was a big vault in the bank. Maybe they could keep most of it… Well,
they had to have safe deposit boxes in there.
�GA: Yeah, they would take a couple… You can’t have more than ten of those.
CS: And then the daily money they took over to the drug store.
GA: Wow!
CS: The old old bank had a corner… [Indistinguishable]
GA: Oh, on the outside of it?
CS: Yeah. That’s what they took down and remodeled.
GA: When they were remodeling, yeah, okay. Hmmm. When was it built originally, do you
know?
CS: I don’t remember.
GA: But, a long, long time ago. But, yellow brick?
CS: M-hm.
GA: Interesting. Did it take up that whole space? It was really quite large.
CS: Yeah.
GA: Much larger than it is now.
CS: Yeah, well…
GA: Did it have a basement?
CS: This one has a basement.
GA: There was a basement.
CS: There was a basement too in the old one, yeah.
GA: Did you ever go down there?
CS: Yeah. It was all dark and spidery.
GA: So, it wasn’t all nice and clean, you know, with lights.
�CS: When they were going to tear it down and move everything over to the new bank, we had to
go down there to see if there was something we had to save. A lot of stuff we probably should
have saved but didn’t. It was just piled away.
GA: Well, when was this new one built, then? You said about ’71.
CS: Yeah.
GA: So, did it take them? I mean, you moved in ’71 or ’72?
CS: It was finished in 1971.
GA: 1971.
CS: We moved everything over there.
GA: And then you worked there for how many more years?
CS: Altogether, starting at the corner, 35 years.
GA: Oh, my word! That’s wonderful! And this all came because you were such a good typist.
CS: Yeah. And now, I can’t type. [Laughs]
45:03
GA: Oh, well, hey. Now, everything is done… The kids are good at… When they dig up
students’ bodies they are going to wonder why their thumbs look so strange, but that’s how they
do their typing.
CS: Well, we had typewriters.
GA: Well, that was before computers.
CS: Yeah. We had computers towards the end.
GA: Towards the end, okay.
CS: Of my employment there. That’s when I got out. I didn’t want to get confused. Well, I
wanted to retire anyways.
GA: But you were there when they had the big robbery, weren’t you?
�CS: I was working there, but I hadn’t gotten there. This happened early in the morning, 8:00 in
the morning, and I got there at 8:30. It was just Pat and Frank Wicks that were there.
GA: But you heard about it, then?
CS: When I came to work, Pat met me at the back door, and she said, “Well, we’ve been
robbed.” And then she said, “You gotta come in.” The place was full of police and sheriffs.
GA: What did they ask you?
CS: I really can’t remember. We had to take lie detector tests there. During the investigation, we
all had to take lie detector tests. Like, where were we and when did we come to work, and all
that. I can’t really remember that.
GA: So, then, you would come in a back door.
CS: Yeah.
GA: Because banks didn’t open until what, 9:00?
CS: 9:00. We never could quite figure out how they got the front door open. They just walked
right in even though they had been locked the night before, but somehow they…
GA: Did they ever catch them?
CS: They didn’t catch-. Oh, well, they did, but this was long after.
GA: Because they wore masks, like presidential masks or something like this.
CS: I can’t remember that, because I didn’t see them, but one of them was arrested down in
Florida. He ratted on the rest of them.
GA: Oh, okay.
CS: Told them who the rest of them were.
GA: They had to be… They really planned that, then.
CS: Yeah. They were… They were renting a condo as you come into town. It was on the river
right there as you turned into Saugatuck, North Shore Harbor Condos, or something. They had
been living… They were living there. They had rented there.
�GA: And they just cased the whole place?
CS: They knew when Brinks was going to come and pick up the money. It was…. It was Labor
Day weekend. And, of course, Brinks didn’t come that Monday, so all that money was held over
to the next weekend.
GA: They were very professional, then, weren’t they?
CS: They never did recover any of the money, but eventually all of them were caught.
GA: But they never, ever figured out how they were able to get in those front windows, those
front doors?
CS: No. I wonder if they ever questioned them to find out how they did it.
GA: I would think so, because obviously they’d have to have…
CS: Tools. I don’t know.
GA: You’ve had some experiences here, haven’t you?
CS: Then we had a fire in the new bank.
GA: Oh, I didn’t know this! Tell me about that.
CS: I forget when it happened, but it was at night. Somebody coming out of The Sand Bar saw
smoke coming up from the bank and called the fire department. The manager, John Guyer, was
living on Cambeck Road. They called him, and he went down there, and Pat. Pat was where she
lives now, so she came. They had three people to call if anything happened. One was the
manager, one was Pat, and one was me. Pat tried to get me, but I didn’t hear the phone.
GA: Well, it was in the middle of the night, so.
CS: Yeah. Well, I did finally get down there. It was an electrical fire in the box where all the
wires and things were. John Guyer, the first thing he thought about were the Carl Herman
paintings.
GA: Oh.
�CS: There were four of them in the bank, and he got them all down. The fire was over where
they were hanging on the wall. He got them all down, covered them up, and then saved them all.
50:04
GA: Well, that was very lucky. Was there much damage done inside the bank?
CS: Oh, yeah. We couldn’t. We couldn’t work in there. We had to get a trailer out in the parking
lot. We had to work out of the trailer.
GA: For probably a couple of weeks.
CS: Well, longer than that.
GA: Longer than that?
CS: It was during the winter.
GA: Oh, no!
CS: And it was cold. [Both chuckle]
GA: Oh, dear.
CS: Nothing under the trailer. They had straw bales under the sides.
GA: But that doesn’t protect much, oh my word.
CS: Every night, we had to bring everything over into the vault and lock it up. The vault was
still..
GA: Still useable.
CS: Still useable, yeah.
GA: In the bank.
CS: Because it had been closed-up while the fire was going on.
GA: That would be fireproof, too, I’m sure.
CS: Yeah.
�GA: Wow.
CS: But the restrooms were over there. [Both laugh] We didn’t have any in the trailer.
GA: [Laughs] My turn! I can’t wait! Hurry up and take this customer!
CS: You’d put a coat on and run over there.
GA: Oh, dear. [Chuckles] When was this, do you remember what year?
CS: Gosh, I can’t remember the date.
GA: Well, it was after ’71, though.
CS: Yeah.
GA: So, probably the late 80s, maybe?
CS: The 80s, okay. Yeah, it had to have been in the 80s.
GA: So, the bank was really not that old.
CS: No. There was a basement in that bank, too. There was smoke, the smell of smoke down
there, but I don’t remember any damage in the basement. It was all on the upper level.
GA: Luckily, someone was coming out of The Sand Bar and caught it.
CS: Yeah.
GA: Wow.
CS: I don’t think of anything else. Well, it must have been around Christmastime when it
happened, because we had a Christmas tree in the lobby.
GA: A Christmas tree, okay. But, then you didn’t have room for that when you moved into this
itty bitty…
CS: Oh, no. It was… We probably got back into the bank in the spring or summer.
GA: But even so, that’s gonna be quite a while.
CS: It was a long time, especially in the winter to be freezing like that.
�GA: See, I’d never heard that before. I’m sure a lot of people.
CS: I have photographs of the trailer, it would have been the trailer.
GA: I’d bet they’d like that here, it would be nice.
CS: Well, they’ve got a lot of those. It was around the holidays because the people in town were
so good to us. They kept bringing us food.
GA: Probably hot cocoa or something like that.
CS: We did have coffee. But they brought cakes, and rolls, and donuts.
GA: All those good things.
CS: Candy, man. A lot of stuff.
GA: And I think that’s part of what makes Saugatuck so neat because it’s so small, especially in
the wintertime. Everybody knows everybody.
CS: Yeah.
GA: Because all of the outsiders, I should say a majority of them, are gone because people are
not going to come here in the wintertime, because it’s mainly the summer, the water, the hunting,
the fishing.
CS: One winter, we had one of those sled dog races.
GA: Down to Main Street?
CS: I don’t know. I think they were out of town, but they were all in town with the dogs. This
was after the pavilion was gone.
GA: So, after 1960.
CS: Yeah. All these people were there with their sled dogs. They all came into town.
GA: Well, that would be a good draw. So, they went right down Butler Street, then? Main
Street?
CS: I can’t remember where they raced. It had to be out of town, probably, but they parked their
trailers in town.
�GA: Woof, woof, lots of dogs. Well, that would be exciting. Those are good memories.
CS: We used to have a rubber duck parade race on the river.
GA: Oh really?
CS: Where people would sponsor a rubber duck.
GA: In front of the pavilion?
CS: No, it was down by the ferry. We’d dump them all in the river and see who won.
GA: So did they go… I don’t know what way the river flows, probably to the lake.
CS: Yeah.
GA: So, they would float north, right?
CS: I don’t know if they had a way to keep them from going all the way to the lake.
GA: They probably had a cut off for whose got there first?
CS: Yeah.
GA: Ah, that’s fun.
CS: We only did that once?
GA: Did you do it?
CS: No.
55:00
GA: Oh, Cynthia, come on! Rubber duckies! [Both laugh] Were they yellow ones, or bright?
CS: They were yellow.
GA: And they had numbers on them so you could know whose was whose?
CS: M-hm.
GA: Oh, that’s neat. What else can you think of that was different? I’ve never heard of that.
That’s neat.
�CS: This is jumping around.
GA: Oh, that’s okay.
CS: They used to have Venetian Night at the pavilion where people would come in costume and
they had dancing and costumes and the Venetian Boat Parade used to be really big. There used to
be 25-30 boats in the parade with decorated…
GA: Decorated with lights on them and costume and theme. I would assume they had a theme
they would carry out?
CS: I don’t know if they ever had a theme, you just decorated. There were a lot of them. And
then, when gas got expensive, the boats, they didn’t want to use their gas in a parade, so.
GA: And probably different organizations or families or whatever would have the boat, or it
could be your little boat.
CS: Yeah.
GA: For example, Oxbow might have one or something like that.
CS: They had one, and the Saugatuck Yacht Club and the Singapore Yacht Club. Different
groups would have a boat decorated.
GA: That’s neat!
CS: And then, I used to sit on the roof of my aunt’s restaurant to watch it at night.
GA: Oh, it was at night?
CS: The boat parade was at night.
GA: Oh, sure, with all of the lights on it would be much more exciting. So, you sat on the roof?
CS: Yeah, I could climb out the bedroom, out of the hall window and sit and get a good view.
GA: [Laughs] And not get yelled at, right?
CS: That must have been after the pavilion was gone, otherwise there wouldn’t be much to see.
GA: Otherwise, the pavilion would have been in the way.
�CS: Yeah.
GA: And nobody yelled at you for sitting on the roof?
CS: No. [Both laugh]
GA: Oh my word. Well, Cynthia, this has been very, very interesting. When you think of some
other things, we will talk the next time we do newsletters. I’ll try to take notes or not. I don’t
have a little recorder, but I think this would be really, really great for them. I thank you so much
for sharing these memories with me. Remember they are going to go to Grand Valley.
CS: I didn’t know that. I thought it was going to be kept here.
GA: Well, yes, but they will go there. I think that’s where they are going to sort through them
and put them all in, then coming back because they are going to stay here as far as this is
concerned. Stories of Summer, is that what the whole thing is called?
CS: A lot of mine was winter. [Chuckles]
GA: Well, its memories of the Saugatuck-Douglas area. So, thank you very much, Cynthia. I
appreciate that. This was fun, and it wasn’t so horrible, was it?
CS: Well…
GA: Well, yes, I know. [Chuckles]
CS: I can’t think.
GA: Oh, yes you can.
CS: Of dates and things like that. I don’t remember certain dates.
GA: Well, I think you’ve done a very good job. I enjoyed it, and I’ve learned a lot. We know
that you will not have your picture taken because that’s what you said.
CS: Right.
GA: So, that’s going to be on here before I shut it off.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Summers in Saugatuck-Douglas Collection
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Grand Valley State University. Kutsche Office of Local History
Description
An account of the resource
Collection contains images and documents digitized and collected through the project "Stories of Summer," supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant. The collection aims to document the twin lakeshore communities of Saugatuck and Douglas, Michigan, as they transformed through the state's bustling tourism industry and acceptance of minorities.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1910s-2010s
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Various
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/UND/1.0/">Copyright Undetermined</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Michigan
Saugatuck (Mich.)
Douglas (Mich.)
Michigan, Lake
Allegan County (Mich.)
Beaches
Sand dunes
Outdoor recreation
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University Libraries. Allendale, Michigan
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Saugatuck-Douglas History Center
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Stories of Summer (Common Heritage project)
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
image/jpeg
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Image
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
DC-07_SD-SorensenC_2018-07-21
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Sorensen, Cynthia
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-07-21
Title
A name given to the resource
Cynthia Sorenson (audio interview and transcript) 2018
Description
An account of the resource
Cynthia Sorensen shares her memories of the burning of the Big Pavilion, attending high school, and working at The Hollyhock House.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Asman, Gina (interviewer)
Kutzel, Ken (interviewer)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Michigan
Saugatuck (Mich.)
Douglas (Mich.)
Restaurants
Allegan County (Mich.)
Oral history
Audio recordings
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Stories of Summer project, Kutsche Office of Local History. Grand Valley State University
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Relation
A related resource
Stories of Summer (Common Heritage project)
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
audio/mp3
application/pdf
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Sound
Text
Language
A language of the resource
eng