Picking Pickles

 by Delores Miller

 

     Poverty-stricken  mid-Wisconsin families began in the 1940s to look for ways of supplementing farm income.   Milk cows, pigs and chickens were not sufficient.   Cucumbers was a quick and easy cash crop, or so it seemed unless you were the poor individual picking pickles.

      A contract with the Bond Pickle Company and their representative Laura Mauel was signed.  Other receiving pickle stations were located at Big Falls with Otto Faehling as agent  and Eastling at Manawa.  Quarter or half  acre was the usual size.  Seeds were planted  with the crop maturing the end of July, and continued until frost, sometime towards the end of September.  Ten weeks of cucumbers.

      Picked and priced by size, ten dollars for a hundred pounds of two inch size gherkins.  A dollar for a hundred pounds of the over-sized pickles with various prices in between.  Hot, humid,  sticky days, rainy days, early morning, flies,  mosquito bites, made no difference.  The creeping vines, prickly, the blasted pickles still had to be picked.  I  was allergic, itched and suffered from hives, made no difference, rubber gloves solved that problem.

      Hauled in gunny sacks to the pickle factory, located near the railroad tracks in Marion, east of the Plywood  and the Ziehm Brothers livestock pens.  Laura Mauel  ran them through a conveyor belt and graded by size.  Put in the wooden barrels, to ferment with salt, dill  and vinegar, eventually being bottled and sold in stores.

      And what to do with all the money earned, you say?  Buy school clothes, supplies, perhaps a new winter coat and a few dollars to spend foolishly at the free shows.  Money was hard to come by in those early teen-aged days.

copyright 2014 by Delores and Russell Miller 

 Delores Miller lives with husband Russell in Hortonville, Wisconsin.    In the summer of 2007 they  celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary with a party hosted by their five children and ten grandchildren.  It’s been a long road.  Dairy farming until retirement in 1993, they continued to 'work' the land, making a subdivision of 39 new homes on their former hay fields.

The Isle of Devils

By Peter Schaub

Beautiful Bermuda was on nobody’s bucket list in the 1600s. Named for Juan Bermudez, who discovered them about 1505, the islands were feared by the Spanish and Portuguese who rode the Gulf Stream from the Caribbean to Europe. The reefs surrounding the islands are treacherous, making a purposeful entry to harbor all but impossible in that era. The screeching cahow birds would have sounded to superstitious sailors like wailing demons. They called the place the “Isle of Devils”.

Sea Venture was the flagship of the relief fleet sent from England to Jamestowne in 1609. Hit by a hurricane, six battered vessels made it into Jamestowne with most of the provisions spoiled. The Sea Venture carried the senior leaders and wrecked on Bermuda. Even as the gunwales were awash, Captain Newport, Admiral Somers and Governor Gates must have been wondering which fate was better: drowning at sea or being wrecked on that abhorred shore.

Unlike those shipwrecked Jamestowne settlers, Connie and I arrived safe and dry in Bermuda with our friends on a lovely April day. Bermuda is not only pink coral beaches, gentle turquoise waves, and great golf courses. We spent the next week meeting interesting people, learning about Bermuda’s history, and sampling the local favorite, the “dark and stormy” made with Bermuda dark rum. Our interest in Bermuda started with our interest in Historic Jamestowne where the recent discoveries are showing the connections between the earliest British settlements in America. For example, Bermuda limestone was found inside the Jamestowne fort site in a 1610 context. This was ballast used in the new ships built by the Sea Venture survivors.

We began our visit attending an art auction at the World Heritage Center in the town of St. George. 

Continued HERE. 

Peter Schaub retired in 2010 after 40 years in management at the electric utility in Washington, DC. He and his wife moved to Williamsburg, Virginia where they enjoy the arts and the immersion in history available within a community that includes the College of William & Mary, Colonial Williamsburg, and Historic Jamestowne. They also enjoy travel, especially when it has a connection to history. Peter is a Master Gardener, and an amateur letterpress printer, continuing a hobby that began in his teen years. He is currently president of the American Amateur Press Association.