CROP PICKING SUMMER

by

Mona Hyer Waibel

All photos are from the personal collection of Mona Hyer Waibel.  

Use of them for commercial purposes is prohibited without her permission

..

    During the summers of the Depression Years, we tried to make money picking the summer produce of  Oregon. 

    We had some very lean times when I was small and my family worked to have food on the table any way they could think of.  Although I was just past my toddler stage, I remember these times–because Mother mentioned them often. Some good memories and good lessons on living too.

   One memorable time was spent picking peaches in the valley near Salem.  We stayed in a long building that had separate quarters-cabins for each family. There was no electricity, no running water – we pumped our water from a well outside. Each cabin had one room with a cook stove and some cots, and very thin walls.  You could hear fathers’ scolding and spanking naughty children who didn’t help much with the picking that day. I didn’t do my share either and I asked my Dad if I was in trouble. I was three years old. There were many other children staying in this run-down housing, but none as small as I.

   There were five peach pickers in our family: my parents and my brothers Jim, Tom and Karel Hyer. I didn’t do anything but just hang around and watch and get in the way.

    A kettle of mush was cooked every morning and we had a little brown sugar over that. Early each morning we all headed out to the orchard for a day of work. I kicked a few clods of dirt and enjoyed the overripe sweet juicy peach that Mother would give me occasionally. Sometimes I took the pits and made a trail around the stack of peach boxes.

   In late afternoon, Mother and I headed out to our cabin to start some dinner. We had lots of fried potatoes and also fresh vegetables from the orchard owner’s garden. Several times he butchered and gave us a nice piece of beef for our dinner too. Sometimes Mother fixed corned beef hash, which I loved, in our iron skillet! 

    On the days he brought us corn on the cob, we were happy for two reasons: the sweet corn gave us food to eat for dinner and we had the corn cobs to wipe with in the outhouse. He also gave us a dozen eggs each week. Mother made many pans of baking powder biscuits each evening in the cook stove and packed them out into the orchards for our lunch.  They were quite good when you are hungry, and they were spread with yummy pear preserves or elderberry jelly, which I didn’t like much. I thought it was bitter.  But it was enjoyable sitting on the ground with my brothers to roughhouse me a little while we ate. My brother Jim would put me on his shoulders too and carry me around.

   Right after lunch the five hardy pickers headed out to another peach tree and the picking would start again. Of course this small girl got sleepy about then and soon I curled up on a root of the shade tree and fell asleep. I got so dirty out on that dusty dry farm and bathing was a difficult thing when you are outside all day. It felt really good when Mother heated some water and stuck me in the dish pan on Sunday morning.

   Our five pickers were paid 25 cents for a box and that took a while to fill.  I believe they did five boxes about each day and they picked six days a week and we thought we were rich with that $30 to spend on food again. I feel like I am writing a story similar to “Tobacco Road – Oregon Style.”

   Picking hops near Independencewas a grand experience too. I had grown taller when we were at the hop fields and I was quite quick at stripping the green hops off into my hop sack.  We were paid by the pound and some people put rocks in their sacks and cheated.  But we never did Mother said that was not a good thing to do. I was happy to be making some money too.

   At the hop fields I enjoyed the evenings and the wonderful music.  My brother Jim played the guitar and we all sang “Red River Valley” and I was so proud of him! He played several other great songs too, “You Are My Sunshine” and his favorites “Rocking Alone in an Old Rocking Chair,” and “That Silver Haired Daddy of Mine.”

     One Sunday we drove over to the Buena Vista Ferry and you would have thought the Hyer kids were in Disneyland, we were so excited at crossing the river and riding on that ferry. It was the high light of our summer.  When you are poor it doesn’t take much to make you joyously run around and enjoy something new. . 

    Back again in Sweet Home we found the blackberries Himalayasand evergreen were ripe and my brothers picked gallons of them and sold them to women who made fine jelly for their families. This gave some spending money for my brothers.

   Through the years, I learned to pick all kinds of berries.  During my early teen years, I hiked out to Pleasant Valley to Ted & Reva Weber’s farm early each morning and helped picked the twenty acres of blackcaps along with the big Coulter family. There were many Coulter children all right! Bonnie and Eulah were more my age and I liked picking with them.

    This blackcap resembled a black raspberry and it was used for making delicious jelly. It was quite a hike from town about ten miles round trip but thoroughly enjoyable because I got to see some of the kids from Beulah Land school then.  They came to the fields and we chatted as we picked.  I carried a lunch in a brown paper bag each day and sat down under a shade tree and maybe Janice Weber would join me too. I was getting very brown and had a nice tan on my arms. Some days I had a very sunburned nose.

  Bill Weber was there, wise cracking and taking my full crate and giving me another empty to fill. It was fun picking for this nice Weber family and they taught me a lesson about responsibility.  One particularly hot day, I left the blackcap patch early and headed home, hoping to take a nice swim and cool off.

   Well, the next morning Grandma Lena Weber met me as I came up the road.  She told me I had let the Webers down by leaving early yesterday and they did not make their berry order from the cannery and she was upset.  You see, when I left, so did my friends and most of the pickers were gone off playing in the Santiam River.  Was I embarrassed. She and Mom were friends. I never did that again; I always finished a job the rest of my life and tried to be responsible. 

    Bean picking was another way to make easy money. Ha ha.  Nothing was easy, but I thought picking pole beans was better because there was shade under the bean vines and that made it cooler. We also got to ride a bean farmer’s bus to Lebanon and this was really a blast. Mostly there were kids on the bus, but a few parents picked too. But we laughed and sang songs all the way, traveling both ways. 

   I worked as hard and fast as I possibly could in the field so that I was making the most money possible. We were paid by the pound and the sacks got heavy; so we had them weighed and turned in our beans several times a day.  I liked to pick next to someone who picked fast and tried to stay up with them. 

   If I picked by someone chatty, I got slower and slower and never made as much money that way. Money was so important; it meant school clothes for me and I had my eye on a cute blue striped dress from the Elite Shop. Maybe I told you about losing my bean picking check down the outhouse hole. Well I learned to be more careful after that; a lot of time and work went into that check.

     Of course, I need to mention what my brothers did on their own in the spring time. About March and April is the time to peel chittum bark - cascara it is called. They found chittum trees in the woods and after peeling it round the tree, they spread it out and dried the bark.  Then they took it in a gunny sack to the feed store or some other person who gathered this natural laxative. I remember lots of sacks of chittum drying around our home and my brothers worked hard to make some money from this venture.

    My least favorite job was picking strawberries early in the summer. It was a back-breaking job and did not pay very well.  The stooping over or crawling on your knees really got old before the day was over.  If it had rained or had lots of dew, your shoes and jeans were heavy with mud to carry around. You were paid by the crate here too. 

    Ernie Scholl expected me to pick berries for him and I tried to be there every day.  Kids today miss out on hard work in the crops. I am sorry for them because these were incredible days. We never had time to get into mischief not after a day of picking produce. We were too tired.

     I think the child labor law may be leaving our children lazy, obese and with too much time on their hands.

My name is Stephenie Flora. Thanks for stopping by. Return to [ Home Page ] All [ Comments and Inquiries ] are welcome.