The
The Blossom Time Festival is [a] very challenging and interesting job because you are working with as many as thirty-five communities in southwestern
In the past we would put our blankets out the night before, then the City decided you can’t do that. I buy reserved seats, I want front row. This year, it was rainy. I sent my husband down early to mark off our seats. It was amazing the crowd that turned out even though it was rainy. It was still a good parade.
1985 [was] the first Blossom Time [Festival] planning meeting. The problem no money.
When you are here in
It was such a treat to go down to the market with dad because you’d ride on the truck and he’d give us a nickel for an ice cream cone. Arlene Emery
We use to have [grower’s] meetings right in the county. Most of them [were] young growers, [and] we tried to help each other. It’s something we don’t have anymore. Before farm subsidies from the government, people helped each other. Now, the first thing they do is go to the government and try to get money. Harold Fox
A lot of our sweet cherries in
The Blossom Festival is a promoter for the industry. It was a great idea when it started. It has changed completely. Back in the [19]40s, [19]50s, maybe early [19]60s, they might have had the University of Michigan band, the Michigan State band, Western, Northwestern, and Notre Dame. But now it is all downscaled and mostly local. James Lull
When they started the new market in the 1930s, if you were a local person with established credit, you could write a check. Then the farmers would get paid and would run to the bank to cash it. Some of them would literally hold the check till the following year because they did not want to make too much money in a certain year because then they would have to pay taxes. But his gambling was his buying and selling produce. Eugene Peters
[Leo’s] dad was still picking cherries up on that ladder when he was eighty-eight years old. [When] the grandchildren picked berries, they always tried to beat [him]. They just couldn’t beat Grandpa. He [would say], “I must be getting old.” Leo and Dorothy Rennhack
Even though we were farmers, and farmers typically can’t get away during the harvest season, he made a point that we would do that and my uncles did too. So what we’d do is that, say after strawberries were over [and] before cherries would start, there’d be maybe a week period in there, so he’d take off with the family and go up to the UP and go fishing or whatever he did up there. Somebody else and my uncle would cover our farm and watch the animals and so on, and we’d come back and then maybe after cherries before peaches started, that uncle would go up there and we would watch their farm. It would be a switch off back and forth, and every year we’d spend a week or two weeks in the UP.
We had signs on the road and customers would come back over the years. With the number of relatives on the same road, if we didn’t have something, they’d say, “Well, you know Ann down the road has got them right this week.” He [might have] this variety this week, and we would be able to exchange [with] other farmers, too. Richard Schinkel
Our average customer drives sixty miles, so they’re pretty determined. We have one customer from
Here in this business, where we have people come out and pick their own, and you get a reflection from them and when I’m packing this fruit, it feels like I’m packing for my mother or my wife or someone who will appreciate it and that’s a better feeling. And you begin to make friends. I think this type of business replaces what we used to have as I remember a relative, an uncle, aunt, grandpa, somebody who had a farm, and you would go out and visit and you could do things like climb a tree or chase a chicken, and there’s no place now.
My family always had fresh peaches processed. When fall came, we’d go into the fruit cellar that we had down in the basement. On the walls were wooden shelves and we’d line these with jars of peaches and pears and all the canned fruit. So in the fall you’d go down and open the curtain on that window, and the eastern sun would shine into that, and you felt rich. You felt like you’re ready for winter now, you got money in the bank right there. It was nice for me as a young person to go down there and reach up on the shelf and get a quart of peaches that had been hand-grown and processed by the family and then sit down to a whole quart of peaches. You had the cow in the back, so you had cream too. You’d whip cream up and you put the cream on the peaches. That was a thrill.
My mother and father established the original farm, one hundred and sixty acres, after my father had gotten an interest in farming, horticulture in particular, after reading a book while he was in
He and his wife would come to the farm and they would walk the orchard, judge the fruit, talk about it, and try to evaluate it. And you can’t help but learn. It was interesting. They’d go in the house and oftentimes my mother would can the fruit. Then they’d judge it for that purpose. It was during the second World War when freezing became popular. And the reason peaches weren’t popular for preservation was they’d discolor. They’d thaw out and change from their frozen temperature to air temperature and they would turn dark. One of the first attractions for the Red Haven was the fact that it didn’t discolor. It came out right after the war started and it was developed for freezing. Herb Teichman
I have firsthand knowledge of life on the grape farm and in the asparagus field, and it’s just part of my heritage. I got involved with the museum because of the community center and my interest in history and in local history, in particular. I guess that’s my background. Tim Washburn
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