By Teeny McMunn
The Times 

Reflections on Harvests Past: A Woman's Perspective

 

Mary Ellen Juris

The Story Behind the Story

Since I write the recipe column for The Times each week, my mind was naturally drawn to those people that prepared meals for the harvest crews of years past. I found myself slightly stressed for them as I wondered how they accomplished such a huge task.

I talked to several ladies and their children (my age) about memories, food, and accomplishments during harvests of the past. I wish I could have spoken to many more, but when I was done, I was satisfied to know that, as the many generations before them and after them, they simply did what needed to be done, without fanfare, without complaints.

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MARY ELLEN JURIS

I asked Mary Ellen to share some thoughts on harvest. In conversation with her, she said her husband, Dick, didn't care for a large lunch, preferring sandwiches and a few extras.

"Most of the time, I cooked for our harvest crew, which was small and mostly family.  They brought their own lunches and were at their homes for both breakfast and evening dinner.  Mainly, I just cooked and made lunches for Dick, Kathee, and Kris.  Occasionally,I served lunch when we had hay and had extra crew.  Jay would come and help and when Makaela was small I took care of her and fixed lunches for family. Outside help (a neighbor) brought his own lunch and was at his home for breakfast and dinner," Mary Ellen said.

Mary Ellen's recipe for homemade rolls came from her mother, Ethel Henry.

Homemade Rolls

3 eggs

1 yeast cake

2 cups milk  (cool with 1 1/2 cups water)

1 tsp. salt

5 ½ cups flour (add to make about 8, 9, or 10 cups flour)

¼ lb. shortening ( ½ cup)

½ cup sugarScald milk with shortening, then cool. Crumble yeast.  Add ingredients - adding flour, a little at a time.  Mix with beaters, then knead.  Can be refrigerated.  

"As I mentioned, this was used during harvest and kept in refrigerator. We took it out when needed.  Frequently, we just broke off dough in the size of individual rolls and placed it into a greased pan, let rise for a couple of hours, and baked.

Yes, we did use this dough to make cinnamon rolls.  We just rolled out the dough into a circle, covered it with cinnamon, sugar, and little bits of butter (or margarine), made the dough into a roll, cut off circles of the dough, put into buttered pan to rise, and then baked.  Really good! "

For the record, 2 ¼ tsps. of dry yeast equals one cake of yeast.

It was fun to have Mary Ellen give me her recipe and share how they handled harvest.

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THE MEAD RANCH

I sent off an email to Julia to ask her how they prepared for the feeding of their harvest crew and was pleased that she took the time to respond. Here is what she had to say.

"As a longstanding tradition, the Mead Ranch continues to feed their harvest crew every year!  

"We hire a harvest cook and the crew (generally six in number) gets a full breakfast Mon. – Sat. at 6 am., hot lunch in the field at noon, and a big dinner at 8p.m. (with the exception of Saturdays when the crew heads home for the evening at 6p.m. and Sundays as a 'day of rest.'). They also have "Tea Time" (ice tea and cookies)  delivered by Skip (aka "Bossman") in the field each day at 4 p.m.

 "Our cooks do 'old school' menus, bringing their talent with their family recipes.  And they do a great job of utilizing what I can 'harvest' and put on the shelves.

 "Favorite meals include: biscuits and gravy, lasagna, meat and mashed potatoes with gravy, fresh green beans with sweet onions and bacon and fresh homemade pies! Most days there are NO leftovers!!

 "The crew consumed on average: five gallons of milk per week, 8-10 dozen eggs, pounds of fresh produce, lots of potatoes and pasta and beef & pork!!

 "All appliances are OLD! The range has six burners and large double ovens, serving dishes are considered by some to be 'collectibles.' The crew enjoys the durability of really old tin and enamel plates at lunch time out in the field.

 "The Bunkhouse (generations past have slept in the upstairs on cots) serves as a "cook shack" now, and the table can seat 14, which can include family members, guests/visitors, fuel, machinery and herbicide suppliers,  neighbors or whomever walks in hungry! There is generally an extra place setting present in anticipation of a 'drop-in.'

"Three Generations now gather to enjoy meals once a week, with the young ones doing small after dinner chores. With our five grandkids, all age 5 and under, it can be very noisy!

 "I assumed the duties of bunkhouse prep (cleaning/set-up, stocking shelves, gathering produce etc.) from my beloved mother-in-law, Dot Mead over 30 years ago. I now have assistance from my daughters-in-law, Whitney and Lacey Mead.  (It is a labor of love that I am sure Dot performed for at least 30 years also!).

 "I have been the fill-in cook for many years. My love and enjoyment of cooking for the hungry crew, I attribute to my mom's cooking/baking  talents that she so lovingly shared with me.  She cooked for the 'Mill Crew' as a young bride on my great grandfather's homestead north of Chewelah, Wash.

 "We fully intend to continue this great tradition of feeding the crew. We believe it keeps the harvest crew bonded. Relaxed meals finish the long, hot days with lots of laughter and banter and make great memories each and every year.

 "As a harvester or cook the harvest days start early, last long, and are the highlight of our farming years!"

Thank you, Julia.

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AVA JEAN GAGNON

It was a delight to listen to Ava Jean reminisce about her days cooking during harvest. They had a small crew that harvested several different pieces of farm land. One area was over by Prescott so the food was taken to the park. It was still warm as they were not too far away. After the meal, the children stayed to swim while Ave Jean brought a paper to enjoy.

When they farmed the land around the homestead, the crew came to the house to eat and preparation was easier.

Breakfast was a full meal of eggs, meat, biscuits, and potatoes, that varied some, while lunch was meat, potatoes (scalloped, mashed, baked) a salad (cabbage, potato salad, tossed salad), fresh bread, fruit, and dessert (cake, cookies, zucchini bread, cobbler). It was served at 1. After clean up, with no dishwasher, the dinner prep began. Sometimes it included steak for meat, and a variety of satisfying dishes, since the crew often didn't get home until after 8 p.m.. Then clean up again, so that the next day would be ready to tackle.

Ava Jean shared that they had a large garden so fresh vegetables were plenty. George, her son, said they didn't have potato chips or any snack foods, since their garden supplied all. If Ava Jean was following a recipe and she didn't have it on hand, then she substituted with what she had, rather than drive into town.

Roz Edwards, who was listening to Ava Jean's recollections, mentioned that when she had helped cook at harvest (another time, another place) she made a casserole. The farmer asked where the meat was. She said, "in the casserole." She was asked to have the meat on the side. It was not to be hidden in a dish.

Ava's breadmaking is be fondly remembered. She said one time she harvested some different vegetables from the garden, blended them, and added them to the bread. She said it was quite good. She didn't follow a bread recipe, but used 1 tsp of salt to a cup of liquid (milk, water, or a combination), some sugar, and enough flour (often whole wheat), to make the dough, which was used for rolls or cinnamon rolls. It was also used for a version of pizza, however the toppings were creative and not the toppings we think of today.

Ava Jean said she didn't have help, but didn't feel like she needed it as the harvest didn't last that long. So the additional cooking and cleaning was fit into the normal housekeeping chores as well as taking care of the garden, laundry, and grocery shopping.

The memories shared were without any resentment. That was the partnership of harvesting.

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THE MANTZ SISTERS

The Mantz sisters, as I referred to them, are Lynn Mantz-Powers, Katie Mantz-Leid, and Patty Mantz. Like most families, the sisters had different views and memories of harvest.

It was not Patty's "thing" to help with the cooking and meal planning but the summer their mom went back to summer school, she had to pitch in. She said she kept it simple by getting meat out of the freezer, adding vegetables and potatoes, sometimes a salad, and ice cream for dessert. When mom (Evie Mantz) came home on the weekends, she would take over the cooking. Katie shared with me that their dad (Lee Mantz) encouraged his wife to go to school and was very supportive.

Katie shared that their dad farmed his grandmother's place, known as the McKinney Ranch, which had been in the family for many years. She shared memories of her helping at their ranch as well as helping with Bill and Barbara Payne's harvest.

Katie said that when the harvest crew was working in the fields, Mom would get up at 5 a.m. but the girls could sleep until 6 a.m., fix their own breakfast, and then head out. Mom would fix lunches for all, including a gallon of lemonade/ice tea mix. She always made sure they had plenty of water.

"When I worked for Barbara and Bill Payne during harvest, the cooking, preparation, and amount of time helping was quite different than our operation on the Mantz Ranch. At Paynes as well as at home, breakfast was served for those who lived or bunked at the ranch.  Barbara did all of the breakfast cooking, I didn't have to get up until breakfast was over and the men had headed out to the field.  I did clean-up and dishes, and Mrs. Payne and I would start in on lunches to be taken out to the field shortly after we had cleaned up.

"Sometimes the bread was frozen, so we would unthaw it, and start an assembly line to prepare a minimum of two sandwiches for each of the crew.  I think I recall that we used at least one whole loaf of white bread each time we prepared lunches.  Besides sandwiches, there would be fruit, chips, and perhaps a cupcake, or piece of cake, or cookies (which ever we had made-the cake from a box, cookies from scratch). 

"If we didn't have any cake or cookies, making them would be our first task after breakfast cleanup.  One of the men, would stop by to pick up the lunches around 11-12, or I would drive them out to the field.  We would eat our lunches at the house, then begin preparing dinner.  Sometimes Mrs. Payne would go to town to shop, other days we would plan the menus together and she would ask me if I knew how to prepare everything.  (I didn't. She had to teach me!).  As I recall, we did have several hours of down time between preparing lunch and dinner, but it was taken up with cleaning house, mopping floors, washing clothes, etc.  By 3 or 4 p.m., depending what kind of meat we were having, the dinner preparations began," Katie said.

When asked if there were any special foods, she said, " At both places, we knew what each person liked and didn't like. We did take that into consideration, but with the menus being set a week in advance, and all of the shopping completed, it didn't really matter what was for dinner, because the crew came in starving, and ate whatever was put in front of them! 

 "I remember having meat, potatoes, rice, or noodles, a vegetable, sometimes seasonal fruit, bread and butter or hot rolls or corn muffins, gravy for the potatoes, and some kind of dessert.  It could be ice cream, cake, pie, whatever was on the menu.  We would all eat together (when we were old enough to help).  When we were little, Mom would feed us first."

Lastly, Katie told me a funny story on her mom.

"One very funny memory was helping Mom get dinner ready one afternoon.  We were going to make corn muffins to go along with dinner, and when we pulled out the corn meal and measured it out into the bowl, I noticed little black things moving in the meal.  I quickly asked Mom what in the world was in the meal.  She came over, took a look, and shook her head in dismay. 

"All of the surrounding stores (three grocery stores in Waitsburg and one in Dayton) were closed, so we couldn't just run to the store to get more corn meal.  So, Mom said, 'Let's run the meal through a strainer or sifter to see if we can't get all of them out.'  I tried that-at least two times, and there were still a few bugs left.  I don't recall if I hand- picked out a few more, but I think I did.   By that time, it was getting late and we needed to get them into the oven and baked before dinner.  Mom came over to look at the cornmeal again, shook her head, and said, 'Just make them up-we won't say a word.'  And, we didn't!"

Thank you, Katie, Lynn, and Patty

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MARGARET SCHMICK

Marg was referred to me by Andee Thurston, her daughter, and co-owner of Elk Drug. Marg lives in Endicott, but harvest is harvest so I thought I'd talk to her and have her share her experiences.

I was already prepped with some glowing reviews from Andee. She said Margaret has been through many generations of harvest, like most have around here. She remembered her mom having a "ridiculous spread of food" every night for their crew of anywhere from two to six men.

As a young bride, she helped cook and deliver hot lunches, but later fixed lunch boxes, which, according to her daughter, were the best. One of her mom's frustrations was the crew coming in at 9:30 p.m. or later at night for dinner. I can imagine trying to keep dinner warm and then cleaning up, only to start all over early the next day.

I called Marg, as she likes to be called, and had a delightful chat and she added to Andee's memories. She said she would check with her harvest crew to see what they liked and disliked. One fella didn't like chicken so she teased him about buying about eight chickens, indicating they would be having it a lot, but fessed up after seeing his dismay. So chicken was not fixed that harvest.

She shared a funny story about herself. She had fixed meatloaf and a hired hand said, excitedly, that meant meatloaf sandwiches for lunches. Marg had never heard of meatloaf sandwiches, as she said, it already had bread in it. She had to ask how one fixed it. He said, "just meatloaf and catsup." She tried adding lettuce but that got taken off.

Often, a younger girl was hired to help with babies and the household chores. She said one season her cousin was there to help and, after a long, hot day, was not in the mood for the remarks made by one of the men, so she threw a few dinner rolls at him and hit him in the head. Guess she made her point! I'm sure, after the shock wore off, it was laughed about later.

A suggestion passed down from her grandmother, was if dinner was not on time, set the table to "look ready." Marg said she has used that trick several times.

She ended by saying that they did custom harvesting also, and one year, had worked 43 days straight with no time off. When a friend of her husband's, in St . John, tried to refer them to another farmer who needed work done, she said they all put their foot down and said "no more."

Thank you, Marg, for sharing your harvest stories.

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JACKIE PENNER

I reached out to Jackie and asked her to share her harvest stories. Though she is going through a lot right now, she took the time to send me an email, along with a funny story about making cookies with cooked wheat.

"Jay and I were married in 1966 when I started helping his mother cook for a harvest crew for anywhere from 10 to 13 people.  We had pull combines at that time so it took several people to run each tractor and pull combine. In the early years, the harvest crew always shut down their equipment and came to the house to eat three meals a day.

"We started early in the mornings preparing breakfast and after breakfast dishes were cleaned up we started right in preparing for lunch. As soon as lunch was cleaned up we continued to cook in preparation for dinner.  Most generally, we served breakfast at 6 a.m. and dinner at 8 p.m. so it was late evening before we had the evening meal cleaned up and could get to bed. 

"This procedure went on for around 30 days of harvest, seven days a week. We most generally took a snack out to the crew midafternoon.  They loved seeing us come with cookies or treats.  Jay's youngest sister loved making the Rice Krispy cookies for the crew.

"We planned our meals ahead so we could do our grocery shopping early, to make sure we had all supplies on hand.  We butchered our own beef and pork so we did not have to purchase those. We made homemade bread for every meal. Most meals were made from scratch with very few items prepared from box mixes.

"When the crew was harvesting on Fields Gulch Road, we cooked the lunch meal in our kitchens but then packed it all up and served the meal out of a small cook shack that still sits out in the field to this day."

I laughed when I read the following, "When Jay and Ted were younger you might see them shut down their combines, grab a broom or shovel and take off running after a rabbit or whatever they scared up while harvesting. That practice went by the wayside with age."  

Mead Ranch Harvest Crew 2017

 All the ladies I talked to used what they had in the garden, homemade bread,and fresh or canned fruit. I'm thinking those harvest crews were fed well.

"As time went on we quit feeding our crew three meals a day and had them bring their lunch with them, which we still do to this day."

Jackie shared she wanted to make a huge batch of cookies to feed everyone so she started with an oatmeal cookie recipe, added raisins, chocolate chips, coconut, nuts and cooked wheat. She said the dough was wonderful and the warm cookies were yummy coming out of the oven, but when they cooled, the moisture left the cooked wheat, leaving behind hard wheat kernels. She tried to dunk them but to no avail so she gave them to the dog, who, as she watched, proceeded to bury them.

Thank you, Jackie for sharing and for the funny story. 

 

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