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Darlene Hooker (Kirch-Brown) (1965)

I'm wondering how many of us actually worked on those tomato harvesters back in the day when they were first coming on the market.  I worked for two summers between college, first for a farmer in Winters and then, I think, somewhere in Sacramento.  I remember several kids from the high school were also on the harvester but can't remember who.  Even though it was hot, I remember we made it a lot of fun also.

Richard S. Klenhard (1967)

Talking about working the fields?  As the new kid in Woodland - late summer of '65 I heard it was the "Cheer-leaders" working the tomatoes and the Football team 'bucking' the hay as a way to get started on the football field,  Go wolves!

Orval Hughes (1964)

Tomatpes was part of a lagre part of growing up in Woodland.

I worked at Contidana for a couple of seasonsI also inspected tomatoes in anourd 1971 or so.in the state inspection station in Esparto.  The variety (if my memory serves) was L-41.  That was the first generation of hybrid tomatoes that we started to inspect

Theresa Eve (1964)

Oh yes I was on the tomato harvester.  Did not know what to wear, but rubber gloves were a must because of the acid from the tomatoes caused your arms to itch.  Dust was everywhere, so a scarf was needed.  Had to be up early as work started at 6:00  or 7:00 a.m.  I did not last.  Especially when this guy put a mouse on my neck.  So much for farm labor.  

Paul Lieberum (1968)

I worked one summer picking tomatoes by hand and one working on the harvestors..Brutal, hot and dirty work on each. I did glean a new healthy respect for the Mexicans I worked with. They could pick twice as much in half the time as me. That respect continues to theis day

Theresa Eve (1964)

Many Woodland mothers worked on those tomato harvesters to earn money for their childrens' school clothes.  My cousin, Sue Fessel, worked on the harvesters to earn her college money to go to Chico State.  Amazing.  She did it each summer.  Brave!!  

JoAnn Kergel (Wirth) (1965)

So here is an interesting tomato story.  I grew up in the middle of a tomato farm and witnessed the transition from hand picked to mechanical.  We all remember the trucks loaded with lug boxes full of hand picked versus the big open hoppers of the machine picked.  It was either the summer of '68 or '69 and  Dan and I were visiting his parents who lived one house south of Beamer on Third street.  Dan was serving with the US Coast Guard in San Francisco and spent about three weeks a month at sea doing S & R.   When we could we would slip down to Woodland to see our family.  A hopper trailer full of tomatoes turned over in the intersection of Third and Beamer.  I don't know what the driver was trying to accomplish but it didn't work.  Of course most of the load was undamaged but the fire department arrived and washed them all down the storm drain in front of Dan's house.  We started grabbing containers to fill with the soon to be wasted fruit.  Spent the weekend canning tomatoes.  With the skins removed they were great for cooking.  For years my parents would visit us in Eugene, OR where we lived for 40 years.  When the tomatoes were in season they would bring up 3-4 boxes to can.  We didn't have AC and they always picked the hotest days to arrive.  Of course the tomatoes would not keep and had to be processed or thrown out.  I finally started freezing them!

I must add I had the deepest respect for anyone who could last a summer on a harvester.  The summer of '67 I spent many days living with Leslie Hull.  She was earning money to travel to Europe for several months by working on a harvester.  And she lasted the entire summer.

Theresa Eve (1964)

You can certainly tell we were all raised in Yolo County with the crops up to our doors.  I also picked Black Walnuts for a Fall outing.  The big trees were all down West Street, until they widened the road, along with building the new Woodland High School.  That new Woodland High never had the charm as the original College Street High School.  JoAnn, did not know you could freeze tomatoes.  Do you peal them first? 

Theresa Eve (1964)

Woodland Post Office tells the whole story!!! 

Steve Takimoto (1966)

I just want to add to the messages re. tomato harvesters that Lois, my sister, worked on our dad's harvester for at least 4 of her high school years.  In addition, she worked on the harvesters of others before working on dad's, for the season.  The harvest season outside of Knights Landing was always a little later than around Woodland.  I never worked on a tomato harvester, other than cleaning it at the end of the day.  Since Lois and I rode together between our home in Woodland and the field in Knights Landing, she used to tell be about her day as a sorter: about the heat, dust, and all of the critters, including snakes, that passed by her on the conveyor belt.  I commend all of you lasted a season on the harvester.

I too used to carry a mini-salt shaker with me, so that I could eat a tomato anytime (as others posted earlier).  Not only did I enjoy the tomatoes, I really enjoyed the honeydew melons that were grown near us in Knights Landing.  Lois and I went two different directions regarding eating tomatoes.  As an adult, she didn't care for tomatoes.

Did you know that tomatoes made a good soap out in the field?  While out in the field, it worked wonders in getting hands clean!

David Hughes (1967)

Steve Takimoto mentioned honeydew melons.  I have two stories, First when I was in High School, I worked at Lavender's Market which was renamed Cracchiolo's Market - Loved Joe and Betty and their, then, little kids. Across main street/the river road, was Half Moon Fruit and Produce packing plant. The melon loaders who worked for Half Moon (Johnny Giovanetti's family business) loaded melons into box cars and top them off with Ice. The workers came to the market regularly and we traded cold sodas for the best ever melons. Those guys knew how to pick out the best melons. By the way, I am confident Joe Cracchiolo approved those trades.

Second:  Linda and I and our kids lived in Woodland from 1981 to 1985 while I was going back to school. Jack Hanson, a distant relative of ours, who lived and farmed in Knights Landing, planted several types of melons on the edge of his field, along the Sacramento River. Jack would bring his small truck loaded with the best most plump melons and distribute them to the single women in our ward (title to a local congregation of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints). Then he would stop by our house and drop off whatever he had left. It got to the point where he would leave 20 or so melons, of all varieties. My kids, Linda and I ate melons like kids in a candy store. We loved them. We reminisce about living off Melons and our ample garden.  Nothing compares to the agricultural products and fruit from Woodland.

Greg Kareofelas (1962)

My friend Ken Lorenzen's father (UC Davis mechanical engineering) designed the harvester and Jack Hanna (UC Davis veg crops) developed a tomato that could be harvested.They  worked with Ernest Blackwelder (who built the harvesters) and Mike Obrien ( who worked out the containers) to get the tomatoes to the canneries. The bracero program ended (1962?) and that would have been the end of tomatoes in California. All the tomatoes that the harvesters picked were going to be sauce so there are plenty of additives to make pizzas and etc taste good. The only place to get great tasting tomatoes now are farmer's markets, or your own gardens. In the summer I go to the Marysville Flea Market to get "good ol tomatoes" grown by the Hmong farmers.

Greg Kareofelas (1962)

Does anyone remember the name of that Great Little Restaurant that used to be in Yolo. Always a favorite place to meet Mom and Dad for a classic old style dinner. Last time I looked, the building was still there but now is a Mexican restaurant?

Theresa Eve (1964)

Love all the farming, agriculture stories shared.  And most of all in our memories are the smells, smells of the tomatoes from the steaming cannery as you drove into Woodland.  Such a comfortable welcoming home feeling,  Along with the fields, harvested crops also came the sounds  The trains were alsways  heard daily and into the night.  It was progress during those days we were raised.  Do not forget the baseball fields with baseball a major attraction with its sounds from the fields and from the bleachers.   I thought I lost all of that when I moved to Roseville.  But, not so.  Roseville has a historoy of trains and agriculture - Fiddyment Farms with beef and turkeys.  I do hear the trains from my home recalling the same from those Woodland days.  

Bernard Rocksvold (1965)

I believe the name of the restaurant in Yolo was Gorman's. 

Greg Kareofelas (1962)

Thank you Bernie, that's the name, I drove by Yolo yesterday and could not find that name in my memory!!

I wish I would have taken a picture of it, but I never did

Joel Childers (1966)

Gramma lived on 5th St. We could see the trains go by from her backyard. She had a dirt driveway. When we ate watermelons we would spit the seeds into the driveway. Her lawn sprinkler sent enough water over the driveway to get the seeds going and we always had free watermelons. And speaking of free produce, our yard on 3rd St. had orange, apple, plum, English walnut, almond and fig trees. Mom grew a variety of vegetables in the garden as well as grape vines. She "canned" grape and fig jam, tomatoes, and made orange marmalade in those Mason and Ball jars. Nothing like home grown. Oh, that luscious Sacramento Valley soil.

Norma Berrettoni (Plocher) (1966)

Thank you, Greg, for the history on who developed the processing tomato harvester and processing tomato.  I went to work in 1979 at a local hybrid vegetable seed company, Petoseed, located west of Brown's Corner on Highway 16.  It was then that I met and worked with Jack Hanna for several  years.  Jack told me the story of how he and Colby Lorenzen worked together developing the processing tomato harvester and tomato varieties that could withstand being mechanically harvested.  I never met Colby Lorenzen.  Jack Hanna was a great man.  When Jack retired from UCD Vegetable Crops he was recruited by Petoseed and spent many more years working and developing the processing tomato.  

Bernard Rocksvold (1965)

Hey Joel,

Where did your Gamma live on 5th st.? I grew up at 112 5th st.

Joan Richter (Lucchesi) (1960)

Greg, next summer, go by Produce 16 on Road 16. They grow their tomatoes there, and they are wonderful.. When Gorman's closed, someone tried to open a Mexican restaurant there, but it never made it. I was told someone lives in the house now.

Joel Childers (1966)

I never learned Gramma's address. It was around the 400 or 500 block of 5th Street. There was a gentleman that lived next door to her who everyone called Heiny and her friend, Edith, across the street. Her dog was named Tipi or Tipee. Other than the apricot tree in her backyard, the smell of her husbands cigars,  and her great fried chicken, that's all I remember. When I was 13, I spent the summer washing dishes at Robbins Pool Cafe, her restaurant in Robbins, a little town north of Knights Landing. Her husband and she owned it for a couple of years. What a nowhere place to spend the summer.

Bernard Rocksvold (1965)

Thanks Joel.

Steve Jones (1963)

My experience with tomatoes in the Woodland area has less to do with eating them and more about working in the growing and harvesting.  For five summers in 1963-1967 I worked for Lloyd Eveland.  Early in the summer, I was cultivating tomatoes, sugar beets, and beans.  Later came the harvest, with the ’63 tomato harvest still being picked by hand into 50lb. lug boxes.  I drove the farm labor bus and did some supervisory duties.  At lunch, while I was eating my peanut butter sandwich, one of the Mexican workers might take pity on me and offer me a burrito.  They were brought to them fresh just before lunch time and were delicious.  The pickers had a tough job, which they did steadily and without complaint.  1964 brought the UC-Blackwelder harvesters.  For the next several summers the machines loaded 4x4 wooden bins.  My job was to load the cannery trucks using a forklift.   Eventually the 4x4 bins gave way to the cannery trailers having fiberglas tubs on them that were loaded directly by the harvesters.

John Eaton (1964)

Greg is of course correct about UCD and Blackwelder, but there was another harvester of different design that was used more widely.  It was invented by Bob Button Sr, of Winters and built by Johnson Farm Machinery here in Woodland. 

Theresa Eve (1964)

   A lot of family history around the agriculture of Yolo County.  Good to remember our roots.!!!