[Granville-Hough] 18 Feb 2009 - Copiah County Tomatoes

[Trustees for Granville W. Hough]

Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2009 08:49:51 -0800
From: Granville W Hough <gwhough at oakapple.net>
Subject: CopiahCoTomatoes - 18 Feb 2009

Earlier, I had discussed several experiences with tomatoes. I did have 
one other story about the tomatoes of Copiah County, MS, and how they 
changed the lives of two of our Cole cousins from my father's maternal 
line.

Copiah County Tomatoes: In the depths of the Depression, there was no 
work in Smith County, and young adults from Sullivans Hollow went far 
and wide to find any job which would pay them. One of the outlets was 
the seasonal work in Copiah County near the railroad which ran to 
Chicago. Farmers there got into the early season vegetable industry, 
with tomatoes being very popular. I vaguely recall that my older 
brother, Dueward Hough, went there to find work but ran out of money 
before finding any. He returned home in about a week. Then he and Uncle 
Coley Richardson decided to join the hoboes on the trains and go west. 
This was an equally disastrous adventure.

The only account I have of work on Copiah County tomatoes is from cousin 
Bonnie Cole, whose great grandfather, Mark Cole, Jr, built the first 
watermill at Bunker Hill and was later postmaster there. Mark had one 
son, John Cole, who stayed in Sullivans Hollow when Mark moved back to 
Pike County. He also had a brother, John Cole, whose eventual home was 
across the line in Covington County. This John Cole, Sr, and Mark Cole 
were brother-in-laws to Hiram Miller. John Cole, Sr's son, Jeptha Cole, 
was father of Ellen Toodie (Cole) Sullivan.

Bonnie was growing up desperately poor in Pike County in Depression days 
when a cousin in Hazelhurst suggested she come and get a job packing 
tomatoes. This she did at age 13, there being no enforced law against 
child labor. Her brother got a job loading the packed boxes onto the 
rail cars. He stayed on a farm near Hazelhurst, where he milked the cows 
morning and night for his board, then walked into town and loaded 
tomatoes all day. Bonnie stayed out of school for a year and got a job 
in Bell Café in Hazelhurst after tomato season was over. She went home 
and caught up in school, then worked in Edwards Hotel in Jackson. Her 
older brother joined the Navy after his tomato packing experience.
Bonnie Cole went on to learn other things such as typing and keeping 
records. She became a mail carrier, one of the first females of the area 
to do so. Later she served many years as Postmaster at Bogue Chitto, 
then became a local historian. In 2009, at age 90 plus, she was still 
alive and active. Her brother, Dallas Cole, who joined the Navy, later 
settled in GA. He is one of the last of those proud sailors who went 
with Admiral Byrd to the South Pole.


===

Here is a valid report from someone who actually worked with the 
tomatoes of Copiah County.  Another place I recall you could go to work 
was Hammond, LA, where strawberries were grown.  I suspect the demise of 
this early season vegetable industry began when California growers found 
they could outgrow those in the South, but I do not know.  The "fruit 
tramps" of the West today are the Chicanos and Central Americans.  Some 
of the Chicana women packing oranges are incredibly fast.

Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 08:17:19 -0800
From: "Harold Hopkins"
Subject: Re: CopiahCoTomatoes - 18 Feb 2009

Your comments on Copiah County tomatoes struck a familiar chord.  Many
upper teens boys from the Mize area -- after school was out --  also
went to Crystal Springs to earn money during "hard times."  I went
once.  I don't remember many details, but the best paying jobs there
were held by people who had developed a specialty of packing of fruits
and vegetables into crates for shipment to other points. They were
blindingly fast with their hands.

These semi-professional started with the early season in Florida, then
moved into Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, and wended northward as
the growing and ripening season moved on.  The products included
tomatoes, other produce, fruits including peaches, melons, and going
still northward to the upper midwest included many orchard fruits.
These travelers were a bit like Gypsies and they were called "fruit
tramps."  They were the ones who gave orders to boys from MIze and
other Mississippi towns who did the heavy work in the tomato packing
industry.  I was one of these and I suspect it was the same for the
other Mize boys, though my memory is poor on that. I remember
particularly that the tomatoes were picked and packed before they were
completely ripe, presumably to give them some time to ripen enroute to
market.

  Many years later, when I was a reporter for the Clarion-Ledger at
Jackson in 1949 and parts of 1948 and 1950 one of my assignments with
a photographer had to do with that part of Mississippi south of
Jackson, including Hazlehurst and Crystal Springs in the spring or
early summer.  There were some locations where produce -- such as
tomatoes and cabbage -- were growing in the late winter in
greenhouses, but I never saw anything at this time  resembling the
tomato packing industry that existed during Hard Times, and I guess
this production had ended by this time.