Growing Up in Greertown

More of Vern's stories of growing up in Southern Missouri in the late 1940s.  He wrote these for his grandchildren and I add them for his nieces and nephews as well.   Also it's a good history of a way of life few know these days.

                                                              Greer Canning Family
      Down the road, CR632, at the bottom of the hill, was Greer Creek.  Next to this creek was Greer Canning Factory.    During the tomato canning season, all the neighbor ladies worked at the factory.  The farmers who grew tomatoes as a sideline, would bring the tomatoes to the factory by a team of horses and wagons.  Doug Greer ran the factory, he scalded the tomatoes, the ladies peeled and quartered them, and put them in wooden buckets.  They got paid 5 cents a bucket.  Dad used to put the tomatoes into cans, put a lid on top, and put them into the sealing machine.  He also maintained the one and only sealing machine in the factory.  The tomato cans were then put in big wire baskets and the baskets were raised and lowered by chain fall into the cooking vats which were set over a wood fire.  A boiler and steam engine supplied power to the sealer machine.  Dad also maintained the steam engine.  The factory had a steam whistle, and when tomatoes were needed, Doug Greer would blow the whistle.  This was a signal to the farmers that more tomatoes were needed.  On the way home from school us kids all stopped by the factory for a tomato or two.  A salt shaker was kept just inside the door for anyone wanting to eat a tomato.

    When I came into the family in 1955, the canning factory was a tangle of corrugated metal and weeds just past the bridge over the creek.  Greertown was the name of the area where the family farm was located.  The matriarch was Aunt Ella Greer who lived in a wonderful old house at the top of a hill on the left before getting to 'Linger Longer' Farm - the name on the mail box at Tony and Clara's.
                             
                                                             The Dairy Operation
      We started with 7 or so milk cows and 1 bull.  In a few years the herd was up to 15.  Dad, Elmer and I milked the cows by hand, twice a day, 7 days a week and 365 days a year.  Except leap year, when we milked 366 days!  My 3 cows to milk was Rosie, Buttercup and Dixie.  I think this is what soured me on dairy farming, never have a day off.  Each year, Mom and Dad would give us a calf for helping out around the farm.  Mary Lorene got hers the first year after we moved down to the farm, Elmer got his the second year and I got mine the third year.  Mary Lorene sold hers and used the money to go to college.  Elmer and I kept ours, and started growing our own herds.  I had trouble with my heifer.  She would carry a calf for about six months and then miss-carry.  On the 3rd try, Dad said that if she miss-carried that calf we would sell her and he would give me another cow.  She carried it  full term and produced a healthy calf.  We needed a new bull so I bought a Shorthorn calf from a neighbor.  Paid $12.00 for him and named him
snowball.  Dad thought that was too much for a calf, but we wanted to get some beef cattle strains in our herd so  it was acceptable.  We used him as the herd sire for several years and then I sold him for $130.00

The Picture of me and Snowball was taken about 1947 or 48.  Of course we had  chickens and pigs.  The chickens were used for meat and eggs and the pigs we sold except for the two we butchered each year.  We also had a team of horses, Barney and Bess.  All of our equipment was horse drawn.  We had a 4 wheel wagon, a two wheel cart, a sickle bar mower, dump rake and a 1 row corn planter.