Dublin Core
Title
The Cavasos-Carroll Connection 1935-1960
Subject
Migrants
Cherry Pickers
Old Mission Peninsula
Cherry Pickers
Old Mission Peninsula
Description
An account by Tim Carroll of a migrant cherry picker family. The Cavasos family returned annually to the Alex Carroll family farm to harvest their cherries.
Creator
Tim Carroll
Publisher
Peninsula Community Library
Date
November 4, 2021
Contributor
Mary T. Morgan
Kennard Weaver - videographer
Kennard Weaver - videographer
Rights
This document is protected by copyright law. Contact the Peninsula Community Library for permission to reproduce, display, or transmit this document.
Format
PDF
Language
English
Coverage
Mapleton, Old Mission Peninsula, Grand Traverse County, Michigan
PDF Text
Text
The Cavasos-Carroll
Connection
1935-1960
Tim Carroll
11/4/2021
1
Here are Joe and Josephine Cavasos, as a young couple, who came to our farm in the
middle of the 1930’s. Joe and my father formed a plan that first season wherein Joe would
call Dad while they were in Sandusky, Ohio, working in the tomato fields, to find out how
many pickers we needed for that year’s crop. Joe never failed to meet that number. This
relationship continued until the early 60’s. During that period the Cavasos family grew
from 3 to 12.
2
3
Joe is standing in front of what was then Grandpa and Grandma Carroll’s house I (live there
now). His truck would be accompanied by a few cars, filled with families and single men
who had signed up for the picking. The bar across the top of the truck would be covered
with a canvas in case of rain. They made the trip from the Ohio tomato farm in one day.
4
There were occasionally two trucks with cars when it was an especially large crop.
Michigan was the most northern of their seasons, having left their homes in San Antonio,
Texas in Feb and working their way north along established routes and crops where the
farmers utilized their efforts. Note a pile of picking ladders in front of the trucks. Each
family was given one or two as they were assigned a row. The children picked along the
bottom of the tree, older ones further up, and adults were on top of the ladders. A family
would pick down the same row until they came to the end. Then be assigned another, and
begin again. They families were housed in small cabins andvarious out-buildings on the
farm, and the single men had a bunkhouse.
5
This picture captures how these various moves were a way of life for these family’s.
Altough they moved every few weeks, most of the stops were repeated year and year, they
adapted to it, brought their household pets, and personal along with them so they had a
sense of continuity as they travelled.
6
This was Joe Cavasos’s brother, Jim, and his wife, Petra. They were unusual by not having
any children. They always picked the Grandpa and Grandma Cavasos. And Petra, at the
right of the photo, made and sold “raspa”, which was made of a cup of freshly shaved ice
with various flavors of various bright colors poured over it. She sold these to the children
after the picking day was over. We all bought them. A nickel as I recall.
7
This was Grandpa Cavasos, the father of Joe and Jim. He and his wife were the oldest of
the picking crew, but they never missed a day and were often the first ones at work in the
morning.
8
Josephine Cavasos, in the middle of the picture, with some of her growing family, picking
tart cherries. They eventually had nine children. You can see how the pails and straps were
designed to make the trip from branch to bucket as easy as possible. And as fast. All leaves
and stems had to be cleared from the bucket before it was poured into a lug. It took
approximately two and a half buckets to fill up a lug, which weighted approximately 33 lbs.
9
This is a picker actually standing on top of a ladder to reach this variety of cherries knows
as “light sweets”. They were usually the first to ripen and were often picked for local fresh
fruit sales, although they were also put in barrels, in a brine solution which took away all
their color and taste and were then turned into a big market item in the 50’s: Marchino
cherries for cocktails.
10
These were members of the DeLeon family, who were kinfolk of the Cavasos. Raymond, on
the left, played the guitar beautifully and would sit, after the evening meal, with one or two
others, under the maple trees and sing Spanish songs. Raymond served in the US. Army in
Korea and received medals for valor.
11
These ladies are picking the standard tart cherry of the time, the Montmerency. They are a
smaller tree than the sweet cherries, but ladders had to be used to get the top branches.
This was the standard picking outfits during the summer. Everyone covered their heads to
keep off the sun and to keep the sticky cherry juice out of their hair.
12
This shows how much larger the sweet cherry trees were. Again, it was in the light sweet
orchard. This is one of the single men who would bunk and work together, and work as a
single unit. They would work out their exact wages between themselves.
13
Here are the Cavasos grandparents at work. They were amazing and never had an unhappy
word with anyone. We liked to note that Grandma’s bucket is filled sooner that Grandpa’s.
That always brought a roar of laughter when we were showing the picture around.
14
This is a different year and is the father of the DeLeon family, with the oldest, Raymond on
the right. That also shows a very good year for the crop size. The way the cherries grow
along the limb is how they are effectively picked. It is called the Ripple. You learn to tease
them off the branch into your bucket by coaxing them off gently but quickly right away
down the limb from its beginning to its end.
15
This is from a post card but was a good example of how a row would be picked by the
families working at all levels of the tree, with ladders encircling the tree as needed.
16
Here is a trailer of full lugs, note the consistency, which would be brought out of the
orchard, row by row, all day long as soon they were picked. The trailer loads would be put
on to our 2 ton Studebaker truck until it was full and then it would be driven, by my older
brother, to our processing plant, The Cherry Grower’s Association, on East Front St. in
Traverse City. It was built along the bay where the Maritime Academy now stands. My
grandpa Carroll was one of the Association members. Because the freezer part of the plant
was so large, farm families could rent space inside year around, and have their own lockbox, before the days of home freezers.
17
18
Once a year Josephine Cavasos would make Dad a Mexican dinner This is Raymond DeLeon
carrying it on a Sunday afternoon. All our pickers were Catholic, and with St. Joseph’s
church across the road, there were extra Masses laid on and by the 50’s we had Spanishspeaking priests to say Mass for those without English. All the men had these white shirts
for Sundays.
19
TC1
(Move this photo). This would be afternoon on a Saturday in the picking season. Dad
would sit on Grandma’s porch at noon (it was a half-day of picking) and pay, out of the cash
box, each family’s work for the five and a half days everyone worked. Soon afterward, all
showered and shined, they headed for shopping in Traverse City.
20
Slide 20
TC1
Tim Carroll, 8/22/2021
This doesn’t begin to show the magnitude of the parking lot which was near Clinch Park
before the Grand View Parkway was built. On Saturday afternoon, with their week’s
salaries in their pockets, all the pickers came shopping in Traverse City. There would be
thousands of extra shoppers and all busy buying groceries for the next week, toys for their
children and some beer for the adults to enjoy on Saturday night with guitars and singing
around the maple trees. You can see the top of the Parl Place at the top right hand side of
the photo. And the back of the then Lyric Theater building (now the State) also at the back
of the photo. The Boardman River is running between the theater and the dirt parking lot.
21
22
23
24
25
After the harvest was over and the families were packing up to return to the farm in Ohio
to pick the tomatoes (which they had been cultivating prior to the cherry harvest), Dad
always gave a fiesta on that last night. Beer for the adults (their drink of choice), sodas for
the younger ones and ice cream for all. And all the musicians in the group played for the
dancing. This is Grandpa Cavasos dancing with his daughter-in-law, Josephine. It looks as if
they have enough of the cherry business, but it was always a joyous affair.
26
QUESTIONS?
(Special thanks to Mary Morgan, Peninsula
Community Library Local History Room Librarian,
for her assistance with scanning the slides in this
presentation and assisting with this Powerpoint).
27
Connection
1935-1960
Tim Carroll
11/4/2021
1
Here are Joe and Josephine Cavasos, as a young couple, who came to our farm in the
middle of the 1930’s. Joe and my father formed a plan that first season wherein Joe would
call Dad while they were in Sandusky, Ohio, working in the tomato fields, to find out how
many pickers we needed for that year’s crop. Joe never failed to meet that number. This
relationship continued until the early 60’s. During that period the Cavasos family grew
from 3 to 12.
2
3
Joe is standing in front of what was then Grandpa and Grandma Carroll’s house I (live there
now). His truck would be accompanied by a few cars, filled with families and single men
who had signed up for the picking. The bar across the top of the truck would be covered
with a canvas in case of rain. They made the trip from the Ohio tomato farm in one day.
4
There were occasionally two trucks with cars when it was an especially large crop.
Michigan was the most northern of their seasons, having left their homes in San Antonio,
Texas in Feb and working their way north along established routes and crops where the
farmers utilized their efforts. Note a pile of picking ladders in front of the trucks. Each
family was given one or two as they were assigned a row. The children picked along the
bottom of the tree, older ones further up, and adults were on top of the ladders. A family
would pick down the same row until they came to the end. Then be assigned another, and
begin again. They families were housed in small cabins andvarious out-buildings on the
farm, and the single men had a bunkhouse.
5
This picture captures how these various moves were a way of life for these family’s.
Altough they moved every few weeks, most of the stops were repeated year and year, they
adapted to it, brought their household pets, and personal along with them so they had a
sense of continuity as they travelled.
6
This was Joe Cavasos’s brother, Jim, and his wife, Petra. They were unusual by not having
any children. They always picked the Grandpa and Grandma Cavasos. And Petra, at the
right of the photo, made and sold “raspa”, which was made of a cup of freshly shaved ice
with various flavors of various bright colors poured over it. She sold these to the children
after the picking day was over. We all bought them. A nickel as I recall.
7
This was Grandpa Cavasos, the father of Joe and Jim. He and his wife were the oldest of
the picking crew, but they never missed a day and were often the first ones at work in the
morning.
8
Josephine Cavasos, in the middle of the picture, with some of her growing family, picking
tart cherries. They eventually had nine children. You can see how the pails and straps were
designed to make the trip from branch to bucket as easy as possible. And as fast. All leaves
and stems had to be cleared from the bucket before it was poured into a lug. It took
approximately two and a half buckets to fill up a lug, which weighted approximately 33 lbs.
9
This is a picker actually standing on top of a ladder to reach this variety of cherries knows
as “light sweets”. They were usually the first to ripen and were often picked for local fresh
fruit sales, although they were also put in barrels, in a brine solution which took away all
their color and taste and were then turned into a big market item in the 50’s: Marchino
cherries for cocktails.
10
These were members of the DeLeon family, who were kinfolk of the Cavasos. Raymond, on
the left, played the guitar beautifully and would sit, after the evening meal, with one or two
others, under the maple trees and sing Spanish songs. Raymond served in the US. Army in
Korea and received medals for valor.
11
These ladies are picking the standard tart cherry of the time, the Montmerency. They are a
smaller tree than the sweet cherries, but ladders had to be used to get the top branches.
This was the standard picking outfits during the summer. Everyone covered their heads to
keep off the sun and to keep the sticky cherry juice out of their hair.
12
This shows how much larger the sweet cherry trees were. Again, it was in the light sweet
orchard. This is one of the single men who would bunk and work together, and work as a
single unit. They would work out their exact wages between themselves.
13
Here are the Cavasos grandparents at work. They were amazing and never had an unhappy
word with anyone. We liked to note that Grandma’s bucket is filled sooner that Grandpa’s.
That always brought a roar of laughter when we were showing the picture around.
14
This is a different year and is the father of the DeLeon family, with the oldest, Raymond on
the right. That also shows a very good year for the crop size. The way the cherries grow
along the limb is how they are effectively picked. It is called the Ripple. You learn to tease
them off the branch into your bucket by coaxing them off gently but quickly right away
down the limb from its beginning to its end.
15
This is from a post card but was a good example of how a row would be picked by the
families working at all levels of the tree, with ladders encircling the tree as needed.
16
Here is a trailer of full lugs, note the consistency, which would be brought out of the
orchard, row by row, all day long as soon they were picked. The trailer loads would be put
on to our 2 ton Studebaker truck until it was full and then it would be driven, by my older
brother, to our processing plant, The Cherry Grower’s Association, on East Front St. in
Traverse City. It was built along the bay where the Maritime Academy now stands. My
grandpa Carroll was one of the Association members. Because the freezer part of the plant
was so large, farm families could rent space inside year around, and have their own lockbox, before the days of home freezers.
17
18
Once a year Josephine Cavasos would make Dad a Mexican dinner This is Raymond DeLeon
carrying it on a Sunday afternoon. All our pickers were Catholic, and with St. Joseph’s
church across the road, there were extra Masses laid on and by the 50’s we had Spanishspeaking priests to say Mass for those without English. All the men had these white shirts
for Sundays.
19
TC1
(Move this photo). This would be afternoon on a Saturday in the picking season. Dad
would sit on Grandma’s porch at noon (it was a half-day of picking) and pay, out of the cash
box, each family’s work for the five and a half days everyone worked. Soon afterward, all
showered and shined, they headed for shopping in Traverse City.
20
Slide 20
TC1
Tim Carroll, 8/22/2021
This doesn’t begin to show the magnitude of the parking lot which was near Clinch Park
before the Grand View Parkway was built. On Saturday afternoon, with their week’s
salaries in their pockets, all the pickers came shopping in Traverse City. There would be
thousands of extra shoppers and all busy buying groceries for the next week, toys for their
children and some beer for the adults to enjoy on Saturday night with guitars and singing
around the maple trees. You can see the top of the Parl Place at the top right hand side of
the photo. And the back of the then Lyric Theater building (now the State) also at the back
of the photo. The Boardman River is running between the theater and the dirt parking lot.
21
22
23
24
25
After the harvest was over and the families were packing up to return to the farm in Ohio
to pick the tomatoes (which they had been cultivating prior to the cherry harvest), Dad
always gave a fiesta on that last night. Beer for the adults (their drink of choice), sodas for
the younger ones and ice cream for all. And all the musicians in the group played for the
dancing. This is Grandpa Cavasos dancing with his daughter-in-law, Josephine. It looks as if
they have enough of the cherry business, but it was always a joyous affair.
26
QUESTIONS?
(Special thanks to Mary Morgan, Peninsula
Community Library Local History Room Librarian,
for her assistance with scanning the slides in this
presentation and assisting with this Powerpoint).
27
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Original Format
Paper - Powerpoint presentation with notes