Search This Blog

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

1942: TRENTON'S TOMATO DEPOT: STOKELEY

I worked on Joe Bertothy's cornfields back in the 1940's. Joe had a small area set aside for the fabled Jersey tomato (4 or 5 rows) and his output was not enough to truck over to the Stokeley plant on Lalor Street. However, many of us veteran Trenton area residents remember seeing the huge line of farm trucks laden with tomatoes as they were being unloaded at the Stokeley receiving doc. The aforementioned veteran Trentonians will also recall how the baskets being transported via those trucks were tilted to the centerline of the truck to assure proper weight distribution. Ahh, those memories. I remember Bobby Soffel, Don Slabicki and I sitting in a tomato patch on a warm summer day, each with a salt shaker, imbibing in a snack of a ripe Jersey tomato. We would pick the ones closest to the ground, wipe off the dust and dirt, and enjoy. MMM-mmm GOOD!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

With the breeze blowing right you could smell the catsup or pork & beans all over town. That was the true smell of late summer or autumn off Lalor.

Ed Millerick

Anonymous said...

There was a fire somewhere in that area in the early 1960's. I have tried to research the date but I can't seem to find any reference to it. It happened late-afternoon in summer of 1964 or 1965. Is there any newspaper article on it?