Our family owned a truck farm. That is, we grew fruits and vegetables to sell at the Eastern Market in Detroit. After much trial and error, we concluded that raising and selling pickles offered the best return for our labors. I am the eldest of fourteen children, which provided the workers for our endeavor This was supplemented by our uncles and aunts sending their children to “vacation” with us every summer.
It was back breaking work during the heat of the summer, but it had its compensations. After lunch, we often went to our half-acre pond to go swimming. Then we would play pick-up baseball in the spacious front yard until 3:00 pm, when the heat of the day started to wane. Then we would go back to work until 7:00 pm. Our dinners were abundant with fresh sweet corn, potatoes and vegetables served with large helpings of chicken, pork or beef. Then we would load the stake bed truck with bushels of produce stacked up to five layers high to be driven to the market overnight. My cousins still reminisce about the fun we would have together, despite the heavy work.
Our father had a full-time job, which barely kept us in house and home. It was our mother who was the lynchpin of our 80-acre farming operation. The children would all vie for the opportunity to go to the market with our mother. She would usually pair up an older child and a younger one who also came along to help. After dinner, shew would go to bed while we sorted, packed and loaded the truck At 2:30 mom would wake up the two children just long enough to buckle them in to their seats, where they would doze off again until we arrived at the market around 5:30 am.
Eastern market was already bustling, as farmers backed their trucks laden with produce into the stalls. Unpacking and setting up displays of produce would begin immediately and by 6:00 am, the buyers would arrive to inspect the produce. The market became a virtual cornucopia spread out in front of us.
At 6:00 am a bell would ring, announcing the commencement of business. The wholesalers would come first, with their big rolls of cash escorted by a guard or two dressed in suits with lumps under their armpits. They would position their semi trailers close by for easy loading. The buyers would peel off twenty dollar bills, give them to the farmers and point to which trailer they were to deliver their produce. These buyers were the children of immigrants who came to Detroit and peddled vegetables door-to-door. With the advent of the automobile in Detroit, the sons owned large fruit markets in the suburbs.
Our mother caused quite a stir in the predominantly male-oriented market. Sometimes husbands and wives would travel together to sell their wares, but Laura was possibly the first woman who ventured on her own, trailed by a different brood of children on each market day. Some of our competitors would make snide comments, but the buyers soon realized that our produce was the best of the market. The pickles were fresh, sorted by size and culled of all deformities so that their appearance was consistent from the top to the bottom of the bushel. The buyers soon became familiar with us, calling Laura by her name and asking how the children were doing. They were amazed that she had fourteen children and some of the helpers she brought with her were nephews and nieces! They were very respectful and showed their admiration in different ways.
At 9:00 am, another bell would ring as the last of the wholesale buyers were pulling away from the market. Next would come the restauranteurs and chefs buying their produce for the day. They soon became friendly and and affectionately call Laura “sweetie.” She was once invited to dinner by the chef at the Hotel Pontchartrain in downtown Detroit. She politely declined, but “Uncle Henry”, the chef, often stopped to visit. I think he may have been a shirttail relative of our mother.
By 10:00 am the restauranteurs were packed up and the retail business would commence. People of all colors, sizes and dress would appear, inspecting the produce. They liked to haggle and sometimes were rude, accusing us of short changing our customers and selling rotten produce hidden at the bottom of the bushels. Those same people would try to take advantage of us, heaping their already full bushel without compensation.
Sometimes when things became stressful, we would simply pack up and leave. Our unsold produce would go to the Capuchin Soup Kitchen or to a nursing home where we would drop it off. The fact is, we never reduced our prices for a quick sale. We valued our work too much to cheapen our labor. At the same time we took care of the hungry and those who had less than us.
Our most interesting customer was Mr. Silver. He was short and stocky, clean shaven and bald. At first he was shy and distant, but when he saw the consistency of our produce, he soon became a regular buyer of Kosher dill-sized pickles. He often inquired about when we would be back and sometimes ordered his pickles in advance. When we would arrive at the market, we would set aside Mr. Silver’s pickles until he arrived.
Laura often looked for him and he always stopped to talk. His visits became longer and I would listen to his stories about the Holocaust. You see, he had the tattoos from the concentration camp on both forearms. He was an Auschwitz survivor.
Mr. Silver’s story began to unfold. He, his wife and daughter were shipped to Auschwitz from Hungary in 1944. His wife and daughter were immediately exterminated while Mr. Silver was assigned to various work details. The work was often so hard and the sustenance so little that many of the workers collapsed while working and were hauled away to the gas chambers and incinerators.
While the guards were often brutal, there were also acts of kindness among the prisoners. Somehow a few of the prisoners were able to smuggle small potatoes that they carried with them at all times for fear of theft. These potatoes were additional nourishment and represented survival in the harsh environment. It became a token of their will to live. When a prisoner became too ill to work, he would often pass his potato to a healthier compatriot with the words, “You will live.”
When Auschwitz was liberated, Mr. Silver found that he was persona non grata in his own country, so he immigrated to the United States and eventually moved to Detroit, where he lived a solitary life. It was his loneliness and solitude that brought him daily to seek out Laura and talk with her. He told me that he treasured those moments with my mother and that Laura was a “special lady.” He loved her and enjoyed his visits with her. He was very respectful and I felt honored that he confided his feelings to me. This was the first time that I met a man other than my father who openly loved her.
Mr. Silver often had an assistant who would bring a cart to load up with his purchases, so what he did away from the Eastern Market was a mystery for a long time. One day Mr. Silver arrived to make his purchase without his assistant. He turned to me and asked if I would load up his cart and take it to a warehouse about two blocks away. I turned to my mother, who nodded her assent. I agreed.
Later that day I pushed a heavily laden cart to the warehouse. It was all a-bustle on the ground level and I could not find Mr. Silver. I asked a man who appeared to be a supervisor and he pointed to a lift. “Second floor.” He said and turned back to his duties.
The lift was an open platform, about 10 by 10 feet wide, hoisted by heavy ropes at each corner. There was no gate or sides, but a plank on the rim of each side to keep carts from rolling off. OSHA would have had a meltdown had they seen this contraption. I pushed the laden cart onto the lift and pushed the lever. There was a whine of electric motors as the lift slowly ascended. At the second floor I pulled back the lever and the lift stopped. I rolled the cart off onto Mr. Silver’s loft.
The loft was framed with huge wooden beams that seemed a century old. It probably was. The floor was made of solid wood planks. I pushed the cart down an aisle that was flanked with barrels full of pickles soaking in brine. Then I noticed something I had never thought of before. The brining barrels all had Kentucky Bourbon labels on them! That explained why those Kosher dills had such a unique flavor!
Mr. Silver stepped out of an alcove, smiling. “Now you know my secret, Tony.” He said. He knew all of Laura’s children by name.
He showed me around his operation. In the back there was a living area. On the table was a bottle of wine, a bagel, cream cheese and lox. This was my first introduction to Jewish food. At the back of the living area was a cot and a chair. It was simplicity itself, as it contained all of Mr. Silver’s needs. “I live here all summer while I brine the pickles.” He said. “In the fall I take them to a cannery where they process them in one gallon jars.”
Somehow I felt that I was being let into Mr. Silver’s inner sanctum, where few others were allowed to venture. At the end of each season, Mr. Silver would bring us several gallons of his Kosher dills. When we brought them home, the jars were opened and everyone crunched into a big, marvelous, juicy but crisp Kosher dill. They would all be gone in a day.
Some time later, when I was dating my future wife, she showed me the favorite hangout in her old neighborhood. It was a Jewish deli. As we walked into the deli, I spotted a gallon jar of Mr. Silver’s Kosher dills on the counter. “Hey, those are my pickles!”
“Get outta here!” yelled the counterman.
“You don’t understand. My family grows these pickles!” The man behind the counter was not impressed.
“You wanna buy something, place your order. Otherwise, get out!”
My embarrassed fiancée took me by the hand an led me out the door. I didn’t buy a Kosher dill that day.
Every time I see a gallon jar of dill pickles on a counter at a restaurant, I look at the label to see if Mr. Silver is still at work. I learned that he died not long after my mother brought the last truckload of pickles to the Eastern Market.
Shalom, Mr. Silver. It was a privilege to know you.
Leave a Reply