Nothing takes me back to my Iowa roots quicker than a picture of a corn stalk. I couldn’t let the month of August go by without sharing a blog from another Iowa native and dear friend, Mary Ellen Vogt, who wrote about detasseling corn as a summer job in the 50’s. What is detasseling you ask? Oh, the wonders of growing up in corn country.
Excerpts from Mary Ellen Vogt’s Blog:
“For teenagers in Iowa, detasseling was and still is a rite of passage, and often it’s a first job. For those unfamiliar with detasseling, here is a brief introduction:
• The tassel is the pollen-producing flowers at the top of a corn plant. It is yellow and “pops” out if you take hold of it exactly right, and then pull upward. Gloves are a must.
• At the farm where I worked in the late 50s and early 60s, hybrid popcorn was grown. The rows of corn were planted with two male rows (#2), eight female rows (#1) and then two more male rows (#2), and this pattern continued across the huge cornfield:
2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2
• We kids plucked the corn tassels only from the female rows so the male rows could cross- pollinate. As teenage girls we thought this process that included males and females, was worthy of countless dirty jokes as we worked the long days.
After a soaking rain, common in Iowa in the summer, we walked the rows. When dry, we rode the detasseling machine driven by a crew boss, usually an older girl. The crew bosses had to be VERY careful to enter the row exactly in the middle of the eight female rows. If the crew boss missed by one row and girls pulled tassels on the shorter male rows, those plants were ruined, a serious offense. Not surprisingly, we preferred to ride the detasseling machines, because the job was easier. These detasseling machines from the 1950s illustrate where the eight girls stood while the tractor slowly moved through the rows of corn.
My first paying job other than babysitting was important to me. Mr. Eldridge, my boss, saw something in me that made him think I could safely drive a huge detasseling machine with eight girls aboard, into an enormous cornfield, and recognize the slight difference between a female and male row of corn. Only a round bar held a girl in place on the platform on which she stood, so I had to be careful when driving. Also, as I was driving the tractor forward, I had to turn around often to see the rows behind us to ensure no tassels had been overlooked. If I saw one tassel, a girl had to jump off the machine and run back to pull it. I was not old enough to have a driver’s license, but apparently, it was okay to drive a detasseling machine.
Across the Midwest, teens have been detasseling for decades, but change is in the air according to Ellen Byron (2002), who reported that the advent of male-sterile corn may eventually make detasseling by hand or machine obsolete. For many Iowans, bidding farewell to detasseling is a sad prospect. Nathan Raabe, 21, who detasseled for 9 years, stated, “It’s a ritual, just like high-school football games on a Friday night” (Byron, 2002). I’m proud that I was a part of it.”
I never detassled corn but listened to the stories every summer from my friends who did. It was hard work but they claimed it was fun, “even when we were covered with aphids, slathered with zinc ointment to prevent sunburn, soaked from the morning dew, covered with corn rash, and were dog-tired at the end of day.” None of them were farm girls. They joked and sang and laughed and cemented friendships that have lasted a lifetime.
What was your first summer job? Or your most memorable part time job when you first started earning money? It would be fun to hear from you. As the summer days tick by, I hope you’re making the most of them. After a brutal ten days with a heat index well over 100, our weather has moderated, and we can enjoy the outdoors again. In fact, it’s nice enough to go fishin’.
A favorite picture of our children in 1977 fishing at Lake Jacomo near Kansas City which captures the essence of summer for me. It was Mother’s Day weekend and my parents came, making the day a treasured memory.
Until next time . . .
P.S. Still plugging away on the sequel to Lila’s Journey
Our guest blogger this week is MaryEllen Vogt. She is Professor Emerita, California State University, Long Beach, with a doctorate in Language and Literacy from the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author/co-author of 17 books and over 70 articles and chapters for educators and researchers. Dr. Vogt performs with The Pops Chorale & Orchestra and has recently directed local productions of My Fair Lady and Damn Yankees and acted in a community theater melodrama.
I really, really wanted to detassle. But my aunt would not let me. She claimed I would be risking skin cancer. I guess she was a visionary in that way., though –anecdotally–that did not happen to any. of you!
So nice to hear from you Tija! My mother wouldn’t let me detassel either although she never got specific. Maybe heatstroke more than skin exposure but something to do with the sun! But those detasseling stories made it sound like such an adventure.
As a read-head, I would have sun-burned terribly if my mother didn’t cover every inch of me when I was in the field, from my large hat, to long-sleeved shirts and long pants. My face and ears werre plastered with white zinc oxide…and I still loved it!
Your mom took good care of you! I remember listening to your stories every summer and it wasn’t until we were 80 that I finally have an understanding of what “the machine” was that you rode (and drove) while detasseling.
Hi, Jane
My 1st job on the farm for money was “walking beans”. That’s when you walk a row of soy beans and pull the weeds. This was before all the spraying back in the 1950s. I started as an 9 yo and we given only 1 row. As you aged you good get up to 4 rows because you were able to jump rows. We were a penny per row for quarter mile rows in a 80 acre field. It was always hot, sweaty, dirty and actually had fun. I was the youngest and my 3 older girl cousins teased me alot. Looking back we all laugh at that wonderful memory.
HI Rick, I guess you could say you were cheap labor. A penny per row. Wow! That’s a salary you wouldn’t soon forget. So many details you remember from your first job. It’s from another era, isn’t it. At least you had cousins to share the hard work with. Thanks for your memories! (And for being a faithful reader:)
Jane
Thank you Jane for once again mixing a bit of mid-western history with nostalgia.. I never knew about detasseling and can only imagine how hot and tiring that must have been! But sounds like the young girls turned it into a fun and memorable experience. Another piece of our history that has been replaced by modern methods. Kind os makes one sad to think of all the community activities that were in farming communities and how they brought people together. Now it is all done by machines and fewer people are needed. I just read a line by Bill Bryson that fits here, “In 1950, America had nearly six million farms. In half a century almost two-thirds of them vanished. I was born in a state (Iowa) that had two hundred thousand farms. Today the number is much less than half that and falling Of the 750,00 people who lived on farms in the state in my boyhood (the 1950s-60s) half a million -two in every three- have gone.”
“The best I can say is that I saw the last of something really special. It’s something I seem to say a lot these days.” From The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid” by Bill Bryson.
Thank you Carole for the Bill Bryson quote. I have that book which I enjoyed very much and will look it up. So fitting. Thanks for sharing with the WITS group, too. Tell them I say Hi!
PS. Jane, I shared your blog today with the ladies in our WITS group. They all loved it and you should have some new subs your blog soon!