The Prairie Spy

Alan “Lindy” Linda

A long time ago, when I first wanted to be a columnist, who is someone who writes something that someone may or may not find interesting, the Fergus Falls Daily Journal seemed interested. This would be around the early 80s.

I sent the editor there some of my first tries at writing. (They were pretty awful.) The editor wanted stuff about the locals. Especially, I suspect, anyone claiming Finnish descent, and-or anyone doing something especially representing the Finnish, who were not only my neighbors, but also my customers at the time.

Obviously that wouldn’t work. Don’t bite the hand that feeds you, that’s the saying that covers that decision.

So I began making various people and things up. And thus began my fictional creations involving the Yurho brothers, the widow Fistula, the local Butchershop and Bar Emporium, run by Smut Yurho. (Of note here is that almost everyone’s last name was Yurho, which if you cannot tell, I also made up.)

There were others. Ministers, school administrators, teachers, hunters, drinkers–you name it.

One of them was Pickle Pete, who worked at the local pickle factory, and was married to someone who became the Widow Fistula, after Pete fell into a vat of guerkins and perished.

A  column visiting  these fictional characters a few weeks ago drew a letter from a descendant of the owners of the original pickle factory, who lives in Nebraska.

He asked me, in that letter: “By any chance, would I be writing about…the H. Thiessen Pickle company cucumber salting station in New York Mills.”

Well, yes. I was. He went on about an actual person who did actually fall into a pickle vat. 

Well. I must then surmise that somewhere way back up the road here, some one of the older Finnish gentlemen whom I found so interesting must have told me about such an occurrence.  And I forgot it. It is quite evident that I must have used that to create Pickle Pete. And  Widow Fistula, and many others, who have no connection to reality whatsoever.

Herman Thiessen began the pickle business in the very early 1900s. I quote the letter: “Cucumbers were bought from farmers and placed in brine solutions in large outdoor vats. They fermented over the winter, and were then shipped to the main plant in Omaha, Neb.”

Interesting. When we first settled here in 1973, neighbors were scouring their pickle vines every morning, gathering the very sizes that drew top price, and taking them to town. So in 1973, the pickle business was still going, I guess.

Incidentally, a local new restaurant does indeed offer a pizza called the “Herman,” named after the original creator of that pickle business here in Boatville, AKA New York Mills.

Fun stuff, is history.

By the way, I just had the “Herman” pizza, with dill pickles and other stuff. It was absolutely delicious. You should have one.