Color of tomato, size of vine, size of tomato, and location would give us a starting point.

Yes Susan all that Carol said would help. And what was the flavor like? Sweet or a hint of acid, ect. I imagine during that time frame they were red. Most were with a few exceptions. Did he grow them from seed or buy plants? By that time there were hybrids around. Seems my Mother went to straight hybrids in 1966 when we moved to KS as she couldn't get the op's around here. Up till that time she either bought plants or seeds from an old man who lived in our little town and grew plants and a truck garden. So the more info the better chance someone has of helping you. Jay

I assume they were plants because I don't think my dad planted anything that he had to "start" in pots. He direct sowed corn, okra, squash, cukes, etc. We lived in a very small town, so I imagine he got the plants from friends or the feed store, something like that.

These were very large red tomatoes, not perfectly rounded like today's hybrids. They had cracks in them that we just cut out and ate em anyway. Flavor was very sweet. I don't recall much acid, but then I don't recall much of anything except they were good plain or on burgers! My mom would just slice them up ahd put them on a plate to serve as a side dish at dinner.

I graduated HS in 1966, so this would encompass late 50s to early 60s when he gardened. Say 1955 to 1965.

Mom did a lot of canning back then, too, but mostly green beans, corn, peaches, and she did pickling, too.

We lived in SE Kansas (Neodesha, Independence). I don't remember the plants. As a kid I didn't pay attention to where the tomatoes came from, just that we had them and they were good LOL!

Does this help?

Susan

Susan,

There are so very, very many it could be that it makes my head spin. There are thousands of tomato varieties and I've never seen a list that links specific varieties to specific decades for example. It is fairly easy to figure out what tomato varieties were grown in 1890 or 1930 (because there were fewer of them) but much harder to figure out the 1950s/1960s because by then everyone in the world was creating/releasing hybrid varieties at an astonishing rate.

The description of them as very large helps, but it depends on your definition of very large. To some folks, a 10 or 12 oz. tomato might seem large whereas for others, very large conjures up an image of a 1 or 2 lb. tomato. So, if y'all had sliced up one of these tomatoes to put on a sandwich or a burger, was one slice essentially as large as a hamburger bun or slice of bread, or was it smaller than that? I'm hoping to be able to use the size to help narrow it down from all the many possibilities swimming around in my head.

Also,I know you described it as red. Do you remember if it was a true red, or a pinkish-red or a reddish-orange? Do you remember if they were perfectly red or if they had green shoulders when ripe or almost perfectly ripe?

Dawn

Dawn, so sorry for the lack of recall here. I remember them being very red (not dark red, or cherry red) with some orangey shoulders (I always thought this was due to them being almost but not quite ripe and mom would put in kitchen window a day or so to further ripen, but maybe this applies more to type of tomato) furrowed; I would guess 1 to 2 lbs. A slice would definitely cover a sandwich. Very beefy, meaty tomatoes, but on the other hand, juicy. Not thick-skinned but thin.

Also shape was a bit squat, with center looking kind of sunken in, not perfectly round but sometimes kinda lopsided in appearance, with a lumpy appearance too but more of a "rolling hills" type of look. I have looked around a bit and I am thinking possibly Beefsteak or Heirloom (name, not history). Does that sound right maybe?

Susan, look at this website and see if it looked like the one called "Beefsteak #5720".

Here is the link http://www.tomatogrowers.com/beefsteaks.htm

Susan,
Carol linked you to one I was thinking about. I'll post another link to another op Beefsteak. Let us know if either is close to what you remember. Some tomatoes crack easier and over watering whether by rain or hose can cause it. Also soil that don't drain well like Dawn's clay can cause fruits to crack worse. Which one has the color you remember. I'm thinking the color you are describing on the shoulders maybe close to what this one is. My Goliath Hybrid has that color also. But wasn't around when you are talking about. Jay

Here is a link that might be useful: Beefsteak OP

Lol! I never thought to look for seeds on ebay!

Susan,

Actually, I think you've given us a really good description...I just asked for the greater detail because it helps us eliminate a lot of possibilities.

For example, your description of it as a beefsteak type (size that is more oblate or flattened and not a perfect, round globe) helped eliminate many possibilities and your your description of orangey-red shoulders helped eliminate all the pinkish-red ones.

I do think it is going to fall into the group of large red beefsteak types known to be in use at that time, and of those Henderson's Crimson Cushion, also referred to as Red Ponderosa or as Beefsteak, is the most likely candidate. However, it is not the only one but a lot of the other possibilities are almost identical to Crimson Cushion.

Using your description of size alone, we can rule out some of the possibilities like Pritchard's Scarlet Topper, Shumway's Abraham Lincoln and Sioux, as well as all the Livingston varieties currently available because none of them get that large.

Tomatoes that are very similar to Crimson Cushion include Burgess's Mammoth Wonder, Burgess's Improved Colossal Red, De Giorgi's Acme and a variety that Victory Seeds sells as "Beefsteak" but which they are careful to distinguish as being different from the similar tomato sold as Crimson Cushion/Red Ponderosa. I've linked the Victory Seeds red tomato section that has these varieties so you can see if any of them look like the one you remember.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Red Tomatoes at Victory Seeds

Dawn your thoughts were along the same lines as mine. The shoulders is what made me have second thoughts about Crimson Cushion. I have never seen those shoulders on it. And I know that the Beefsteak OP my mother raised in the 50's and early 60's had these shoulders and more like the one I linked. It wasn't the Crimson Cushion at all. Another case where one name or very similar names were used for two different tomatoes. I've seen discussions before about this. Whether they were completely different or one was a selection. Without DNA testing we will never know. The one from Victory is more like the one I remember. But the one I linked is the closest. And I know my Mother grew them in the TX panhandle, NM and when we first came to KS. But think the ones she grew here may of been from seeds she brought when we moved. The first hybrids she grew were after we came to KS in 66. But what was grown in eastern KS during this time frame I'm not sure. I do have Red Ponderosa seeds. But not the Beefsteak OP. I have thought about buying them to see if they were what Mom grew but then think of the list I have and have resisted so far. LOL. Jay

You do realize childhood memories of taste and smell are impossible to duplicate. You are describing a beefsteak tomato of some sort. Ponderosa was a common tomato name. Your tomato could be any of a great number but it more likely to be something commonly planted. There are differences in the beefsteaks but many are good and similar. Why don't you go to a good tomato seed catalog on line and try a few kinds. Yellow pear and cherry tomatoes are not my idea of the best tasting tomato.

My Mother always raised yellow pear and I did for years just for memories. I have seeds for one called Yellow Submarine that many really like. And haven't grown it yet. Jay

I have heard more negative things about Yellow Pear than any other tomato. I have never tasted it but someone sent me some seeds in a veggie swap. I just chaulked it up as a lose. LOL

I remember tomatoes from my childhood also but I don't know the name. My mother can't remember the name either but says it is just one word and MIGHT be a girls name. It was a high acid red tomato and that is all I remember. We always had so many that they were just sliced up and put on a plate all during the season. They were so good.

P.S. I have been wondering if it was Bonnie although that is a hybrid. I don't ever remember my mother saving seeds or starting tomatoes from seed. At least, I know she didn't start anything inside under lights. I am thinking that she probably bought the plants. Who knows? I need to try to remember to ask her if she grew them from seeds. I was never interested in the garden, so really didn't learn anything.

Carol,

But isn't the original Bonny Best a really old hybrid from many decades back? I think it is and it might be similar to the one Susan remembers. If my memory is correct, it goes back to the very early 1900s. I think that Bonny Best very similar to one of the the old Burgess tomatoes but am not sure if it was Burgess's Mammoth Wonder or another one from the Burgess line.

Yellow Pear is an odd duck. I grew it for many years when Chris was a kid because it was the only tomato he'd eat (likely because of its mild, sweet flavor). When Tim worked in the detective division, his Captain really liked Yellow Pear so I always planted one YP plant for him. I prefer other small yellows like Ildi or Galina's cherry, but I've never understood why so many people just flat out hate yellow cherry. I don't think it has a bad flavor, but merely a very mild flavor. I will say that it has a very mild flavor if grown in hot and dry conditions, and that flavor almost becomes no flavor at all in very wet, cool conditions. It also splits and cracks at the drop of a hat.

Jay, My dad grew a ponderosa that had green shoulders if picked 3 or 4 days before they really were ripe and they were prone to cracking. He always picked them and put them in the window to ripen, so I don't think they were one of the tomatoes that keep their green shoulders forever....just that he picked 'em too early. They probably were not the real Ponderosa though because their size also was much smaller than you should get from Ponderosa. What they actually reminded me of in appearance is something more like Costoluto Genovese but larger than it is.

What we need is a stack of old seed catalogs from firms like Landreths, Burgess, Livingston and Burgess. I've also wondered if if might be one of the Burpee hybrids that were in existence at the time Susan's dad was growing the tomatoes, but how we'd figure that out I don't know because hybrids tend to come and go so many of the old ones aren't around any longer.

Dawn

It definitely had to be something that my dad could have purchased easily in a small town setting (pop. 2,000). The nearest large city was Bartlesville about 60 miles south. In those days it was a "fur piece" to drive that distance on two lane roads, many of which were still gravel.

My parents weren't into what the best tomato might be, trying various types, etc. It had to be what was the easiest to obtain or what was available, and what they could get for the lowest price, since we were considered to be pretty poor folk. My dad may not have even known the name of the tomato for that matter. He wasn't an experienced gardener in the sense that he was concerned about soil, fertilizer, etc. He just planted whatever was at hand and we ate what came up. We did have pretty good soil naturally compared to what I have here in OKC. Soil is good til you get down about a foot and then it is red clay that Edward Scissorhands couldn't cut thru.

I am thinking the Beefsteaks are the closest to what I recall and appreciate all of the help from you guys. I am going to look at the websites mentioned.

Susan

Susan,

I really do think it likely was Henderson's Crimson Cushion, aka Red Ponderosa aka Red Majestic. There was a very, very similar red beefsteak type available them that you normally see now as "Old-Fashioned Beefsteak" or merely as Red Beefsteak or Beefsteak. A lot of the other tomatoes I know were sold then didn't have that much ribbing (like Bonny Best) and a lot of the beefsteak tomatoes in the right size range were often pinkish-red.

The more recent tomato that sounds a lot like you remember would be Delicious (OK's Gordon Graham holds the record title for largest tomato grown with a Delicious tomato) which wasn't introduced until the late 1970s. I believe Crimson Cushion was one of the parent plants used to produce Delicious. When I sit and look at photos, Crimson Cushion most fits your description and has the right size, weight, etc. Delicious could meet your definition except for two things. (1) It didn't exist in the 1950s and 1960s and (2) it isn't delicious and you remember a tomato with good flavor.

Look at the linked photo and see if it looks similar to what you remember.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Crimson Cushion

Well, after looking at pics and reading descriptions of flavor, I have about decided that the tomato I am looking for is either the Beefsteak OP or one of the Red Brandywines. I think the Bonnie Best is too small and the others just don't have that "look".

I might add that in the area I grew up in there was also a substantial Mennonite population and it could be that my dad got plants from them that they sold or gave away.

You guys are the best!

Susan

Susan,

The "problem" with it being a Brandywine is that in southern climates they generally only produce a handful of fruit....like, here, in a good year I am thrilled to get 3, 4 or 5 fruit per plant the whole growing season. I'll usually get a couple of nice ripe ones in June or early July and then nothing until fall. They just do not like our heat. I had thought of Brandywine as a possibility, but since it produces poorly here, I felt it likely wasn't sold or planted here. Maybe it was the one your dad grew, though, since you remember great flavor.

There is a very good possibility that someone in the Mennonnite population had saved Brandywine seeds for decades and it gradually had become more acclimated to the hot summers found here in the central plains, though, and your dad might have been growing some sold by one of the Mennonite farmers or gardeners.

Now I need to rack my brain to come up with the names of some Mennonite or Amish Brandywine lookalikes, because I know there are some. I just don't know their history in terms of what decades they came into more common usage.

Jay may have some ideas about some of the Mennonite varieties and I need to visit Lisa's Amishland seed site and see if she has a non-Brandywine lookalike that might have been widely grown in the 50s and 60s.

Susan, I bet the Mennonite population is the clue to figuring this one out now!

Dawn

Here are some old seed catalogs - Check the prices.

Here is a link that might be useful: Historic Seed Catalogs

I have nothing substantial to add but just wanted to say I enjoy watching Dawn contort her brain into all sorts of positions trying to solve mysteries like this!

Diane

Carol, Thanks for the link. I knew those catalogs were there, but I had forgotten. I'm going to sit here with my trusty laptop computer and look at the old seed catalogs online while we watch the Independence Bowl (because the Texas Aggies are in it).

Diane,

I think of it as yoga for the brain! Glad I am keeping you entertained. Trying to figure out this tomato reminds me of the times when we've tried to make an ID of an obscure plant based on a photo someone posts. Those end up being some of our longest threads because the failure to ID the plant in the photo makes us all nuts.

One thing that is driving me crazy is that my dad used to grow some huge beefsteaks that I think match Susan's description of the ones her dad grew, but I don't know what they were because I was just a kid then. Later on, when I asked him about them, he thought they were Spring Giant or Big Set, but he wasn't even sure and by then he already had Alzheimer's Disease so his memory wasn't very good.

We may not ever figure this out, but won't we have fun trying?

Dawn

I talked to my Mother today and she said they were not Bonnie, but now I am wondering if my Mother and I are thinking about the same tomato. She describes a smaller tomato than I remember. She is 98, but still remembers many things. The Bonny Best tomato pictures I have looked at on-line looks almost exactly like I remember the ones she grew. Mother keeps saying that it was a short name with maybe four letters. She said that she bought the plants. I am mystified. I wish I could remember more.

Susan, there are so many tomatoes that neither of us may find our childhood memory out there. I like most tomatoes, but some are far better than others. A few years ago I got a free pack of Sprite with a seed order, and it was a spitter, but not many are.

When breeders were making an effort to sweeten the tomatoes, I was yearning for the high acid taste. I like the sweet tomatoes like sungold for snacking or for a salad, but I like a good slicer to be a little more tart.

I can't think of any Mennonite, Amish, German tomatoes that would fit the description. Large Mennonite Heritage has green shoulders on many of the fruit. And many of the ones I have grown are pink which rules them out. I even went over most of my list and nothing jumped out at me. So many Mennonite varieties were local. And the same can be said for a lot of the tomatoes grown up till the mid 60's. I remember the old gentleman who sold seeds, plants and tomatoes in the town where we shopped in NM. As I remember he only had 3-4 varieties. A beefsteak, a canner and a all around he called a slicer if I remember right. Maybe another. Some of the seeds his family had brought from Kentucky. But never heard a name. as I go through my seeds if I think of something Ill post it. Jay

I don't think there were a lot of expectations then and certainly not a lot of rules about who could sell what. We didn't have a nursery in our small town, but the feed store had tomato plants for sale. In addition, they were sitting on the sidewalk in front of the grocery store, the service station, etc. The plants were usually very small, but they were also very cheap. I think people just took what was offered and as many as they could afford to buy.

SG, that's what I was thinking, that he got them at the local feed store, or the Western Auto (remember them?), or a roadside stand, or just someone passed them along to him.

Dawn, southeast Kansas is zone 6, and I don't recall getting the heat like we do here in central and south Oklahoma, so it is possible he grew a red brandywine. The terrain is not like most people perceive Kansas to be (very flat with little vegetation). Also, we were right on the Verdigris and close to the Fall River as well. The local myth was that we would never see a tornado because we were situated between 2 rivers, which we all know is not true today. A lot of things grew well there that don't grow well in the Oklahoma heat here (lilacs for instance; I know there are more heat tolerant ones now, but not back then). Just a little overview of temps and terrain.

It's so interesting to see the posts from everyone, and I am enjoying this to the max!

Susan

Carol,

We had a Greek family in our town that raised many vegetables in a market garden they had that sat adjacent to the Trinity River on the outer edge of downtown Fort Worth. They sold their produce (tons of it every year) in a little store about the size of a convenience store and they sold oodles of plants there every spring. My dad used to buy some of his plants from them and I don't remember that the plants even had names attached to them and I don't even remember ever seeing a sign that listed varieties or prices or anything. I think my dad just figured that whatever the Greeks sold would grow and produce well (and the plants always did). I suppose gardening was much more simple then.

Dawn

Susan, I graduated high school in Copan (only five minutes from the KS border) in 1965 and although I didn't pay a lot of attention to Mom's garden, I do know that she was very big into hybrids. They were very popular because of disease resistance and higher yields. I do remember her talking about Big Boy and later Better Boy and even Early Girl. I don't remember any tomatoes that had a name like a woman's name other than what's already been mentioned.

Someone gave her some tomato seed that she called German Pink and they were probably a Brandywine. She was really amazed with it because it was so big and I don't think she had ever grown a tomato before that wasn't red. She grew that pink tomato for many years. But for canning, she preferred red. Seems like I remember her growing Marglobe, too.

Hope this helps. Please also remember that lots of times things don't taste the same to us now as they did in our childhoods. Enhanced memory? Declining tastebuds? I don't know. Sometimes just biting into a totally fresh tomato, after getting used to the things that are sold in the grocery stores, is such a contrast that the first tomato you get is always so much better than the ones that follow....

Oops, I just confused the issue by adding the info on the one I was trying to find. Ilene, it was the smaller red tomato that I was trying to identify from my childhood that I thought might have a girls name, but when I talked to my Mother, she just said it was a short name with about four letters. I am clueless on that one.

Susan, sorry I confused your thread there for a minute.

Ilene, the tomato Susan is looking is not the same one I am looking for and she gave a good discription of hers above. I just messed up the works by doing a little childhood "dreaming" of my own. Sorry Susan.

Carol,

There have been a lot of tomatoes with girl's names, but not that many with only 4 letters that I can think of....Dona, Dora, Iris, Dawn, Tara and Dana are a few that come to mind.

Among girl's names with more (or less) than 4 letters there are these: Eva, Maria, Mary Ann, Briana, Debbie, Abbie, Gloria, Penny, Sofia, Bianca, Ashleigh, Irene, Regina, Bobbie, Eleanor, Elfie, Kimberly, Helen, Justine, Annie, Shirley, Marion, Julia, Nadia, Maranda, Irene, Stella, Heidi, May and Venus. There's probably a lot others but those are the ones I can think of with girl's names, although I didn't mention the ones that have a girl's name as one word in a multi-word name like Amy's Sugar Gem, Aunt Gertie's Gold, Galina's Yellow Cherry, or Dolly Parton.

Ilene,

My dad tried all those hybrids like Big Boy, Better Boy, Early Girl, Celebrity, etc. as they were introduced but still kept growing the large beefsteak types since those "new" (at the time they were introduced) hybrids were more of a globe-type in shape and just didn't have the flavor of the old ones he grew. I find Big Beef and Beefmaster to have better flavor than most of the hybrid ones in the Boy and Girl lines (Big Boy, Better Boy, Super Boy, Big Girl, Early Girl, etc.).

There is a tomato known as German Pink and another known as Hege's German Pink and quite a few others that produce pink fruit and have German in their name like German Queen and German Head. Many of my family's favorite tomatoes in terms of taste are the ones that produce large pink beefsteaks, and even a few pink globes. Great pink tomatoes (at least ones that my tastebuds think are great) include German Queen, Radiator Charlie's Mortgage Lifter, Estler's Mortgage Lifter, Large Pink Bulgarian, Brandywine Sudduth's, Omar's Lebanese, Valena Pink, German Head, Olena Ukrainian, Tennessee Heirloom, Arkansas Traveler, Bradley Pink, Tennessee Britches, Brandy Boy and Brianna. Caspian Pink, in particular, is a pink with fine flavor and is one of the non-Brandywine types that comes closer to the complex, rich flavor of Brandywine than pretty much anything else I've grown. Stump of the World is another pink tomato with flavor that is out of this world.

Dawn

I have a number of pinks to try this year and a few of them match your list. I have seeds for, and have grown in the past, Brandywine Sudduth, Mortgage Lifter and Arkansas Traveler. I also have seeds for Omar's Leganese, but it is new to me, as is Grandfather Ashlock and Anna Russian. I may have some other pinks, but that is all I can think of.

My garden should look like a rainbox this year since I have red, orange, yellow-orange, pink, yellow, white, green, and of course the purpley black ones.

I have never grown anything with German in the name, but I have seeds for Old German, Striped German and German Johnson. I will probably plant German Johnson for spring.

I am trying Caspian Pink,
Arkansas Traveler and German Johnson and others this coming year. I really liked Granny Cantrell German Pink last year. I have always grown tomatoes, but last year was my first to go nuts on heirlooms. Dawn you gave me several kinds last year. I check the Sandhill site every day hoping they get their 2010 list out. I don't can and can't eat many myself, I just enjoy trying them and giving most away. I like mortgage lifter but don't know which I had. How much of a difference do you see between Estler's and Charlie's ML?

Carol,

It sure sounds like your garden will be a rainbow of color this year.

One year I planted an actual rainbow garden a la' Rosalind Creasy after I read her book "The Edible Rainbow Garden" and drooled over the photos. Each raised bed was restricted to herbs, flowers and veggies in one color, and all the colors were in the same order they're found in a rainbow. I had a tremendous amount of fun with it, but had a bit of trouble filling up the blue bed. (I do remember that for the blue bed I had Jade Blue corn, Blue Fruit tomato, and some blue beans. Blue beans really are purplish though). I did have more herbs and flowers in the blue bed than in the beds of other colors because there just are not a lot of blue veggies but there's plenty of herbs with blue flowers and blue flowering plants.

In the early 2000s I had a lot of the German ones in my garden....guess I was going through either a German phase or a pink tomato phase.

Helen,

Sandhill sometimes isn't fully updated until mid-January or so.

In my garden and growing conditions, Estler's always gives me more fruit per plant than Radiator Charlie's, they ripen slightly earlier than Radiator Charlie's and I think their flavor is better. Generally the Estler's plant and its fruit both are a little larger than the Radiator Charlie's plant and fruit too. However, both are excellent tomatoes.

Dawn

You're all sending me on a trip down memory lane. We lived in Altoona in my childhood in the 70s (and in Neodesha as an adult) and my granddad grew a wonderful garden there. I can still taste those scrumptious tomatoes, warm, right in the garden. I wish I had all of the garden journals he kept back then.

Diane

Well, I posted here about the German Pink tomato that Mom used to grow but I don't see it anywhere now.

?? Is anybody else having problems with their posts disappearing? Seems like I've been losing about an average of one a day. I try to be very careful to make sure I have actually posted, for instance I never use my "back" button but go back into the forum by following the link provided on the "Message Posted" screen.

GW has certainly had it's share of problems this year. I appreciate that it's a free forum and all, but it can get frustrating sometimes.

Ilene,

Look again. Your post about German Pink is still here--it is about 8 or 9 posts back on this thread....it was posted at 12:26 p.m. on Tuesday.

Yes, I've had a lot of trouble with posts disappearing too this fall and winter. Everything I wrote (and a couple of them were really long) this morning disappeared because I wrote it during the maintenance period when they were working on correcting previous problems and apparently everything written during the maintenance period has disappaeared into cyberspace.

I have grown the German Pink available through Seed Savers Exchange but not in quite a few years. Tomato Growers Supply has a really nice selection of pink beefsteaks including one named German Pink, although I don't know if it is the same German Pink you remember. German Pink was a name applied to a lot of large-fruited pinkish-red beefsteaks grown over the decades and I doubt all of them were the same variety, although they probably were very similar to one another.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: German Pink & Other Pinks Are On This Page

Diane, my sister and her husband still live in Neodesha (Jerry and Sally Millis) and my brother, Jim Deweese, still lives there, too. Jim's son, Micah, went to high school in Altoona, and my nephew's daughter, Savannah, is going to grade school there now, too. Seems that many of the kids in Neodesha prefer the Altoona schools over Neodesha's.

When I graduated from HS there were 75 in our class (1966). Not too many.

I did not like living there because of the "small town" atmosphere. Everyone knew everyone else's business, you know. And even when I go back now they get into discussing their fellow towns people's personal lives to this day. I just don't understand it. I like the City in that aspect. But, I recall many pleasant things about small town life, too.

Do you recall the soil there? It seems it was really good soil as opposed to what most of us in Oklahoma have - good old red clay.

Does anyone recall a tomato called Box Car Willy?

Susan

Susan,

Box Car Willie is still around and I see it often in the spring at places that sell a nice selection of tomato transplants. It is a red, mid-season variety that generally produces clusters of 2, 3, or 4 tomatoes that are about 10 or 12 or 14 oz. in an average year, but smaller in a drought year. It has that old-fashioned flavor that is a nice blend of sweetness and tanginess. I grow it probably about 3 out of every 5 years because it is a great producer in the hot weather when other varieties often slow down.

Box Car Willie was bred by Joe Bratka's father and was just one of his many creations. Another one that he bred was the similar Mule Team, which I also grow from time to time but I haven't tried any of his others like Red Barn or Pasture.

Dawn

Wasn't it named after a CW singer or song? That names just strikes a bell with me for some reason.

Susan

I don't know that anyone in a position to know ever specifically said that Box Car Willie the tomato was named after either hobo singer Boxcar Willie or country singer/songwriter Willie Nelson, but it is often mentioned that such a thing was likely.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Boxcar Willie Martin

Box Car Willie is one that my results differ from Dawn's. And you wonder why. A nice tomato but has never been a heavy producer here. I've grown it several times. But a good one worth a try. Sioux and Porter are two more that I usually don't get the heavy yields I do with others. And they seem to do well for Dawn. I wonder if it is the hot dry weather we have.

Susan,
Yes in a small town your business is everyone's. Of course I don't go downtomw much. Do most of my shopping out of town and have had people ask if I still live here. When I was a teen ager in the mid 60's we still had party lines. Had 8 families on it. So then eveyone knew your buisiness for sure. But one thing about a small town is when you need help everyone is there to help. Great piople but also gossip about eveything. Jay

When we first moved here to rural Love County, we received some very good advice from Tim's police partner (and best friend) and his wife who'd moved here several years before us. They advised us to keep our banking in Texas and to use doctors elsewhere (and for us, since our insurance is through D-FW Airport, we kept our Texas doctors) or the whole county always would know our financial and medical business.

That was great advice and I appreciate that our friends passed it on to us. I gather they learned this the hard way when information they believed was confidential was passed around town. In small towns and lightly populated areas everyone talks and everyone knows each others' business, and not because they are nosy or unkind....I think it is just simple curiosity or just the fact that life here is pretty boring and you have to have something to talk about.

I can add one more thing about living in a small town where everyone but you has lived there always and forever: never, ever, ever say one unkind word about a single person because everyone in the entire county is related to one another and anything you say will be repeated. (No, I didn't learn that the hard way, but I did quickly learn that the many families who settled Love County 100 years ago or even further back than that had all intermarried to the point that everyone here is related.)

I have a friend here who is from a large family...lots and lots of siblings and cousins. I think her dad and mom both had 8 or 10 siblings and most all those siblings and all their descendents are still here and they've married into every other long-time family here. It seems like every time someone passes away here, it is someone related to her. I finally asked her if there was anyone in this town she's not related to and she laughed and said, "Well, I'm not related to you" and we had a good giggle over that. And, to further complicate things, I call her Meemaw (as does everyone else) and we know all her kids and most of her grandkids and great-grandkids, so I feel related to her anyway.

People do have long memories here. Sometimes I think the gossip from 2 or 3 generations back is more entertaining than the current stuff. Ahem, not that I listen to any of that gossip.....I'm just interested in the historical part of it. LOL

Dawn