Handing off a family business: Time turns another page from one generation to the next

This is the first time I’ve wondered what it was like for Orval, back in 1979.

Orval, my husband’s grandpa, was a loud, strong, opinionated man with a prickly chin and baggy overalls who would follow me around the house on the days I gave his caretaker a break.

He told me about the state of the crops and what the neighbors were up to, spiced with jokes in our shared language of Pennsylvania German and stories of his days running the family’s grass seed warehouse.

“One time I had a guy sackin’ seed, and he was sewin’ the bags shut with the sewin’ machine, and he sewed right through his thumb!” he hollered at me one day. “When I got there, there was a bunch of guys around him tryin’ to pick this string out of his thumb real careful. Well! I just went up to him and took a hold of that string and give it a good yank and out it come!”

The story evolved with his encroaching dementia until the unfortunate seed sacker had sewed through his lower lip. But Orval’s solution was still the same, and “give it a good yank and out it come,” entered our family lore, quoted when a quick and painful solution was chosen over a more careful approach.

In 1979, Orval’s son Wilton, a bit more subdued than his dad but with a voice that could carry for blocks, took over the business. Smucker men are not given to nostalgia or introspection, but I still wonder: What was that like for Orval when summer came, the pollen blew and someone else hired the help, filled the bins, drove the trucks and switched lots?

After managing the business for a few summers in the 1990s, my husband bought the warehouse from his dad, Wilton, in 2000. I wonder: Did Wilton feel sad or regretful as he handed it off? Did he hope Paul would ask for advice? Did it pain him when Paul found ways to be more efficient and stopped putting mouse bait among the bagged pallets?

This year, it’s our turn, as Paul has officially retired after years of slowly decreasing his involvement. A nephew, Randy Smucker, took over the building and equipment to expand his seed business. Randy decided not to continue the grass seed cleaning, so “our” farmers have been diverted elsewhere, including to the Irish Bend Warehouse, where another nephew, Kevin Birky, works as manager.

Yesterday, Kevin’s brother Eric drove a windrower in the ryegrass field just to the north of us, cutting the first rounds and piling the grass in long heaps. The hot, dry air carried the scent to me as I took laundry off the line, a sharp blend of dust, sun and mowed grass.

For the first time, Paul isn’t hiring baggers, working long days or talking on the phone, arranging for Hugh Gray’s gulf ryegrass to get cleaned first.

For many summers, Paul thrived in the dust, dirt and decisions of managing millions of pounds of grass seed, from its arrival in farm trucks through storage in large bins to cleaning out the chaff and weeds to bagging and shipping. He loved to manage schedules, talk to farmers and repair pulleys and augers.

Like his dad and grandpa, Paul knew every inch of that large old warehouse. Then, as before, the clock ticked and it was time to hand it off to someone younger who was bound to do things differently.

This summer, Paul can sleep in, should he ever want to, and he can plan a trip to an Amish horse fair in Illinois in July. We can go camping at the coast in mid-summer, if we choose. I will not be shaking ryegrass seed from Paul’s pockets when I do laundry.

Like his forefathers, Paul is not given to nostalgia or introspection, yet he is still somewhat wistful as the season arrives and he is not involved. I sense that he wonders who he is now and if anyone is interested in all the wisdom and experience he’s accumulated. 

To Paul’s joy and my relief, Kevin has called him a few times for advice about setting up his new bagging hopper, and Hugh Gray keeps him updated on pollination and the first cutting.

Meanwhile, I wonder: How does one tell the ultimate value of committing to a life’s work to support your family, serve others and carry on a tradition? Was it worth the sacrifices our family made? Maybe it will take years to reap the harvest of our decisions.

Our kids have chosen careers that do not involve truckloads of seed or huge combines, but they can all tell a good story and have voices that can carry a long way. While they are thoughtful and deliberate, most of the time, they can also solve a problem in the quickest and most practical way, if need be, like giving a string a good yank and out it come, the echoing influence of a strong and decisive great-grandfather.

These summer days, young hired hands drive down Powerline Road in New Holland windrowers and huge John Deere combines. A new generation of farmers can hold a stalk of grass in their fingers and tell if it’s ready to cut, and the young warehouse owners around here can choose the right screen to sift the meadow foxtail seeds from the ryegrass. I tell myself and Paul what I suspect his dad and grandpa knew: The grass seed industry is in good hands.