"Milam Plans 100-year Celebration of Tomato Clubs_ by Jay Ermis

Milam Plans 100-year Celebration of Tomato Clubs

by Jay Ermis

Temple Daily Telegram - August 13, 2012

CAMERON - Texas AgriLife Extension Service - Milam County office will celebrate the

100th anniversary of the forming of the first girls’ tomato clubs and first Home

Demonstration Agent in Texas on Oct. 9 in Cameron.

Cheryl Walker, the 40th Home Demonstration Agent in the county, now known as County

Extension Agent Family and Consumer Sciences, said the celebration of Tomato Clubs in

Texas will take place during the National 4-H Week Celebration of Tomato Clubs in

Texas.

The event will begin with a ceremony during the County Commissioners Court meeting at

the courthouse and move to the Milam County Museum on First Street for a reception.

Edna Westbrook Trigg was the first Home Demonstration Agent in Texas.

Trigg organized 11 Girls Tomato Clubs in Texas in January 1912. The clubs were

forerunners of the girls 4-H Club in Milam County and in Texas.

The Milam County Extension Office is collecting recipes containing tomatoes. Walker

said a recipe booklet will be prepared and be available during the Oct. 9 celebration.

Send recipes labeled with your name to the Milam County Extension Office, 100 E. 1st

St., Cameron, TX 76520, or email ce-walker@tamu.edu with the subject line Tomato

Recipe.

“We have located the grand-son and three great-grand-daughters of Edna Trigg and

some of them are planning on attending the celebration on Oct. 9,” Walker said.

The tomato clubs were organized to acquaint young women in rural areas with tomato

production and canning techniques and how to grow and preserve food, Walker said.

Extension started out by trying to teach youths the activity and that was one way of

getting in the door and educating the adults, too.

Walker said tomatoes were a major product in Milam County in the early 1900s. “In the

Milano area, there were a lot of fruit stands, there was all kind of tomatoes and

produce grown in the county and trucked to other places. “There are lot of people who

have backyard gardens. The Master Gardeners are very popular here. There are a lot of

people who garden. They want that fresh produce. We still get a lot of calls on

canning. A lot of people still want to preserve their food.

“It’s the pride of I canned it and it’s my product. When you use fresh product, you do

it yourself, and if you do it right, it usually has a better flavor. It doesn’t sit on

the shelf very long. You usually eat it pretty quick.”

Tomatoes were initially canned in tin cans in a metal container with fire and then

eventually they were canned in glass jars.

Walker said canning tomatoes was “a way to teach safe food preservation. When the

tomato club members grew the product, they had to do something with it because tomatoes

don’t stay fresh very long. This was a way of teaching them to preserve it for the

future.

“Several of the members were able to sell produce and build up college funds. It was a

financial benefit to them.”

“The boys club got the name the corn clubs and the girls got the tomato crops, so those

were the major crops promoted and taught during the meetings. During the 1950s, a

county-wide 4-H Club was organized for youngsters across the county and operated mainly

out of the Cameron area.”

“As far as the records show, she would go around the county in her horse and buggy and

have meetings to get them to organize and set up their tomato plots,” Walker said. “She

would sporadically go back and checks on them to see how the crops were growing. When

the crops were ready, they would have big canning sessions in the community. I am not

sure how the community canning went, but I would think it was a big community project.”

All articles from the Temple Daily Telegram are published with the permission of the
Temple Daily Telegram.
All credit for this article goes to
Jay Ermis and the Temple Daily Telegram