William Dettwyler Oral History Interview, May 17, 2017

Partial Transcript: So, let's start, you grew up in Silverton?

Segment Synopsis: William shares his experiences of growing up on a farm stead in Silverton, OR right along the Pudding River. He shares the immigrant experience of his father. He also shares a photo of a hop house his father built, and some early technologies that his father put into the house. William goes into great detail about the use of an early temperature gauge system that was used in a hop house and other techniques and technologies that were used in the hops processes.

Keywords: Ellis Island; German; Homestead; Immigration; Portland; Pudding River; early technologies; hops

Partial Transcript: 700 bails every year, for approximately 10 years.

Segment Synopsis: They would compress the hops into a bail, about six feet long and 30 inches high and 18 inches wide, that is about the standard bail. You compress about five or six times the volume into the compressed bail. You would fill it and press it a few times, you get about 200 pounds of hops into the bail. If you forgot to put the burlap down, you will not be able to wrap the bail once it was compressed. The last bail is usually the heaviest due to the seeds being in it, which add weight.
They used an automated bailer that was revolutionary of the time. Dettwyler explains how the machine works and how after the machine did its job it was up to them to use a curve needed to sew the burlap closed. Once the sides were closed, they would release the plunger and weigh the bail before sewing the ends closed.

Partial Transcript: Was there technology being shared with other people running hop farmers?

Segment Synopsis: Ever hop house was built individually. None had the sophistication that they had on their hop house. As far as Dettwyler knew his father was the best hop farmer around. A recording thermometer helps because you can see how the temperatures changed and make sure the night person was doing their job.
There would be a strong smell when they dried hops due to using sulfur, it was used as a bleaching agent and it adds a little flavor. Sometimes when you scooped the hops some would fall between the floors and fall onto the pipes. They had to clean the pipes every time because if they did not the hops on the pipes would burn and ruin the flavor of the hops above.
They sold their hops to Budweiser and other buyers. During the 1940s and 1950s everything was contracted but the price of hops fluctuate so much that it was hard to determine when to contract to get the best-selling price. The hop driers put a lot of money into the drying process so selling at the best price can really determine if you made or lost money that year.
In the spring they would cut off everything on the hop vines. They used a disk clearer to clear the fields. This would cause ditches so they would work the dirt to be even so that after they planted, they could train up the hops. The hops would be trained up to eleven feet. The hops that did not grow on the wire were cut so that the plant would focus on the trained hops. All the hooks were S shaped to allow them to easily be picked when harvest time came. They would bag up the hops and someone would go around to weigh the bags. The bags usually weighed around 60 lbs. A box handler would come around to gather the sacks in some cases. People wrote their names on the sacks to show their work. If you were a dirty picker the foreman would know when they dumped them at the hop house.
Red hop vines were hard to pick. They had funnels, early clusters, late clusters and red vines. They had 45 acres of hop fields. His dad rigged a training platform so that they could get the train wires up. Someone would be working the vehicle, from the top with the rigged controls, while the other trained. They had to duck under the trolly wire, or they could be knocked off and the vehicle would keep going.
They had to have an anchor on the posts to keep the posts from falling or breaking from the weight of the hops. It was a lot of work to maintain everything. Harvest time was especially busy since they had hops, corn, and a barley field. Rain before harvest was difficult because it could ruin the barley. Dettwyler does not like barley due to it being bearded and prickly.

Partial Transcript: How did you and your family recruit pickers?

Segment Synopsis: The Stanly Crew, started by his grandfather, consisted of the three sons who would do the hops. They would go around and help the other growers to pick their crops. They would bring those hops to their hop barn to dry everyone’s hops. They would recruit at employment offices and other places to get extra hands. Since everyone was picking around the same time, they would have to entice them. They did have dedicated pickers who came out but a lot of the time it was different people. Nowadays there are rules about transporting people, back then having people in the back of the truck was fine. They would travel to Salem about every day to pick up workers. They would pick the fields during the day.

Partial Transcript: What was the atmosphere like in the fields?

Segment Synopsis: The atmosphere was fun. They threw clumps of dirt at each other and at picker’s baskets. There were talkers who would just keep talking. Some people would bring their own baskets because they preferred a certain type of basket to pick with. The women would furnish the baskets. They had to get on some people to not sit on the hop sacks because it would squish the hops.
They had about 100 people who would pick. You would try to get the good row because some rows were better than others. 1937 to 1953 is the time frame he is talking about since he went to school and did not pick after that time.
Some people would use thick twine for the hop fields so that they could cut the twine because the hops would cling to the twine more and the machines can pick them. There used to hop fields everywhere. Nowadays most hop picking is done with a machine and hardly any are handpicked.

Partial Transcript: When did your family transition out?

Segment Synopsis: Around 1952 they stopped. They started putting up machine used fields and stopped with the other fields. Family owned the fields near Sierra Springs, where a soda bottling plant used to be. It was called Switzerland yard due to a train station that was there at one point. This was around 1912, then it became farmland.
His mom mentioned that she went to the State Fair once and got an award for a cake. She spent 25 cents the entire time she was there.
The Birch German place, or Switzerland yard, there was a hop house and hop picker camps there.
The hop house that his dad built was eventually torn down. Dettlwyler is not sure when that happened. There were carvings on the walls and all of that went away when they tore the house down.
Goldie Bensen had asked his uncle to run the bar once and when they returned the place was packed due to his uncle giving beer away on the house.
Dettwyler is growing his own hops just to look at due to missing it. He believes using hops for medicine as becoming more common due to the health benefits of it.

Partial Transcript: What made you decide to go to college?

Segment Synopsis: He went to a state fair at twenty and he saw a display of a lab. He was helping at a lab during that time in Silverton, washing glassware. The display was done by OIT (Oregon Institute of Technology). A diploma was required to get into the college, so he got a letter of recommendation from his dentist to get into the school. At that time, it was a two-year program and he has been working in the lab field ever since. He lived in Silverton but would travel to New York, DC, or other places to assist with lab work. He was in DC when it was hit on 9/11. He talks about the atmosphere of 9/11 at the time. There was a pilot who was told to ram a hijacked plane if it entered the area, which may have had her father on it.
He was on a train to DC when the towers were hit. When he got to DC the Pentagon was hit. He was stuck there due to all the chaos. The people who wanted to be home were government workers who wanted to pick up their kids and just get home. No one knew what was happening and if that fourth plane had hit the capital it would have been complete chaos.
He was in Orlando when Hurricane Charley hit the airport.
Hops was part of his family’s life for about 15 years. His oldest sister went into graphics arts, but he was the only one who really got a degree (in 1959 he went back and got his associate degree). He was drafted in 1956, right after he got out of OIT, into the Army working in the hospital at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. MOS (military operation specialty) is a list of jobs with associated numbers, so he wrote in the number 7 on his application to get the lab tech position. A year before he was there a teacher from Silverton was there. Teachers were taught and used in the lab tech because they were assumed to be more teachable. He was in the Army for two years before coming back and working in Salem, Oregon. He has a consulting business. He answers questions that labs might have and replies to them with solutions