Oregon State University Libraries and Press

Gayle Goschie Oral History Interview, May 16, 2014

Oregon State University
Tiah Edmunson-Morton, Interviewer | OH35-goschie-gayle-20140516
Oregon Hops and Brewing Archives Oral History Collection
Transcript
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00:00:00 - Combatting Mildew; Family History; Early Hops Industry in Oregon;

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Partial Transcript: How would you combat mildew organically?

Segment Synopsis: Gayle begins the interview by sharing her expertise on how she combats mildew in her harvests for both hops and grapes. She lists a wide range of potential solutions, mentioning sulfur and copper as viable options. She then moves forward to share about the history of her family in growing hops. In 1904, her grandparents on father's side were the first of the family to plant hops. She explains about the challenges of growing hops over 100 years ago, and how the lack of technology required an extensive amount of hand labor.
She shares about the density of Hops growers in the area in the early 1900's, explaining that there were hundreds of small farms within a close vicinity. She then further elaborates on how lucrative the industry was, and how essential research and advancements were to make substantial profits.

00:13:29 - Father Growing Hops; Land Purchase; Diversity

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Partial Transcript: When did your dad start growing?

Segment Synopsis: Gayle shares that in 1941 was the first year that her father grew his own hops independent from his father while still in High School. Her Father and Grandfather originally purchased 100 acres, and were continuously looking for opportunities to expand. Technological advancements allowed for them to quickly grow from 100 acres to 400 acres, the same size of the farm that Gayle currently operates. Gayle shares her opinion that mechanization had a much larger impact on the number of hops being grown in comparison to prohibition.
She believes that during the era of her father and grandfather, that she is almost certain that all of the hops they grew were sold within the United States. A valuable lesson she learned from her father was to diversify her crops in order to provide a safety blanket in case of a poor year for hops.

00:22:30 - Employees; Mexico; Russia

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Partial Transcript: Folks that are working for me that have been here 20-25 years.

Segment Synopsis: Gayle shares about some of the individuals she employees, many of whom are immigrants from Mexico who still have family back home that they send money to. Many of her employees takes 3-4 months of during the winter to head back to Mexico to spend time with their families during the offseason.
She moves forward to share about her introduction into farming following her graduation of high school. She was away at school, but during her breaks she would come back to the farm and was learning the process of growing hops.
She continues to share about the various immigrants that found their way to hops farms in Oregon both from Mexico as well as Russia.

00:32:20 - Culture; Generational Respect

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Partial Transcript: It's been a fabulous combination of cultures

Segment Synopsis: Gayle expands on the various cultures she has come in contact with through her time growing hops, specifically how much she has enjoyed watching these cultures intertwine with one another. She says both pride and generational respect are very prevalent within her family business and the individuals who are brought on to work on the farm.