Ag Memories

Do you or someone you know have a great story to tell related to agriculture? Do you have an item full of memories or family history that you would like to share? If so, we’d love to hear from you!

Send your memory, picture, story, and/or artifact description to daaha.inc@gmail.com. We will post your story in Ag Memories. Please keep entries limited to one or two paragraphs and include contact information where you can be reached and if you would like your contact information made available to the public.

****************************************

From: Tanya Joyce
Date: Tue, Oct 9, 2012 at 10:34 PM
Subject: Fwd: DeKalb Ag Story
To: daaha.inc@gmail.com

Subject: DeKalb Ag Story

I lived in DeKalb from 1968 to 1972. I am an artist and was very interested in the DeKalb flying ear of corn logo. (I still have a flying ear of corn on Masonite from around 1970 and a later one on plastic corrugated material from the 1990s. I also have DeKalb Ag pencils, pad of paper, ski cap, baseball cap, T-shirt, belt buckle, umbrella, and a few other things.) Living in DeKalb, I became very interested in corn as a crop and a staple, especially native varieties from various places in the Americas, with their differing colors. Blue corn is one of my favorites. I make rainbows of food for party snacks and blue is not easy to find!!

I was also interested in the fact that the field corn, picked a bit early, was sweet and delicious for humans to eat. I lived on Colby Court. At the time, the area west of Sharon Drive was the Faivre farm. The Faivre children brought wagon loads of early picked seed corn for sale in the neighborhood -- 50 cents for a dozen ears. The corn was fresh and excellent!

When I lived in DeKalb, I had an artist friend who lived in the older part of Sycamore, Sheila Sullivan Strel. Sheila lived in a corner house with a big wrap around front porch, somewhere around Somonauk Street or Elm Street, if I remember correctly. Behind her house on the next street, two back yards met. One summer, when Sheila was out tending her tomatoes, she met her back yard neighbor, the wife of the man who designed the DeKalb Ag ear of corn logo. The designer was living at the time, but he was not in good health and did not go outside. His wife told us that the flying ear of corn was designed during The Great Depression with the idea that, even in hard times, with the planting of corn a person's fortunes could soar.

In the 1990s, I was exhibiting some of my artwork that incorporated my version of the flying ear. One of the people who came to my studio was photographer, Hugh Lynn, who had a DeKalb Ag hat and some other items. As a boy in Iowa during the 1930s or 1940s, Hugh and his friends had summer jobs hand pollinating corn by shaking the full tassels downward over the stalks and ears. The boys found this wonderful income and enjoyed the outdoor work. Hugh was very glad to find someone else in California who was familiar with DeKalb Ag history.

Submitted by:
Tanya Joyce
Brushworks
POB 884311
San Francisco, CA 94188-4311
www.tanyajoyce.com