Interview with David Rezin, February 19, 2018

Interviewee: Dave RezinInterviewer: Madeline AbbatacolaDate: February 19, 2018

My name is Madeline Abbatacola and today is Monday February 19, 2018. I am interviewing Dave Rezin at the Wisconsin Cranberry Discovery Center at 204 Main Street in Warrens, WI. Sarah Scripps is operating the recording equipment. This interview is part of a research project for the Wisconsin State Cranberry Growers Association in consultation with the Wisconsin Historical Society.

MA: Dave, do you mind if I ask you a few questions?

DR: No, I don't

MA: Okay, let's get started. Can you just state your name, date of birth?

DR: Uh David Rezin, born on January 19, 1933.

MA: Where are you from?

DR: Where am I from?

MA: Yes, where have you lived?

DR: Uh Warrens

MA: Your whole life? Have you lived here your whole life?

DR: Well I was born there yeah and then oh graduated from high school and of 00:01:00course there was a draft then so I spent two years in the military. My wife and I were married just before discharge. We got out we moved to Hayward. We spent 8 years in Hayward on a small cranberry marsh we bought there. After that my father's health went bad so we moved back down here on the home place. And we've been there ever since.

MA: What is the name of your marsh?

DR: We call it the Rezin Cranberry Co.

(laughs)

MA: Who are your immediate family members?

DR: uh we have two children Julie Draeger and a son Larry Rezin. And Larry 00:02:00has two children and they have five children.

MA: What's your wife's name?

DR: Doris.

MA: Can you describe how your family became involved in the cranberry business?

DR: Oh my dad started the marsh about the time I was born, about early 1930. And at that time they could do an acre a day, er an acre a year. And so before that his family had been in the cranberry business too.

MA: Are your children or grandchildren involved?

DR: Yes, my son is on the home marsh and his son Matt is taking over now too. 00:03:00And my daughter married Dan Draeger so they have their own marsh. And they have a son on the marsh.

MA: Can you describe how you transferred the business and how it impacted your growing experience? How did the cranberries move from generation? Did the business expand at all?

DR: Um, that's going back quite a ways. My great-grandfather Daniel Rezin he was a logger and a farmer uh by Rudolph, WI. And he bought cranberry property in Wood County in 1887. And uh he bought it with his son Thomas or no it was 00:04:00Robert. That marsh is still in existence, its owned by Ken Rezin Cranberry Co which is run by Russel Rezin one of the descendants. He had two other sons Richard and Daniel and they bought a cranberry property together in Wood County that was in 1890. Later on Richard who was my grandfather bought out his brother and he'd run that marsh until I think it was 1901 and then he sold that marsh and moved down to a marsh in Jackson County which was called the Union 00:05:00Cranberry Marsh. He run that for, til 1918 and he sold that and moved to another marsh in the Lincoln Township in Monroe County which is still in existence. And his heir's running that one. And then my grandfather had four sons. Each one of them wanted the business, one of them Russel stayed on the home place but Lloyd he bought a marsh from his uncle Thomas Rezin in Cranmoor. Then my dad and Leslie had a bog right in there between us and my dad started his marsh from scratch and where we are now.

MA: How have growing methods changed in your lifetime?

DR: I use to when I was younger a teenager sit back and think whoa all the changes in my parents' lifetime not only cranberries but everything you know horse and buggy to jet airplanes flying around. I use to think whoa but now being 85 years old I look back at my lifetime and it's even more changes (all laugh) it just kinda snowballed and in the cranberry business in my lifetime we went from hand raking to raking machines, powered raking machines to beater reels to ruby slippers and different ways of raising the cranberries. When I started out, fertilizing we had a bucket they always spread by hands now we got 00:06:00booms in fact I invented the first boom. Everything is a lot easier. In different ways of spreading our sand, different ways of harvesting, we had irrigation coming over then sprinkler irrigation came in the 1960s. That was a big help, before that we use to run water on a frosty night to cover the ground with water to keep the plants from freezing, now we wait til its 34 degrees hit the button on an engine and their protected. It's just so much easier. Like an average cranberry marsh when I started was probably about 40 acres that all you 00:07:00could handle really. But now with the machinery the mechanization you could have two or three hundred aces with the same amount of effort really. Just a tremendous amount of advances.

MA: A lot more production it sounds like.

DR: Yeah.

MA: What's one of your favorite family memories on the marsh? A favorite memory you have with your family on the marsh?

DR: How many family members are on the marsh?

MA: A favorite memory you've had?

DR: Oh, okay. Probably goes back to the harvest days in the 1940s back then every marsh done fresh fruit and put them up in the little plastic bags. And it 00:08:00was kinda a neighborhood thing. All the neighbors, the neighbors, a lot of neighboring farmers were around and they'd take a few weeks off and help harvest. It was kinda like a family neighborhood type thing and it was kinda fun and everybody laughing and talking and it was, it's kinda the best memories I've got but it was a lot of work but it was a lot of fun too.

MA: What relationship do you have now with your neighbors? What relationship do you have now with your neighbors?

DR: uh most of the neighborhood is not farming anymore. People live there and they work out but you still know all your neighbors. We have a wonderful neighborhood, if there's any problems there's somebody there to help. Some of 00:09:00our neighbors are best friends. It's really, really a good deal.

MA: Do you go to the Cranberry Fest? Do you go to the Cranberry Fest in town here?

DR: oh yes

MA: yeah? (laughs) How long have you been going?

DR: Since the first one.

MA: Did you help plan the first one?

DR: No

MA: No? (laughs)

DR: No they had people better than me.

MA: You're so humble (laughs)

(Laughs)

MA: Have you helped with cranberry research?

DR: Not in the technical part. Like from the university, they usually pick younger people (laughs) rightfully so. But the mechanical part, I've done a lot of research on building the machinery, improving the machinery. All cranberry 00:10:00growers kinda invent their own machinery. And uh gets something that works in the local machine shop and take it up and build em and that's how a machine done that. One thing about the cranberry industry, one grower invents something that works, he doesn't usually patent it. It just everybody grabs it and improves on it and it's worked out pretty well that way.

MA: Um, are there any other important times in the year besides harvesting?

DR: Well when the harvest is over, well all summer long I use to think boy when this is done I can get in the shop and get out of the sun and the heat so. Then 00:11:00after working in the shop and other stuff by spring I think well I'll be glad when this is done and spring comes and I can get back out in the field again. (all laugh) But besides in the winter time you have your machinery to rebuild and maintain and you have your sanding every year we put like half an inch of sand on top of the ice. That' going on right now. So there's something different all through the year. It's not a job where you got the same thing every day, every day is something different. It maybe should be done yesterday but it's gotta be done. (laughs)

MA: Not boring. What do you do besides cranberry farming? What would you do in your free time outside of cranberries?

DR: Oh, right now I rebuild old cars for a hobby and shooting sports, fishing and hunting and kinda an outdoor nut, but I've restore four old cars, couple of airplanes. Try to keep busy.

MA: Did you ever fly airplanes?

DR: Yes uh I do that.

MA: Cool. What advice would you give to your children and grandchildren about farming?

DR: uh, I've been a kinda if you got children coming up at a lot of these marshes that been handed down from son to son to son sometimes that doesn't work, sometimes you have a son or daughter that doesn't want to cranberry, in the old days they kinda insisted that you do that's not quite right if you don't want to cranberry if you don't want to farm or if you don't want any business, if a son doesn't want to do it, he shouldn't do it. So if a son or daughter wants to do, great. It's a great way to make a living, great way, great place to live. But if they don't, if they'd rather do something else it's better to do that. It used to be that the son is the only one that could run a cranberry marsh but now there's daughters doing it and their doing a great job. And I like 00:12:00to see that. We have some neighbors that daughters are working full time on it, it's fun to watch them drive the big dozer or something like that its pretty great so that part is changing a lot so if they like the business fine, if they don't that's fine too.

MA: What's your favorite cranberry product to eat?

DR: Raw cranberries.

(all laugh)

DR: I eat em like popcorn. (laughs) otherwise I love cranberry sauce with my meals.

MA: How big is your cranberry marsh now? How many acres?

DR: We have about 210 acres.

MA: That's a lot of cranberries.

DR: My father, he developed 45 acres and I developed it up to 70 some acres. Now my son and his son have got it up to over 200.

MA: Do you have any other thoughts you would like to add about cranberries or your personal experience with it?

DR: Uh, one thing I was gonna bring up in this hierarchy thing. I have a bunch of great grandkids and they'd be the 7th generation. Two of em are 7th generation on both sides of their family. My grandson married a Potter gal. So 00:13:00their 7th generation on the Potter side. They're double 7th generation. So that's kind, I don't know if there's any other ones like that in the state or not.

MA: That is pretty unique.

Sarah Scripps: Can I ask a quick question?

MA: Yes!

Sarah Scripps: You mentioned that you invented the boom?

DR: Pardon?

MA: Did you invent the boom? The fertilizer boom?

Sarah Scripps: Could you tell us a little about that, the adaptations you made?

DR: The early way to spread fertilizer was like I said with a bucket and you spread it by hand. Then it went from there to kinda a bend type on wheels with a Briggs and Stratton engine you walk behind. But then after the crop was on if it needed 00:14:00more fertilizer, it was pretty hard to do. You'd have to get out there and walk in them and tramp in them. So I developed the boom. It stuck out into the bed and had a whirly gate spreader on it and it spread like 50 feet wide. That was the first start of the boom. But then a local machine shop John Felton came up with this air boom they have now so it went from what I had, like I said before we don't patent anything we just borrow and improve on it so we have now is improve a lot on what I started with. But that was one other way we had fertilizer was the airplane. The airplane like the crop duster would spread fertilizer it did a fairly decent job but it was very expensive. With a boom 00:15:00it's there all the time, we could jump on it and go whenever it's needed.

MA: How did you make it through the hard times farming? How did you make it through the hard times during farming?

DR: The cranberry business has been an up and down thing just like any agriculture and in 1959 we had a cranberry scare that supposedly a pesticide use caused cancer. And it probably would if you ate a car load of it but we lived through that we had to throw a whole crop out that year. There's been years we've been in over production, were in one of those now. There's been other ones 00:16:00before that and what usually, in a couple of years, sales catch up with production and it evens out again and then were in good times. And then we get a little bit plant to many, raise too many, so it goes the other way again. I've lived through quite a few of them. It's just like a farmer with his milk prices some years he doesn't make anything, that's us, and some years we don't make anything, some years we lose some. Some years we make it big, if you get a good price when you got a big crop, you're, you can coast along for another couple years. But it's not a sure thing, it's like any agriculture you gotta work at it.

MA: Any, oop-

Sarah Scripps: Did you bring any materials with you?

MA: The books.

DR: There was the only thing I had was I got a picture in here. That was a picture of, it'd be my great-great uncle Thomas and his wife on the 50th anniversary and the beauty of the picture is the other people that are in it. They're all the old pioneers, the Bennetts(??), and there's the Potters, 00:18:00different names in there. You can either take that with you, or you could

Sarah Scripps: Would it be possible for us to maybe take a photograph of it?

DR: Yes.

Sarah Scripps: Absolutely, we would love to do that.

MA: It's such a special photo, it really shows the community.

DR: Picture was probably taken about the 1890s somewhere in there.

(Rustling)

DR: I should of put a marker in there.

[pause]

DR: That picture would be my great grandfather Daniel he was the first Rezin to raise cranberries he started in 1887. I don't think there's anything-

MA: That's his wife?

DR: Yeah that'd be his wife, Matilda. Before he went into cranberry, he was a logger and he'd log there and saw the logs into lumber. Then make a raft out of the lumber, this is not a cranberry but its apart of it, then he'd float the raft the Wisconsin River to the Mississippi River then to St. Louis, they'd sell lumber there and he'd walk back from St. Louis. He did that every year.

MA: That's a long walk.

DR: Then he, the land was logged off and they started farming it, then from there they started cranberry so.

MA: The rest is history. Thank you so much for coming and sharing with us today.

DR: It's a pleasure being here.