November 23, 2022 – “From the Kinsley Library Archives” is a treat for anyone who loves Kinsley or Kansas history. Recent blog posts have local students investigating an auto theft ring from 1923 and much more. The photos and stories are truly marvelous.
Below is a segment of a blog post called “Turkey Tales” from November 2021.
Raising turkeys during World War II not only offered a financial incentive, but also a patriotic one in support of the “Food for Freedom” campaign (picture above). In 1941, the co-op, or turkey pool as it was sometimes called, became the Arkansas Valley Turkey Co-op and it had 430 members.
The co-op bought the building at 319 E. Sixth St. and installed a new scalding machine and automatic picker. Charles Schmitt described the picker as having “little rubber fingers on it – little knobs on it. We’d just hold the turkey up, and it would pull the feathers right off. Maybe the wings or the tail you had to pull out, but they looked pretty nice when we boxed them up and loaded them in the freight car.”
“Once in a while,” he continued, “when the steam engines came in, they’d bump the car and it would knock (the boxes) over, and we was asked to go back out for time-and-a-half (pay) and a case of beer! Us boys would just throw them clear back up there. We made a lot of fun out of it.”
Glen Bidleman reported in a magazine article that in 1941 they sold more than 400,000 pounds of dressed turkeys and expected to double that in 1942. Many people, including teenagers, worked for two weeks in November and again in December.
Fred Strate was the Secretary/Treasurer of the turkey co-op. In 1943, he and his wife Gladys earned more than $1300 for the turkeys that their children Delphi, Lionel, Roma and Kay raised.
I’m not sure when the turkey cooperative ended, but they did sell the building in April, 1952. Perhaps the fall of 1951 was the last year, but If anyone can pin point their last season, the library would like to know so can be added to the archive.