My friend and Kitchen Kettle’s Director of Fun Lisa Horn asked me to describe the first fall days of Kitchen Kettle in this blog post. The memories flow very freely…old memories do that for the mind is kind.
Our third child, James Kling Burnley, was born in that first fall season of 1954. Bob visited me in the hospital to tell me about the purchase of a jelly business with my sister Marty’s husband Paul. Bob assured me I would not need to help in the business even though I had relevant experience canning in Mother’s kitchen. Paul and his family had market stands for two generations before him so although he was not able to be active in our jelly business, we met regularly to keep him up to date on the progress.
In 1952 we moved into our $13,000 Cape Cod house and circular driveway. Two years later Bob and Dad Burnley were in the process of finishing a second floor bedroom for 4 year old Mike. 2 year old Joanne was in the nursery downstairs. The 2 car garage had just been built so a plate glass show window was installed where the garage door would have been in order to accommodate the new jelly factory. And Bob’s second floor bedroom project was quickly finished so he could move the many kettles and gas burners into the garage. Thus: the name “Kitchen Kettle”.
Meanwhile Bob’s mother, who had dutifully cared for me and our newborns through the two previous hospital birthing routines of the ’50s told us she wouldn’t be back to help with any more newborns. So Bob and I decided that three children was a great number.
I had a regular job the first Saturday of every month for the last 15 years of my life – jelly factory or not. Yes, I began that job at 8 years old because my Dad was in charge of the Community Public Sale behind Zimmerman’s Store every month at that time. My life had always been scheduled around the Community Sale and no hairbrained scheme of Dad’s son-in-law was going to change my obligation to that sale. So I continued to publicize the sale, register the standholders and bidders, collect the money from buyers and make sure all the sellers were paid the proper amounts less Dad’s commission.
The jelly business started with Bob delivering orders to bakeries and a few restaurants that were part of the customer list he had purchased with the business. The biggest account was Stroehmann’s Bakery in Philadelphia who bought 1,000 pounds of apple jelly each month for topping on their sticky buns. Bob, our friend/neighbor Ben Stoltzfus, and I cooked the jelly in all those kettles on all those gas burners Bob had moved into the garage and then poured the hot, sticky, heavy product into 40 pound cans for Bob to deliver in the panel truck that also came with the purchase of the business. It’s hard to believe we got it all done. Even then we were lucky enough to have a young Amish girl, who was to be the first of many, to help us hold it all together.
So you can see retail sales was not part of that first fall season. The town of Intercourse had not yet been “discovered.” However the residents did celebrate the town’s 200th anniversary in the early fall of 1954 and invited the public to join them in that celebration. At the anniversary Baby Jim received a $5.00 award for being the youngest child there. (He was two weeks old at the time and still accuses me of keeping the prize money.) Maybe helping to organize that event was a precursor to organizing Rhubarb Festivals 20 years later. Maybe the publicity for Intercourse’s 200th anniversary set the wheels in motion for the town hosting over 1,000,000 people annually in the years to come. In any event September of 1954 seemed like any other September, albeit a little busier with a new business proposition and the town’s party at one time. Little did we know then that what started with a lot of small kettles in our new garage would blossom into over 42 shops, restaurant and lodging rooms which have become the vehicle for many relationships to come. And the town of Intercourse would probably never be the same.
