My family, like most families, has its share of tall tales, embellished truths, imagined histories, and shared deceptions.  I’ve heard about the Cherokee princess, the honeymoon murder, the drunk-driving triple homicide, and the ornery slave owner.  As I’ll discuss in later posts on these topics, none of these inherited truths turned out to be quite what we believed it to be from the stories that were passed down to us.

When I heard the story of the “pickle factory,” I assumed this was just another embroidered memory.  My grandmother Harriet told me this story later in her life (I believe I first heard this story in 2005).  She told me that her grandfather on her mother’s side, Frank Scott, had a pickle factory in Menahga, MN, and that when she and her siblings visited him, he would give them a huge barrel of pickles that they would take back to Wadena and share with their friends. Continue reading →