A History of Wilson Turkey Farm (1941-1991)
by Sara Wilson McDonnell, Ann Wilson McClung and Dr. John R. Wilson
(Article in Greenbrier Historical Society Journal, 2021)
If you lived in Greenbrier County in the second half of the 20th Century, you are very likely to have a Thanksgiving memory, or twenty, that involves a Wilson turkey. Our parents, Harvey and Edith Wilson, created Wilson Turkey Farm before they created any of us. They were married in 1938 and spent the rest of their lives in a home they built on Valley View Farm, about three miles west of Lewisburg. Their children and grandchildren still live there to this day.
Valley View Farm has a storied history dating from the early 1800’s. Generations of our family have lived, worked, and raised our families here. Over the years, our aunts and uncles told us incredible tales of hard times and good ones too.
But this isn’t that story. This is the story of what happened in 1941 when Harve and Edith traded John Turner, a gentleman from Broadway, Virginia, one Shorthorn heifer for 350 turkey poults. (Poult is the proper term for an adorable baby chick.)
Both Harve and Edith grew up raising cattle. He raised and showed prize winning Shorthorns for many years at fairs and exhibitions throughout the eastern United States. She spent her early years on a dairy, beef and poultry farm near Organ Cave. Turkeys were new to both of them. No matter, within just a decade, Wilson Turkey Farm, the name given to the new undertaking, had sold turkeys to folks in more than 20 different states and was producing over 8,000 turkeys each year. (Note 1) (Figure 1)
And it really was a family affair. Harve managed the farming operations that supplied grains to feed the turkeys. Edith tackled the day-to-day challenges of raising and prepping the turkeys for sale. But they didn’t do it alone. They had four children, and we were absorbed in the daily work of raising turkeys before we knew any different. As the years went by, Wilson Turkey Farm expanded to raising breeder hens and toms, selling eggs to hatcheries, caring for poults themselves, sending live turkeys to market, and dressing all types of oven-ready birds. (Figure 2) (Note 2)
Our father died in January of 1970 and as if there was nothing to consider, Edith continued in the turkey business with the help and support of her family and a number of loyal employees. Mary Bryant and Hunter Lephew were fixtures who joined the farm and ultimately the family from the 1940’s. During the holiday season, Edith had a cadre of women from the community who assisted her and the whole operation. When we think of the quiet and constant example that our mother set in her dedication and diligence, we can only marvel and know that they truly don’t make them like they used to.
The Life of a Wilson Turkey
In the early years of the 40’s and 50’s, the day they were hatched, day-old chicks moved into 10’ x 12’ colony-style brooder houses. Since hatchlings can’t regulate their own body temperature, the little guys need to be near heaters for warmth. We used both electric and wood heaters on our farm. As the endeavor grew, in the early 1950’s, our parents built a large, concrete block building that could house 5 pens of 500 baby chicks each. (Figure 3) Over the first 8 weeks of their lives, the pens were gradually enlarged until the 8 week olds got the run of the entire building. (Figure 4)
After many years of producing eggs to sell to hatcheries as well as producing turkeys for the market, it became more economic to just focus on raising turkeys for market. By 1970, the Broad Breasted Bronze turkeys had given way to the Beltsville Whites, and each year, once In May and again in July, around 3,000 new poults would arrive. All of the sudden we had thousands of new playthings.
After getting them settled in their new home, our first major job of the season was to “de-snout” the little guys. This meant each bird’s tiny snout had to be manually pinched off by hand. It was a sight to see Edith or Mary Bryant whirl through hundreds of turkey poults without even pausing for a break. As children, we were much slower, but still loved being part of the process.
While pecking for food seems like a great use of a beak, it turns out pecking your neighboring bird is more fun, but clearly less ideal. The solution: The Debeaker. Yes, that’s a thing. We would spend an entire day when they were 3-4 weeks old, catching each and every bird, holding its beak up to a hot blade and removing the sharp pointy end. Problem solved! But boy were those hot days in the 80 degree turkey house.
Time for an Adventure
Once they reached 8 weeks old, the teenage birds were ready to head outside. To keep them healthy, they all got vaccinated for Erysipelas, a nasty bacterial infection first. (Figure 5). Yes, that meant thousands of shots. But then, it was time for their first road trip.
After getting loaded onto a large farm truck, the turkeys were introduced to their new home on the range; a generous fenced-in pasture on Valley View Farm that was full of rich bluegrass. (Figure 6) Every few weeks, they grazed all there was to graze and we would rotate them, and their roosts, feeders and water tanks, to new pasture.
Turns out humans aren’t the only ones who think turkeys are delicious. Harve and Edith always kept four hound dogs stationed just outside the fence to ward off the threat of foxes or other predators. Trips out to check on the birds, dogs and general state of affairs were part of each day. All of us kids learned to drive in the pick-up on our way out to the field with our very patient Mother sitting next to us. Years later, returning the favor to our own children we developed a new appreciation for the good nature and kind spirit of our mother.
Through the years, travelers and locals alike often stopped to marvel at and protograph the thousands of birds grazing on the range. Delmar Robinson, beloved Food Editor of the Gazette-Mail, highlighted this fact in a Sunday edition article featuring Edith out on the range: “The flock of hundreds of turkeys at the Wilson farm just west of Lewisburg is a familiar sight to travelers along U.S. 60.” (Note 3)
Happy Holidays (but maybe not for the Turkeys)
After a long happy summer and autumn spent out at pasture, the turkeys had no idea how much work was in store for all of us. Dressing Season arrived each year with excitement and also some trepidation. The amount we had to do in just a few weeks is hard to overstate. (Figure 7)
Although it would have been adorable, we did not make individual little outfits for each turkey. Dressing is the innocuous-sounding euphemism given to killing and cleaning each bird. As trucks and trucks full of birds were brought in from the field, one by one, a turkey would be placed upside down in a metal funnel with its head poking out so that a sharp knife could quickly slit its throat. After the blood drained and it stopped moving, each bird was placed into a scalding vat of water heated to 130 degrees, which loosened its feathers.
At the next station, its head and feet were removed before it was placed in the electric turkey picker machine to dispatch most of its feathers. All the small remaining feathers had to be taken out by hand, a pain-staking task for sure. Next, its cavity was opened to remove the innards and the neck. The liver, gizzard, heart and neck were saved to be stuffed back in at the end. Our least favorite assignment was cleaning the gizzard. It was a smelly, difficult job to open the gizzard with a knife and separate the lining from the rest of it.
Edith was at the end of the line. She would wash, inspect and quality control each bird before plunging it into a large vat filled with water and blocks of ice. There it would spend the night.
That meant an early wake up call on those frosty November mornings. Harve was usually in charge of wake up duty, because he didn’t take no for an answer. We can still remember the sting of the icy cold as we plunged our hands into those vats to retrieve the turkeys and put them into a waiting shopping cart so they could drain. Once dry, each turkey was stuffed with its giblets and sealed in a plastic bag with a vacuum cleaner sucking out all the air. Every one was then weighed and sorted and its new home was noted in the order book.
One of the coveted roles was salesperson. After determining the weight of each bird, it had to be marked with the price and the sales tax had to be calculated. As customers arrived, money was collected, stories were shared and of course suggestions were offered on how to cook the perfect Wilson Turkey. Harve and Edith always valued their customers and believed in real service, so many deliveries were made all over the Greenbrier Valley.
And remarkably, every single day of dressing season, the entire team would stop at noon for a bountiful home-cooked meal which Edith prepared and served in her home. Ann reflects: “I learned much more through these experiences than how to raise turkeys. I learned about hard work, organization, adversity. . ., team effort, honesty and especially love. My parents loved the farming way of life. . . Through the shared experiences on the farm, I was nurtured and loved as well as educated in what is truly important in life.”(Note 4)
Is a Turkey just a Turkey? Not if it’s a Wilson Turkey
So who bought those thousands of turkeys year after year? Families all over the Greenbrier Valley would drive to the farm after placing their order months earlier to secure the centerpiece of their holiday celebration. But the bigger challenge was preparing enough birds to satisfy the large hotels who came back year after year. The Greenbrier Hotel, at White Sulphur Springs, WV, and the Homestead, at Hot Springs, VA, were long-time customers. These properties sought only the largest, juiciest birds with the plumpest breasts.
Broad-breasted bronze turkeys which weighed at least 30 pounds were a speciality and highly sought after by the hotels. But C. C. Helms, purchasing agent of the Homestead Hotel remarked, “We buy many fully grown turkeys from the Wilsons, but our speciality [here] is broiled young turkey...Our guests assure us there is no dish any place better than one of these young turkeys broiled over charcoal for one of our Sunday night, outdoor dinners during the summer months.” (Note 5)
In fact, if you read through Edith’s order books, it’s a who’s who of the Greenbrier Valley; camps from around the area, including Camp Allegheny, Camp Greenbrier and Camp Shaw-Mi-Del-Eca; and grocery stores from Charleston, Hinton, Fayetteville, Beckley and beyond. Local businesses, such as Bill Lewis Motors, Kathy’s Farm, Kidd’s Truck and Implement Co., Martin & Jones, Raleigh Hardware, First National Bank in Ronceverte, Shawnee Farms, and Westvaco as well as coal and lumber companies in southern West Virginia, often gave Wilson Turkeys as Christmas gifts to their employees. (Note 6)
In 1966, one of the Wilson bronze toms was featured on the front page of The Charleston Gazette alongside Governor Hulett Smith and Agriculture Commissioner Gus Douglas. George, the 50-lb featured tom, was en route to Chicago to compete in a National Turkey Federation contest for the biggest bird in America. He owed his existence to Illinois Gov. Otto Kerner who contended to Gov. Smith that no West Virginia turkey could compete with an Illinois bird. In a bid to defend the honor of West Virginia, “Douglas urged turkey grower Harve Wilson of Lewisburg to go all-out to raise a champion.” At his big press outing before leaving for Chicago, George was made a member of the West Virginia Progress Corps by the Governor. (Note 7) (Figure 8) While we don’t remember George winning a trophy in Chicago, the attention was the highlight of the year for our family.
The Food Revolution
Modern America is awash in packaging and labels announcing free-range, grass-grazed, cageless birds. Wilson Turkey Farm was decades ahead of this trend. As Edith proclaimed in 1975, “Range raised turkeys are the best.” (Note 8) For us, it was really just about putting the best turkey we could on each and every Thanksgiving table.
However, turkeys can’t survive on grass alone. John remembers the challenge of mixing the turkey’s feed in the proper proportion. As the birds grew through the months, their mix of oats, corn and wheat had to change to keep up with their nutritional needs. He attributes the delicious flavor of a Wilson turkey to the right mix of time on the range and their diet of home-grown wheat and corn. (Figure 9) In another nod to a theme in modern agriculture, Harve noted that “turkeys are now helping his beef and dairy herds by improving the quality of pastures on his farm.” (Note 9)
These days, it’s very hard to find small producers who do it all. Even as early as 1977, Edith noted, “There’s more to turkey farming than you might think, and most turkey farmers I know of aren’t in business anymore. But here, we grow our own feed, and dress the turkeys out back. Everything is done by us. There’s no middle man.” (Note 10) Knowing where your food comes from and thanking the folks that farmed it for you is something the world surely needs more of. That our family was part of that tradition for over 50 years is something that fills us with pride and gratitude.
The Next Generation
From its earliest days, Wilson Turkey Farm was a multi-generational enterprise. (Figure 10) To ensure future generations know their history, we captured the memories and stories of our times together and created a website: http://www.wilsonturkeyfarm.com. (Note 11) A favorite highlight and delicious part of the legacy is Edith’s recipe for turkey and dressing, often requested by loyal customers, and now preserved on the site.
As Robert Frost reminds us, “Nothing Gold Can Stay.” In 1988, at the age of 75, Edith realized it might be time to work out a succession plan. Our sister, Genevieve Friedman, envisioned taking over the business. (Figure 11) (Note 12) She spent a few years alongside her mother addressing the challenges of changing regulations, investigating the required equipment upgrades, and attempting to overcome the general inefficiencies of a small-scale operation. As with so many other farmers in America, they realized it just wasn’t feasible anymore to continue operations.
So, in 1991, Edith raised her last crop of Wilson Turkeys. That holiday season, Edith retired from her life’s work of 50 years. Truth be told, she kept raising a few dozen turkeys each season for the next few years as she and the family just couldn’t imagine a holiday without one. In fact, to this day, when the Wilson family gathers for a holiday, it isn’t considered properly celebrated if there isn’t a turkey on the table. But it never seems to taste quite like we remember when Edith was in the kitchen.
Did you know?
Turkeys don’t have teeth! They use their gizzards to grate up what they eat. And gizzards need grit or tiny pieces of granite to do their job digesting everything a turkey eats.
In two years in the late 1970’s, The Greenbrier Hotel served 444 turkeys and the Homestead cooked up 415 turkeys. Those birds averaged 30 pounds each and cost between $.73-.90 a pound. (Note 13)
During the 1950’s, Wilson Turkey Farm contracted women prisoners from the West Virginia State Prison for Women at Pence Springs and the Federal Reformatory at Alderson to help with dressing turkeys. Records show that the state prisoners were paid 50 cents an hour. (Note 14) One day, two of the federal women attempted to escape, but they didn’t get far. Ann, aged 4, saw which way they headed, and after the alarm was sounded, she pointed everyone in the right direction and they were quickly returned.
West Virginia has a rich tradition of hunting, but Edith always got a kick out of the men who’d come by hoping to get one of her special bronze turkeys. Since they looked like wild birds, the unlucky hunters could shoot one of the Wilson birds, show it off at home and cover up their poor hunting skills. (Note 15)
Although independent turkey farms gave way to corporate enterprises, turkey raising is still a major business in Greenbrier County. British United Turkeys of America found the Greenbrier Valley an ideal location for the base of their international complex and had over 200 employees locally in 1995. (Note 16) Aviagen acquired B.U.T.A. and today, turkeys still have an important economic impact in the Greenbrier Valley.
Notes:
1. Ted R. Hash, West Virginia University, “Wilson Found a Market in Gift Orders and Hotels.” Turkey World, February 1952, 66.
2. “Big Increase In Turkey Production Expected In Greenbrier This Season, Beckley Post-Herald, April 9, 1949, 12.
3. Delmar Robinson, “Turkeys to Grace Tables,” Sunday Gazette-Mail, November 22, 1970, 1E.
4. Ann McClung, “The Turkey Rush,” January 9, 2016, Blog, Wilson Turkey Farm, http://www.wilsonturkeyfarm.com
5. Hash, “Wilson Found Market Gift Orders,” 66.
6. Wilson Turkey Farm Ledgers of Turkey Sales, 1972-1985. Some of the stores that purchased wholesale quantities of Wilson turkeys: Acme Market, Beef ‘n’ Buddies, Butcher Block, Reed’s Bluestone Market, Fayetteville Super Market, Gunther’s, Hinton Market, Haddy’s Prime Beef, Inc., Kaptis Sulphur Spring Produce, Michael’s Food Mart, Mountaineer, Inc., New River Foodlands, Patton’s Market, Richwood Wholesale, Smith’s Grocery, Spa City Market, Taylor’s Market and Tony’s Market.
7. “Talking Turkey are Gov. Smith (right), Agriculture commissioner Gus Douglass (left) and George (center),” The Charleston Gazette, January 4, 1966.
8. Adrian Gwin, “Lewisburg Woman’s ‘Pets’ Provide Many Happy Thanksgivings,” Charleston Daily Mail, November, 27, 1975, pg. 1B.
9. Hash, “Wilson Found Market Gift Orders,” 66.
10. David Greenfield, “Turkey Farming: A Complex Job,” Charleston Daily Mail, November 24, 1977, 16D.
11. Wilson Turkey Farm, Created in 2016. Last modified July 4, 2021 http://www.wilsonturkeyfarm.com Website with extensive photos and articles about Wilson Turkey Farm.
12. Cheryl Caswell, “Turkey farmers toil at top speed,” Charleston Daily Mail, November 17, 1989. (Photographer Earl Benton)
13. Wilson Turkey Farm Ledgers from 1971-1985.
14. Letter and Bill from West Virginia State Prison For Women Pence Springs, West Virginia, Mabel T. Sims, Superintendent, January 7, 1955.
15. Alan Wallace, “Hard Part Is Done For State Turkey Farmer,) Charleston Daily Mail, November 27, 1986.
16. Nerissa Young, “B.U.T.A. International Turkey Complex Based In The Greenbrier Valley,” Farm and Agriculture, March 30, 1995,6-7.
Photos:
Harvey and Edith Wilson, sitting; standing left to right: Sara, John, Genevieve, Ann 1958
Figure 1 Harvey Wilson with dressed turkeys. The picture appeared in a 1952 article in Turkey World.
Figure 2 Sara Wilson collecting turkey eggs in 1952.
Figure 3 Edith Wilson with hundreds of day old turkey poults in 1986.
Figure 4 Edith Wilson feeding 6 week old turkeys in 1968.
Figure 5 Edith Wilson, Mary Bryant and Conrad Mann (a fellow turkey grower from Renick) giving a vaccine to 8 week old turkeys heading out to the range in 1968.
Figure 6 Free-range turkeys with roosts, feeders and watering troughs, 1972.
Figure 7 White turkeys ready for dressing pictured outside of small brooder houses and long turkey house, 1980’s
Figure 8 George the turkey with Governor Hulett Smith and Agriculture Commissioner Gus Douglass in 1966.
Figure 9 Genevieve and John Wilson in 1940’s with broad breasted bronze turkey gobler.
Figure 10 Edith Wilson with (left to right) Genevieve, John, Sara and Ann
wearing Wilson Turkey Farm Sweatshirts in 1986
Figure 11 Genevieve Friedman (1941-2013) and Edith Wilson (1913-2006) pictured with white turkeys,1989. Note 12 Cheryl Caswell, “Turkey farmers toil at top speed,” Photographer Earl Benton, Charleston Daily Mail, November 17, 1989,