The Plain City Years

Plain City Days: The Next Generation
A quick Genealogy Note
Henry Cottle (1822-1872) = Mel’s Great Great Grandfather;
Thomas Edward Cottle (1850 – 1908) = Mel’s Great Grandfather;
Thomas Henry Cottle (1887-1918) = Mel’s Grandfather;
Leland T Cottle (1901 – 1990) = Mel’s Father

Thomas Edward is somewhat preoccupied. The year is 1877. The place is Plain City, Utah – a farming community some 20 miles northwest of Ogden. Unlike his father Henry, Thomas or TE as everyone calls him, does not have a desire to roam about the countryside. While he works his father’s freight wagons as a youth he soon makes the decision to settle in Plain City, and while still hoping to hear some word about his mother, he gets on with his own life. In 1872 (age 22), after acquiring a small farm he courts and, marries (November) a local girl, Flora England, who, like TE emigrated from her native England to be part of Zion.
This brings him to his present day problem. He has a growing family, including little Thomas Henry (Mel Grandfather) the second child in the family and the first boy, but he has very limited income from his small acreage. In the past he has tried several crops - wheat, barley and alfalfa, but to make money on those crops he needs lots of land, something he is lacking. As he ponders his dilemma, he overhears Flora talking to a neighbor lady and complaining about the problem finding fresh vegetables to feed the family. “One must go all the way to Ogden, waste an entire day, pay a fortune, and still come home with poor quality carrots and lettuce. It’s a crime.”
Bingo! A light went on! TE started that very day to convert his grain fields to vegetable crops, particularly, carrots, onions and strawberries. And while an acre of wheat produces little income, an acre of carrots – WOW! Although carrots and other vegetables mean a lot of hard labor – that’s what kids are for, right? His own growing family (eventually to reach 12 children – 4 who died in infancy, including the 3rd and 4th babies who were born just a year apart and each lived on 1 year, little John who lasts only 3 weeks and the 11th child Violet, just 6 months) plus the neighbor kids could be put to work to plant, thin, weed, water and harvest the crop. Add to this the rich loam soil in the Plain City area is known for growing great gardens, so why not just bigger gardens? This is an idea whose time has come. It didn’t happen overnight, however, after a some trial and error, and lot of frustration and hard work, TE produces some of the first commercial vegetable crops in the area, and before long he is not only producing food for local folks, but freighting carrots and onions into Ogden, via special Ice Box wagons. His reputation grows, soon other farmers in the area convert to this type of farming and it remains a staple crop to this day (In fact, Craig and Roger have supplied some of the child labor mentioned above almost a 80 years after TE). A special treat is the strawberries. TE does not truck them to Ogden, but invites people to come and pick their own, for a fee, of course. And once someone tastes a fresh ripe Plain City strawberry, they are hooked for life. There is one other farming innovation that occurs about that time – Aspeargrass. People harvest the strange looking spear shaped green plant, growing along ditch banks and fence lines, when the tender shoots first pop above the ground each spring . TE and other farmers began to replant the shoots into fields and grow them as sellable produce. They also discover that after cutting, if the shoot is placed in a cool water tank it continues to grow, enhancing the flavor and increasing the yield. So the Aspeargrass industry (Jean has spent considerable time placing those spears into the water tanks to provide family income during the 1060’s) thrives and continues to do so this day. And all this started because TE needed additional income for his family.
Continued next week