PETERSBURG, Mich. – Dad spent part of the Great Depression on a farm here.
His father, Teofil Kornacki, brought his wife, Stella, their seven children and several grandchildren here because – with the nation’s economy plunged to its greatest depths – they could still live off the land, raise chickens, hunt and fish.
Those always seemed like the happiest times of Dad’s growing up years. He’d talk of finding Indian arrowheads in the tilled soil and the fun he had with brothers Felix and Stanley. Those three were like big brothers to Chet Kulaw and Ed Kornacki, the children of their eldest siblings, Vickie and Tony, respectively.
Dad’s favorite story was about the day he was walking a horse little Chet was riding bareback, and a tractor backfired. The horse bolted, Dad lost his grip, and Chet hung on for dear life to the horse’s mane before it finally slowed down.
It was all like something out of The Waltons – the popular TV series about a Depression-era family in fictional Walton’s Mountain, Va. I ate up anything Dad could recall about those days, and we returned here every October to buy our Halloween pumpkin in this Summerfield Township farming community 19 miles west of Monroe and 26 miles northwest of Toledo.
The Blade’s librarian searched census reports from 1920, 1930, and 1940 in hopes of discovering their address. But, alas, the Kornacki clan was living in either Detroit or Wyandotte, Mich., those specific years.
All I had to go on was one name: Treloar.
Dad would always talk about them, and how they were their friends. He always spelled their last name for me. I’m not sure why, but I’m sure glad he did because that’s how I’ve remembered it this long.
I typed their name and Summerfield Road into a Google search and couldn’t believe my eyes. There on the laptop screen was the name Jon Treloar, 48, listed with a property there. I’m pretty sure that was the road my family lived on, but hadn’t been here in over 40 years.
I called Jon, explaining my quest to connect with the “Petersburg days” Dad cherished. He was welcoming and I visited the Treloars on their family land – on which Jon has established his J.Trees winery.
To the right of the gravel path off the road was the past: a dilapidated house and barn built in the 1890s and later expanded. The young hickory tree Jon first saw in old black-and-white photos is a giant now, but the outhouse next to it is long gone.
To the left of the gravel path is what’s current. There are about 50 long, irrigated rows of red and white grapes near a large pond out back. There is a large pole barn expanded with offices and equipment stored on the right, and the winery that produces 6,000 gallons annually on the left.
Jon places the grapes in a “crusher and destemmer” before they go into a wine press. Yeast is added and the juice ferments in stainless steel tanks before being bottled and boxed for distribution.
Past as prologue
Jon and his father, James Treloar, 76, were too young to have known my father in those olden days. Dad would be 104 if he was still alive, and left here as a teenager before spending 44 years as a steelworker.
However, the Treloars had heard tales of what life was like here some 90 years ago.
“I know my dad [Hume Treloar] was born here in 1908,” said James. “My dad told me their mother had these large stones she would heat on a wood stove and get them very hot. She’d wrap them in blankets and each kid would take one up and put it at the foot of the bed. That, and the five or six blankets on top of them, were the only heat they had.
“They’d wake up in the morning and any water would be frozen. They’d all huddle around the wood stove to get some heat.”
Jon said he’s received letters from family members who grew up on the land since returning here. The arrowheads my father found as a boy were mentioned.
“Oh, yeah, for sure there were arrowheads in the fields here,” said Jon. “There were a bunch around, kept by others in my family…I can’t even imagine the stuff that went on here back then.
“My only memories of the place are coming here [as a boy] when my aunt Julia lived here alone. It was very wild, a lot of forest. I remember a lot of sandy ground and mosquitoes. We’ve had to clear a lot of that since my dad and I have been working on this land for the last 15 years.”
What is the significance of now working the land that has been in their family for some 125 years?
“It’s probably not my ideal location,” Jon said, “but it means enough to me that it’s been in my family that long. The effort is being put into this because of that. Hopefully, it will be ours for another 20 or 30 years, as long as I can have a part of it.”
James said, “This is where my dad grew up, and once in a while when I’m up here I think about him when I walk out to the woods or pond. I say, ‘Geez, 100 years ago, my dad was running around here.’ I remember my dad telling me stories about how him and my Uncle Fenn used to throw stones at the hornets nests up in the trees. My dad ran after they brought one down, but my uncle was pretty badly stung. When they got back and their dad found out what happened, Dad wished he’d gotten stung because he got his butt beat.”
James now lives in Ottawa Lake and Jon in Ottawa Hills. The father still owns the 40-acre farm and helps his son with maintenance.
The son learned how to make wine from grapes and hard cider from apples while studying botany, plant pathology, and horticulture at Michigan State University, where he worked until starting J.Trees. He had a tasting room when living in Tecumseh, and wants to establish one here.
“People want to see the vineyards when they come to tasting rooms,” said Jon, who also plans to plant apple trees to better serve his hard cider production.
He walked toward the vineyard, pointing to “the only apple tree remaining” from the orchard on the land his great-grandfather bought after moving here from nearby Trilby, Ohio. They raised livestock with “sustenance farming.”
The farm stayed in the family and was rented at times.
“My aunt Julia lived here with my uncle Charlie,” James said. “She sold berries to [Walt] Churchill’s Market in Sylvania. I inherited half of the property and I bought the other half from her. It was just a jungle of blackberry and raspberry vines all over, and I cleaned it out.”
Memories and more
James was born in Los Angeles and raised in Arkansas before returning to Toledo in high school, playing sports and graduating from Whitmer. He was a pipefitter for Chrysler at its Perrysburg plant.
Jon graduated from Blissfield High, where he played baseball before going to college in East Lansing. He and wife Brooke have sons Leo and Jonah. Todd Treloar, who lives in Blissfield and has two children, is the oldest of James’ two sons.
This farm represents the roots of their family.
“It was a very poor area here to begin with,” Jon said of the late 1890s. “From the stories I heard, it wasn’t an easy living in any way.”
The two-story wooden house with one large dormer has windows and doors boarded up. Tree branches cover much of the porch and potted shrubs out front are the only signs of life.
Jon pointed to the seriously cracked foundation, saying estimates to repair it were $40,000. But he can’t get himself to have it demolished.
“My great-grandfather built this from recycled wood,” he said. “It’s our house.
“I’ve seen photos of this old hickory tree right here [to the left of the house] when it was just starting out and the outhouse that used to be next to it. When I was a boy and talked to family who remembered this place, they said it was a rough existence.”
They were tough people, just like my family members who lived nearby. They found a way to make it through the Depression only to find themselves in World War II, which my father fought in.
I never did find out exactly where the Kornacki family lived in these parts. But the leaves were turning colors and my mind turned to pumpkins. Still, I found something I will always cherish.
I found the Treloars, whose Welsh family were neighbors to my Polish family.
I found the melting pot stirred so thoroughly and effectively by men and women of what journalist Tom Brokaw wrote about as “The Greatest Generation.” Guys like Hume Treloar and Steve Kornacki.
Two guys who I hope were smiling down upon us as we rekindled what happened some 90 years ago on these fertile fields. The arrowheads are all gone, but the family memories remain rooted here, somewhere deep in this soil.
First Published November 5, 2022, 2:00 p.m.
