Yes, it was. Bottom of the bag credits went to Szawlowski Packers of Hatfield, MA. Standing there with my mouth wide open in awe, I imagine my fellow shoppers thought I was enduring some kind of epiphany.
And I was. Never before had I seen a pack of potatoes from a Polish grower. Typically, you get the supermarket bagged brands or those from big-chain Idaho growers, so I was absolutely thrilled to pick up a 5-pound bag and race home to cook a few followed by some research on these family farmers. I’m not sure what was more inspiring, the taste of the potatoes, or the history of the family.
It all started in May of 1902 when John Szawlowski arrived on Ellis Island seeking the American Dream as so many of our early immigrants did. Eight years later, he began a farming business in Northampton, MA focusing on one crop, potatoes. According to his grandson, now one of four managing the business, he always made a point to dress up in a tie and take off in his Oldsmobile to promote a marketing strategy. Before long, everybody knew him and wanted his potatoes.
It was funny too, as I continued reading the story and hearing the video on their website, swazpotato.com, that he used to pick up his grandkids after school and bring them to the farm to help out. As the truck of potatoes would move along slowly, inevitably some fell off the back as another grandson recounts: “He was from Poland and had an accent and would say ‘Come on, pick up dees podaaydas!’”
It was these grandsons, four of them, John, Chet, Frank, and Stanley, who would later carry on their grandfather’s business and expand it perhaps beyond anyone’s expectations. In fact, a key point made was that back in the day, of course there were no fancy sophisticated machines that picked potatoes, separated the weeds from the plants, or conveniently bagged the potatoes like we have today. Anybody see those big burlap potato sacks anymore? Probably only place you can is in a museum. Even the tractors were archaic, having had no power steering. Instead, life on a potato farm meant hours of back-breaking blue-collar labor. Said another grandson: “We stayed out there until the sun went down, not going down, but down.”
Did you have to guess what could have spoiled the potato soup? Politics, of course. In 1972, eminent domain took 75 acres of the Szawlowski farm to make room for…an industrial park, oh my, talk about opposite attractions. They went to court to fight it, having received far less compensation for their land and their buildings than appropriate. Sadly, then three years later, founder grandpa John would pass away.
However, perhaps a silver lining emerged out of it all, as the move to their current location in Hatfield proved very fruitful. Today, the Swaz Potato Farm is the largest potato grower in Massachusetts, covering 2500 acres. The family’s potato fields span the Connecticut River Valley, the home of New England’s longest river hallmarked by some of the richest soil on earth. The family-owned business now covers the whole ‘potato’ in providing personalized integrity during every step of the process, from growing to packing to shipping, and most importantly, to the one-on-one customer service that John started while sporting a tie, a hallmark of the business for over a century.
Wait a second here, that’s no typo. So why are they called Swaz Potato Farms rather than Szaw Potato Farms? Growing up in the 1950s, the four Szawlowski brothers, Frank, Chet, John, and Stanley, started being called ‘Swaz’ by their high school teammates. Eh, this may be one case of a mispronounced surname that we will not argue about. Thus, the family nickname was born. Okay let’s get it straight: officially it’s the Szawlowski Potato Farms, Inc., market-wise it’s the Swaz Potato Farms, and cordially it’s Frank, Chet, John, and Stanley.
“Back then it was a real close-knit family,” summed up a grandson. “You had brothers and sisters that took care of one another. We all got wives, we all got kids, but nothing came between the four of us. The strength was there, that’s the way we were brought up.”
I would highly recommend a visit to their website, swazpotato.com, where you can read about the family and view an incredibly interesting video. Time to cook some podaaydas.
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June 19, 2021 at 01:41AM
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It's all about a Polish potato grower - Polish American News
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