J. T. Tiedke Early Pecan Grower
This will be
a story about Mr. Tiedke who came to the Papinville area to look for a good
pecan that would produce a nice size pecan with a good flavor. With pecan
season coming on I thought you might like a good pecan story. In Bates County
there are so many pecan trees, because of all the rivers. Pecan trees survive
with a lot of water, but floods can damage the tree if the water is on them for
a long period of time.
Mr. Tiedke
was from Blooming, Illinois and came to Papinville area around 1909. He bought
the land south of Papinville which is now known as the Osage Valley Pecan
Orchard, which is owned by Ron and Marcelle Marquardt and sons. While in
Illinois he worked in a nursery, because he knew a lot about grafting trees. He
would come to Papinville for vacation at first and walked down to his property
trying to clear out area.
In 1919 he
moved to Papinville for about nine months and stayed with different people in
the area. Some times he would be run off. He was a hard man to get along with
and a hard person to please. He would come in the spring and cut graft wood, do
the grafting, work in the grove and gather nuts in the fall. Around December he
would ship a lot of pecans back to Illinois and then return to Illinois for
about three months.
People
thought he was a little strange the way he would graft the trees. He would cut
off all the limbs and some times had to climb a ladder tying on the graft wood.
People thought the trees would never sprout again and they would die. The trees
that he grafted today are big trees and produce a lot of pecans. The trees he
planted, that he would graft to, where as big as a quarter. He brought graft
wood back with him when came back to Papinville in the spring.
When he had
time, he would go around the area to different people’s places and looked for a
good variety of nut. He was interested in finding a pecan that was thin
shelled, large, easy to crack, good tasting and produce well. He told Herman
Steuck that he had the nut on his place and if it did as well as he thought it
would he was going to name the variety “Steuck”, (Herman Steuck is my grandpa).
Back then people were not too interested in pecans. They were just a pecan.
While Mr.
Tiedke was working on his grove, he also did some research and sent information
to the Missouri University. During the depression people were trying to find a
way to make a little bit of extra money, so people started to pick pecans to
sell. Mr. Tiedke had told a man by the name of Hirsche about this special nut
he had found. Mr. Hirsche got some graft wood from Mr. Tiedke and started doing
some studies on it and later decided to patent it under his name. The pecan that was to be known as
the “Steuck Pecan” is now known as the
“Hirsche”. Grandpa didn’t think it was important to patent a pecan. It
was just a small nut.
Mr. Hirsche came back this way and wanted to see the tree
where Mr.Tiedke had found the pecan. Herman Steuck had sold the land (west of
the Papinville bridge) and the person that bought the property had cut the tree
down. Fred Marquardt, my father who had bought the land from Mr. Tiedke, took
him down to the Osage Valley Pecan Orchard that M r.Tiedke had developed, to
show him some of the pecan trees that Tiedke had planted and grafted of the
tree they found that became the Hirsche Pecan. This is when we found out that
he had patented the tree using the name
“Hirsche”. So if you are looking in at a garden catalog and see a pecan tree by
the name of “Hirsche” you will know that variety came from Papinville area.
Today the trees are still producing pecans. We have several
trees in our yard that are nice big trees and produce a nice nut. In Ron
Marquardt’s grove there are a lot of the trees Tiedke grafted of different
varieties that he brought back with him from Illinois.
Both of our families are still harvesting pecans and our
children are now helping with the harvest. Our family has been in the pecan
business since 1947 when our dad bought the property from Mr. Tiedke. By 1929
Tiedke did not come back to Papinville. He had worn out his welcome in the
area. He passed away in 1943 in Illnois. The property grew up in a lot of brush
with him not coming back to Papinville. It was a big job to clear all the
brush. The trees are still producing a lot of nuts . Thanks to Mr. Tiedke for
his interest in pecans. Hope you have enjoyed the story.
Submitted by Phyllis Stewart
