Museum the New Llano Colony

Dining
Hotel Dining Room, Cannery, Bakery, Butcher

"Vernon Parish Democrat," January 20, 1921

"Comrades Thomas and Gallup are butchering hogs every day and preparing the meat for ham and bacon... Before killing time, these hogs are taken to the dairy ranch where Comrade Baldwin finishes them off by feeding before the butcher takes them. We will probably add a packing plant to our several industries before long."

"Llano Colonist," April 8, 1922

"Mrs. Crawford who manages the hotel at the Colony was agreeably surprised last week when the much needed new refrigerator was installed in the kitchen. It took four husky men to handle this the latest product of the handiwork of the Llano colonists. In finish and workmanship it will compare with anything that is offered on the market to day, it is the very latest word in refrigerator manufacture and is a striking example of co-operation. Comrade Matz is justly proud of the work of his hands and states that the cost to the Colony for the refrigerator was but a few dollars. It is 6 x 6 wide, 4 x 6 high, 2 x 7 deep. There are two doors in front and two at the side, also a large compartment for ice that will hold 250 pounds of ice. It is all zinc lined with air chambers of one and a half inch. This is an example of the versatility of the Colony as well as the skill of Comrade Matz."

"Llano Colonist," April 29, 1922

"The Bakery was at that time [1919] doing nothing but baking our own bread. To it has been added equipment, costing $600, and the bakeshop is now a going affair."

"Llano Colonist," April 8, 1933 (Story of Llano)

"In January 1926, the hotel was feeding about 250 people at the noon and evening meals. In addition to these there would always be those who took their food supplies from the commissary and more or less regularly, prepared their own meals and ate them in their own dwellings."

"Llano Colonist," November 12, 1927

"Iced tea or coffee, sometimes a dessert is also served and in season peanut butter and home made syrup."

"Llano Colonist," December 10, 1927 (Gateway to Freedom)

"HOTEL -- A two-story building with several rooms upstairs serves for the hotel. It has a large kitchen with colony-built range, the usual sinks with hot water piped from the steam plant, and other conveniences. Meals are served cafeteria style. This saves much work. The furniture of the dining room is of solid oak, the tables and chairs being simple and durable, being colony-made from colony oaks."

"Llano Colonist," June 16, 1928

"Over at the cannery today a crew of women are canning meat and making plum butter. Mesdames Wright, Turner and Olson are preparing the plums that have been brot [sic] in from the orchard while Mrs. Daugherty, and Mrs. Roe assisted by the bakery crew, Mrs. Baldwin, Mrs. Shoemaker, Ruth Shoemaker, and Raymond de Fausell are preparing and canning the meat. The meat is cut up and partly cooked in the bakery oven after which it is put into cans and finished up in the steam pressure cookers.

The plums are being sorted over, cooked and run thru a new machine made by Joe Turner that saves the work of running the pulp thru collanders, [sic] (the old process). After the seeds are separated from the pulp the pulp and juice are cooked in a big vat on the outside of the building. Joe Turner's invention saves lots of hard, slow work for the cannery people and it shows that workers will use their heads without any money consideration.

Several very useful and labor saving machines have been made at Llano by our workers which is proof that people will use their heads and hands in betting their own and other people's condition without a royalty, a bribe or a cash consideration."

"Llano Colonist," July 21, 1928

"Comrade McGee has shown himself to be a most efficient worker, handling the pressure cookers, the sealer and other mechanical appliances and the women at the cannery feel most grateful for the great interest he shows in helping them in every way. Mrs. Roe, who is in charge of the Cannery is saved many extra hours by Comrade Mc's willingness to help to the limit. Mrs. Bennett, Mrs. Wright, Mrs. Loutrell and several of our girls are the regular crew at this time but quite often you can see men and women putting in extra or spare time helping to catch up.

Today Comrade Hartman and Hoag were doing their bit while over at the cold storage Mrs. Baldwin, Mrs. Hewett and Mrs. Dougherty shoved the work along by cutting meat that will be canned tomorrow while the bakery is running. You see the meat is baked in the oven before the bread is baked and a show of cooperation is made between the bakery and canning crews. However, these three women are out of their different departments today, Mrs. Hewett from the hotel and laundry, Mrs. Daugherty from the sewing room and Mrs. Baldwin from the bakery, laundry and hotel. This is real co-operation and we right now wish that some of you folks who expect to come here soon would make it snappy."

"Llano Colonist," September 1, 1928

"Mrs. Baldwin and Ruth Shoemaker are doing the baking today. Our bakery turns out as fine loaves of whole wheat bread as one ever ate. We grind our whole wheat flour at our mill and we hope some day to be able to have our own wheat all the time and never be forced to eat white flour bread at all. As it is we get it sometimes because we can't get wheat to grind."

"Llano Colonist," July 13, 1929

"The cannery, at this time, is overloaded with work, putting up corn and tomatoes for, not only the Colony use, but also for many neighbors who are learning that they can prepare for the winter by patronizing the Llano cold storage and cannery.

When a larger amount of fruit and vegetables than can be taken care of at once arrive at our cannery, they are placed in cold storage, free of charge to the outsider until we can properly preserve his goods. However, so far volunteers have been helping the regular cannery crew and there is very little that has had to go to the cold storage outside of our own goods.

We are in hopes that next year we will not only be in a position to continue the cannery work, but we also want to begin to build us a dehydrating plant.

Practically every woman in the colony, many of the girls and some of the boys work in this cannery from time to time, assisting in this most useful work. We, of course, are like the squirrels, preparing for winter or any other time, as well as saving much that would go to waste if it were not taken care of in this way."

"Llano Colonist," January 11, 1930

"Fragrant sacharine odors coming from the candy kitchen tempted me to "go to peekin'"; there Couchman and Miller were intent on stirring, measuring and timing the contents of the big copper kettle. Peanut brittle is the piece de resistance for this morning. On the opposite side of the narrow hallway is the bakery.

They are not baking today, but a whole bevy of wemen were busy in an anteroom just off the bakery and were up to their elbows in sausage making. "Now, stranger, pause and drop a tear," Old Big Bill's carcass goes into the hopper, and soon will be roasted brown and sear. "Sic transit gloria mundi;" he weighed 650 lbs. dressed. There was Runa Baldwin, Ruth Shoemaker, Mrs. Shoemaker, Mrs. Mickie, Mrs. Killian, all unweepingly carving, sawing and grinding to convert Old Bill into savory sausage without a rival."

"Llano Colonist," Feb. 22, 1930

"The bakery is... a place of interest. Mrs. Baldwin, one of the stalwarts of old times, is at the helm and certainly steers the ship aright. She... has all the modern equipment for her activities. Mixing cylinders, if that be the name of them, revolving by electric power, raising flats, oven with a capacity of 350 loaves, heated and operated by electricity. Then the pastry work is just as well provided for.

Three times a week she bakes about 350 loaves for the colony tables. At one side of the bakery proper are the rooms for preparing meats for the cold storage department. This is always as sweet and cleanly as mother's pantry."

"Llano Colonist," Mar. 1, 1930

"The bakery and peanut butter department are now busy six days per week as they are baking over 300 loaves of our fine whole wheat bread, many cup cakes; whole wheat ginger cookies, individual pies, rolls for hotel Sunday lunches. The other three days shelling, picking and grinding peanuts for our delicious peanut butter. Mrs. Baldwin, who is the head of these departments, is certainly a busy woman."

"Llano Colonist," Mar. 7, 1931

"By the way, I received a letter from a friend who said he was here some time ago and he was criticizing what we had to eat. Now, I don't know what we had to eat at that time, but I suppose it is with us like everybody else, at times we are quite short on certain things and a year ago on account of the freeze throughout the Southern States we were a little short on fresh vegetables. But here is what we have as a man filler for our stomachs and I don't know as anyone would starve on it either.

We have almost as a steady thing beans or peas, sweet potatoes, rice, whole wheat or corn bread, (sometimes biscuits), cabbage (cooked or raw), carrots, lettuce, beets, onions, sometimes Irish potatoes, greens of all kinds, pickles, gravy, soup, kraut and usually some kind of pudding or desert [sic], with coffee or sassafras tea. We sometimes have meat or eggs and other things of this kind. I don't believe anyone is going to starve to death on these rations. At two meals a day we have a salad, for dinner and supper, and should anyone feel that he is starving to death we would at least make an attempt to save him."

"Llano Colonist," October 17, 1931

"This morning, Oct. 1st, the mail didn't bring me a handful of bills. There was no bill for rent... [on the house] that my good wife and I are using. There was no bill from the Hotel for the food that we... consumed during the month. All month long I have enjoyed the radio, used electricity up to ... midnight practically every night, and no bill for the use of the 'juice' will be presented to me..."

"Llano Colonist," April 30, 1932

"Though it is Sunday the breakfast bell clangs on time just the same and we recognize no church days in regard to meal times but we do not enforce any work for this day except institutional work that must be carried on. Therefore we find, as we have made our way through the light fog hanging over the landscape to the dining room, various workers who have been up since 4:00 A.M. The rest of us rolled out with the bell at 5:45."

"Llano Colonist," July 2, 1932

"This noon we have: hot soup, a mixed vegetable soup, crowder pea-bean with meat, flavored with onion; creamed squash; boiled spinach; cucumbers, plain or dressed; whole wheat bread; hot or cold tea and ice water.

And don't forget that this meal is served in a cool, electrically cooled, dining room, which is not so bad, even if we are pioneering...

...breakfast had been... bacon and milk gravy; rice and milk; whole wheat bread, toast, coffee and blackberries....

The meals are not all the same to be sure. These capable and willing cooks and helpers try to produce every possible variety and each deserves a world of praise, for it is no mean task to cook in such quantities as is required here, and have everything right up to snuff...

At the present writing there are 200 breakfasts served; 275 noon meals are eaten; and 300 to a few more diners show up for the evening meal -- the other two hundred odd eat at their homes."

"Llano Colonist," July 9, 1932

"You ought to see those portions of watermelon they serve in the dining room. None of your stingy little slices or three cornered pieces. And there's only one thing that tastes better than your first piece of one of those melons: and that's the second piece."

"Llano Colonist," April 14, 1934

"Glenn Burns, in charge of the meat curing department at the ice and storage plant, handed in a brief but encouraging report, covering just a few weeks. It reads thus:

Cured for cash, 16,618 pounds
Cash receipts $332.36
Cured on Account, and colony meat, 2,600 lbs."

"Llano Colonist," February 16, 1935

"The bakery is neatly tucked in behind the Grist Mill. The entrance faces the power boilers. On the left is the Llano laundry. A bakery has a distinctive odor of its own. And when pies are being baked there is a tendency to linger somewhat longer than is necessary in the immediate vicinity.

I was first attracted to the oven. It is a huge brick-topped-bottomed-and -sided affair sixteen feet deep, two feet high and about four feet from the bottom of the floor. When the opening is closed, it does not seem as if there is an oven there at all. The oven is heated by a flaming torch of crude oil which is driven by steam. When there is no steam, there can be no baking. The torch is similar to a plumbers blow torch. For two hours the torch heats the oven -- until the bricks are white-hot. Then the pans are placed within and in a short time the bread and pies and cakes and cookies are ready. Twenty pans of corn bread are baked daily for the Llano table. The size of the pans are 18in. by 30 in. One baking of twenty pans is sufficient for three meals for approximately 300 people.

In order to prepare the twenty pans of corn bread, fifty pounds of corn meal and twenty pounds of white flour are mixed with four pounds of baking powder, four pounds of Scoco, three pounds of sugar, and one pound of salt. The total cost of the ingredients is approximately $2.70. It has been estimated that 47c adequately covers the cost of heating the oven for two and one-half hours. Three hundred loaves of whole wheat bread, which is the output for the Sunday meals, is baked at an expense of approximately $6.60 -- or a little more than two cents per loaf of bread.

The very able Bakery manager, Mrs. Adolph Richter, has the capable aid of three busy assistants. Cy Horney, who used to help out at the dining hall, is the all around man. Mrs. Hullinger prepares the pies and cokkies, and Mrs. Murray prepares the corn bread.

The bakery crew look spic and span in clean white uniforms and personify cleanliness and industriousness. The shop itself is neat and clean and kept dust free. Before I left I said to Mrs. Richter: "When are you baking some pies?" (They were not baking pies when I made my investigation.) "What do you want to know for?" she asked in return. "I can't write a thing about the taste of the pies and the cookies and the cakes, unless I taste them," I answered. And so I was invited to return some time to taste the pies and the cookies. I'll be there at pie-baking time."

"Llano Colonist," June 29, 1935

"Mrs. Martha Dougherty and Mrs. Maki served a nice tasty lunch for our evening repast, to be enjoyed at home, so that our faithful kitchen crews can have a rest Sunday afternoon and evening."

"Llano Colonist," December 7, 1935

"Here is the menu for today. Breakfast, corn meal mush, milk and sugar; syrup, whole wheat bread, plain or toasted, coffee, with milk and sugar.

The usual order was somewhat varied to make the heartier meal come at the supper hour. For the noon meal we had hamburger, pan gravy, peanut butter sandwiches, plain whole wheat bread, cabbage salad, and coffee -- the latter an extra treat, as usually water is the only beverage, except at breakfast.

For supper we had meat roast, dumpling gravy, rice, whole wheat bread, cabbage salad remaining from dinner, and a dessert of cake with caramel sauce. Somewhere near 250 people were served, including the baskets. The serving takes about fifty minutes."

"Llano Colonist," May 23, 1936

"The [ice] plant runs day and night and at present only five men are employed there: Fred Busick, F. Gossett, Andy Maddigan, Ernie Eckstrom and Manager Ernie Proudhon.

One of this number, Mr. Gossett, has charge of the cold storage department for meat. There are two storage rooms for this purpose, one for curing and one for meat after it has been smoked. Gossett also manages the smoke house located a hundred feet away from the ice plant. The smoke room has a capacity for one ton of meat but at present there are only eight hundred pounds being smoked. This meat is owned by people of the surrounding communities who furnish their own transportation. Gossett takes care of the whole process of preparing the meat for use; from the salting and curing in cold storage to the smoke house, then back to cold storage to await the owners. This meat curing business has been a valuable asset to the entire community.