Chatham woman a corn detasseling trailblazer

Corn detasseling is a rite of passage that many teenagers growing up in Chatham-Kent have experienced.

But it was more than just a first job for June Crow. The 88-year-old Chatham woman was a trailblazer in a job that untold thousands of area residents have done over the years.

She was the crew leader of what is believed to be the first corn detasseling crew in the area more than 70 years ago, although she’s not sure of the exact year. She just knows she was in high school.

Crow recalled her neighbour, Don Painter, worked for the Dekalb seed corn company and asked if she could get some girls together for a crew.

She recalled having never heard anything about the job and asked, “What do you do?”

“‘You go down the row and you yank the tassels out,’” her neighbour told her.

Being crew leader, Crow had to go down the rows to ensure no tassels were missed. “That was very important.” Like today’s corn detasslers, that original crew members weren’t fond of the early morning start, the heat, the dew and the mud.

But like so many people who did this job, Crow said, “Oh, we had a lot of fun.”

She said working with all her friends helped make the job bearable.

And there was a bad habit or two picked up along the way.

“That’s where I learned to smoke,” Crow chuckled.

But she remembers it took one of her friends a little longer to warm up to the job.

“I had one friend and she didn’t think that job was good enough for her,” Crow said.

She added her friend soon changed her mind when she saw her first paycheque.

“We were paid pretty well,” Crow said, adding she was paid 50 cents per hour as crew leader and others were paid 25 cents per hour.

Her younger sister Mona wanted a job, but she was too short to detassel so they made her water girl, Crow said.

She also remembers her sister June travelling to Toronto for the summer that same year to work in her uncle’s drugstore, because he needed some help.

“She wished she stayed home and got with us,” Crow said, adding she knew they were having fun working together.

She continued to work in the corn throughout high school, noting it was only a short time in the summer and at that time there were not many jobs available for 13 to 14-year-olds.

Crow was surprised to recently learn from a friend that today’s corn detasselers are required to wear hats with mesh that protects their face, along with having to wear gloves.

“Oh my god, I’m glad we didn’t have to do that or I wouldn’t have gone,” she said.

I had one friend and she didn’t think the job was good enough for her ... We were paid pretty well.