|
Peddlers/Salesman
As a young girl growing up in Dragerton, I remember that there was frequent visits by salesman at our door peddling their wares to my mom. As I reflect back to those early years of my life I realized that it wasn’t uncommon for the early residents of Dragerton to encounter a traveling salesmen knocking on their doors. Those entrepreneurs descended upon the residents of East Carbon selling everything from nuts to bolts. One of those individuals was a friend of our family by the name of Ted Abeyta, also a resident of Dragerton and he sold dishes and pots and pans. As I recall there was also salesmen that sold bibles, silverware, framed pictures that could be hung on the walls, and vacuum cleaners.
One of the first of these traveling salesmen that I recall was an older gentleman who was a photographer. He came to town in an old pickup truck pulling a horse trailer. He parked his old truck with the small horse trailer on the street. Inside the trailer was a Pito horse which he used as a prop for his photographs. In addition to the horse, he brought various cowboy outfits to dress his subjects. He came around East Carbon for several years in the early 1950 but by 1957 had ceased coming around. My brothers and I were fortunate to have our picture taken sitting on that horse. I was very young at the time but I still recall the excitement I felt as I anticipated my turn sitting on the horse.
One of my favorite salesmen to come around was Tony Antonio, he and his grandson Rudy Bleggi would arrive in Dragerton sometime toward the end of July with the back of his 2-ton Ford truck filled with fruit and vegetables. The truck was red and it had wooden side panels to hold the large load of vegetable he brought with him. His grandson Rudy ran ahead of the truck, driven by his grandfather. His responsibility was to knocked on doors alerting the resident of the arrival of his grandfather. My mother like the other resident of East Carbon looked forward to his arrival, because she was able to purchase fresh fruit and vegetable. My mother always purchased green Anaheim chile that she used to spice-up her meals. I also like to see him come around because he would allow me to climb up on the back of his truck to check out his wares. We never raised a garden so I was fascinated by the sight of all the fresh vegetables he brought with him.
I also recall that every year someone from East Carbon would go to Green River and pickup a truck load of watermelons and cantelopes and brought them back to sell to the residents. I always look forward to that time because I loved watermelon. One year my dad took his old 1946 pickup truck and made the trip to Green River and brought a truck load to sell. I was fortunate to be able to go with him. The trip seem to go rather quickly, but the return trip took longer because the truck was loaded down with the watermelon and we had to go slow. About the same time, Sammy Pazzio from Spring Glen began making milk delivery to his customers in East Carbon. During the summer months when school was out he would hire some of the young boys to assist him in making the deliveries. My brothers who were fourteen and twelve at the time were fortunate to be hired to assist him. My brothers would walk from our house on eight west down the path that led to Nicks Club and wait there for his arrival. Sammy usually arrived around 10:00 p.m. Their first area of delivery was Dragerton, then they moved onto Columbia, then Sunnydale, Sunnyside and then up Whitmore Canyon. The work for my younger brother was difficult because the milk came in quart size milk bottles and he had to carry them in a metal basket up to the door where he left them. Although the work was hard for them, they did enjoy the nightly stop at the Sunny Bowl. Around midnight Sammy would stop there and treat them to hot chocolate and a hamburger.
|
