THE PICKLE PLANT

This picture is of Roddie Macnevin, he ran the pickle plant. The name was Matthew-Wells Ltd. and they picled cukes for Rose Brand. The house you see in Thompsens on Mt. Edward Road. You can see the vats they used for pickling. There were 4 rows I think and there was a wooden walkway for the men to push their wheel barrows on. they would dump the cukes in the brine. The vats were quite tall and as I said before every kid peed in them, and a few guys went swimming in the pickles.
We would ride our bike on the walkways and Roddie would show up and chase us.I don't think I ever saw Roddie with out a hat or cigarette. There was an old outhouse down at the back of the barrells and a pile of cull cukes. I'll tell you later what we did with them.




This picture is from August 1959, I don't know who the people are but probably realatives of Roddie's. This picture shows his office from the Allen Street side as well as the back doors leading to the brine vats. You can see how high they were.
Fred Gallant worked there many years and his sons did also, usually in the fall.
I think every kid in Parkdale worked there for a time. It was heavy slugging.
The cukes were dumped into the brine tanks and when pickled they were placed into smaller vats that were on railcars, the first picture shows this and shipped to Welland Ont. for packaging.
The pickle plant was a big part of our early years in Parkdale.
The vats are long gone and Walter Picott stands on the site today.
Tks To Ray Bertram for the pictures.






Here is another picture taken from the front in the winter no pickles.
Look at the roof of the building, you can just make out the name
MATTHEW AND WELLS