For generations the Elder’s have been boning out meat and chopping meat and selling meat by the pound. Oh, I’m sorry. When I say meat I mean barbecued pork and mutton. And for at least 4 generations the Elder family has been selling meat at the world-famous Fancy Farm Picnic.
Generations of Elders boning out bbq mutton and getting it ready to sell by the pound. The next generation of workers is playing in the sawdust under the table.
We all have our jobs. The younger guys will bone out pork and mutton. The older ones will chop the meat and package the meat. The girls will work the windows selling meat. The youngest kids write a “P” or an “M” on the container that we sell the meat in.
We let the girls work the windows. They do a better job interacting with the customers. The guys do a really good job of boning and chopping the meat. They get really greasy and dirty bringing the meat from the barbecue pits into the meat stand. The times I wanted to bone out meat I was encouraged not to. Everyone told me that I would smell like barbecue for days and besides the meat right off the pit was really hot. And they are right. The times I have gone against their advise and worked boning meat I did smell like barbecue for days and I about burned the tips of my fingers pulling the bones. Now the guys on the mutton end wouldn’t put up with a girl trying to do that. They’ve got the best momentum going down there and they know exactly what they are doing.
Carilynn Gravatte taking an order of bbq out the meat stand window. Carilynn has been selling meat at the Fancy Farm Picnic since she was 8 years old. Each year St. Jerome church bbqs 18000 pounds of meat as part of the annual church picnic.
Cousins and friends bone out pork bbq under the watchful eye of their grandfathers.
The little kids though are encouraged to work. We do that because we know that a few years from now they will be the ones pushing the wheelbarrow down through the pits to bring meat into the stand. And a few years after that they will be the ones boning out or selling the meat. Because times does move on.
We have had births around picnic every year. There are lots of times we have a birthday cake out on the picnic table behind the meat stand where we go to take a break. We have had deaths around picnic every year. Just in our family we lost 3 really good workers right around picnic. And we buried them either picnic week or the week after. That’s hard to do. Everyone in our community understands and steps up to take over the meat stand for us. But we all know that if the situation were reversed, those people would be in the meat stand picnic day working. They would be telling all kinds of stories about us, as we tell about them. We have done a lot of laughing, and a lot of crying. But that’s what we do.
Danny Elder’s Kroger apron & hatchet. Danny died Picnic Eve 5 years ago.
There’s not a person in the meat stand on picnic day who doesn’t have a good time. We work, hard. But we love it and when it’s all over, we’re glad. But we can’t wait until next year.
Sold out! Gotta love it!
Such a wonderful story and tradition. I loved seeing Danny’s apron and hatchet. He was a very sweet man.