“I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t come to market," said Pat Gretzler, a retired apple seller.
Pat Gretzler has seen numerous changes at the Monroe Farmers Market, where she has spent most of her Saturdays throughout the year for the past 63 years.
The South Rockwood grower known as the “Apple Lady” at the market started as a vendor and custodian along with her husband, Bill. Every Saturday, no matter what the weather, they brought bushels of apples, pears and other fruits and vegetables to the weekly market held at the Produce Building at 20 E. Willow St.
“I was a janitor for 47 years,” the 86-year-old master of all trades at the market recalled from her stall at the northeast corner of the building. “I came to the market the year after I got married (1954). We ran our own farm and orchard. We used to bring a lot of vegetables, too.”
Her husband died April 19, 2007, but she continued to bring apples and cider to the market. Her apple-selling days are over, though, as she has retired from growing apples and fruit trees. She brought her last load of apples and pears in the fall. No more pruning trees on cold winter days, she said.
“That was a big job,” she said. “Bill started in November and worked all winter. We had 12 acres of trees.”
However, she is still coming to the market to sell fresh flowers grown at the new Moose & Squirrel greenhouse in Carleton run by Lee Steffensky and Colleen Meiring. Steffensky brings the plants to the market and she sells the colorful annuals, perennials and indoor plants in her usual corner.
“You got to keep coming,” the mother, grandmother and great-grandmother said. “I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t come to market.”
The plants include African violets, Campanulas, Cyclamens, daffodils, begonias, Kalanchoes and other house plants. They offer another twist to the winter market shelves that feature mostly crafts, eggs, honey, beets, parsnips, carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes, onions and squash. Bill Stotz, president of the market, said the market still has plenty of goods to offer even though it’s winter. He’s glad to see Gretzler still active at the market.
“She likes to see the people and be involved,” Stotz said Tuesday. “She’s very sharp.”
Gretzler laments the many vendors who have come and gone during her tenure. She rattled off a bushel of names of former vendors who have died that she worked with for many years — Pete Karns, Harold Stotz, Olin Iott, Evelyn Gaertner, Mary Woelmer, Marcella Petit, Jake Sweet and Lois Woelmer.
Gretzler lost another friend when Jeannette Woelmer retired earlier this month after about 40 years selling next to the Gretzlers. Woelmer continued coming to the market with produce even after her husband, Melvin, died in 2000.
“I miss her down here,” Gretzler said. “I cried all the way home. Melvin’s mother and dad came before them and helped start the market.”
Woelmer served as market master for the vendors since Lucille Newell died in 1994, Stotz said. He said a new master will be named at the market association’s annual meeting sometime in March. Gretzler also is a board member.