1908 The freight train was leaving Kansas City, Kansas, going west to California, to a depot called Kerman. A five to seven day trip. My Great-Granddad Pollard was on board to take care of my Granddad Pollard’s boxcar, filled with two teams of horses, his cow, a dozen chickens, some few ducks and turkeys, several rabbits and his farming tools, the gift of many friends to help him start his farming adventure on the 60 acres of undeveloped land.

Granddad was a businessman but definitely not a farmer. He was highly successful with his hotel in Kansas but sold the business to become a farmer. Granddad, Grandmother, and my mother (ten years old) had left Kansas ten days earlier to be there in Kerman when their boxcar arrived.

This is the Pollard home, built in 1908, and it is still standing today with the 60 acres all planted to Thompson Grapes. Granddad planted his first vines in 1912. This was the start of my family’s “Raisins” from my mother’s heritage.

Late 1890s The sailing vessel had just left the isle of Denmark, with my Grandpa James and his bride. They were leaving their homeland, never to return, joining family in Freemont, Nebraska. My Grandpa James came from a farming family. Grandma’s father was a doctor – quite a different lifestyle.

My Grandpa and Grandma’s home with my father, in Freemont, Nebraska. My grandparent’s farmed here for nearly eight years, and then in about 1909 they bought 20 acres of undeveloped land in Kerman, California and moved there with their three children. Grandpa James planted his 20 acres to Thompson vines. This was the beginning of my family’s “Raisins” from my father’s heritage.

1923 I was born this year, the first of five sons. My father and mother were a great team. They “pulled well” together. My father, the farming master; my mother, the visionary. Over the next 20 years, with love and work and five sons, our family prospered. My farming heritage from my father blossomed.

1941 I was away from my family and my farming for six years, attending Whittier College and serving as a 2nd Lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps.

1947 June and I graduated from Whittier and Occidental colleges and married in August 1947. It’s September, and we are back for the ’47 harvest with my family. My family rented 60 acres of vineyard to us, and in 1950, they sold forty acres of vineyard to us.

1958-the birth of Running Quail Ranch. We had been farming eighty acres of vineyard, but this year we leased 5,000 acres of foothill grazing land and started a 100-head cow/calf operation along with our eighty acres of vineyards. We developed our brand, the “Running Quail,” and used it to brand our cattle for twenty years. June named our farmland the “Running Quail Ranch” because of the abundance of Valley Quail who called it home.

1981 The family land was inherited equally by the three brothers still living: Dick, Bob and Walter.

1988 Mr. Bonner of Bonner Packing Company asked if I could make organic raisins for his company. He liked the organic concept for growing food and explained the concept of certified organic food. For two years, my number three ranch and number five ranch were in conversion to organic. On the third year, these ranches became certified with FVO. Ranches two and four soon followed. We have been farming organic since 1990.

2005 Our children, the fourth generation, Brad and Margaret and their spouses, are in the raisin making business. Some years ago, each couple bought eighty acres of vineyard from us, and June, our son Royall, and I farm the balance of the family land.

Our farming heritage of “Raisins” spans nearly one hundred years. Our land is in the Raisin heartland of California. Our “Raisins” are the finest that we, with Mother Nature, can produce each year.

 

Enjoy our “Organic” Estate Packed:

“Running Quail Raisins”



C. Dick Hansen