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Many people in Lancaster County still have a tobacco sorter their parents or grandparents used to size tobacco leaves.

 LANDIS VALLEY VILLAGE AND MUSEUM

Last month’s mystery tool really lit a flame for our readers — and, for many, that flame was a nostalgic one.

Our mailbox and email were flooded with correct answers, identifying the tool as a tobacco leaf sizer — also called a sorting box. And we didn’t receive a single incorrect guess.

The wooden sizer is in the collection of Landis Valley Village & Farm Museum in Manheim Township.

Jennifer Royer, museum curator at Landis Valley, says that the sizer consists of eight shelves of varying lengths.

It would have been used by tobacco farmers to sort the leaves of the tobacco plant upon harvesting, by size, Royer says.

The sizer would be placed flat on a table and the tobacco leaves would be placed in each section, depending on its length, she says.

The longer the leaf, the better the quality, Royer adds.

Several readers write that the longer leaves were used as cigar wrappers and the shorter ones as filler for the cigars.

Lots of readers noted they have these sorting boxes in their homes, or that they, their parents or grandparents owned or used one decades ago.

Some people use them as display shelves for their collections. Martha Stewart has used one as a spice rack.

Joyce Shinton of East Hempfield Township remembers these boxes well: “I helped my dad size tobacco when I was a kid,” she writes.

Trudy Houck of Mount Joy sorted tobacco with a sizer when she was young — sorting in a cellar with a wood stove for heat in the winter. She now displays china cups and saucers on its shelves.

“We used one of these on the farm growing up in Lancaster County,” Al Baum of Columbia writes. “We each had a box on the table in front of us where we ‘sized’ the tobacco leaves before baling [them] for future sale to a tobacco dealer. The kids stood on stools to reach the table.

“Sizing tobacco was a gathering in the dampening room where Pennsylvania Dutch was spoken by the adults and not fully understood by the kids,” Baum recalls. “But we worked well together. Gabriel Heatter’s commentary was often heard from the radio playing in the background.”

Michael E. Weaver of Elizabethtown has similar memories.

“As an elementary student in the 1940s,” Weaver writes, “I was allowed to use one along with the farmers (Ira Heisey, Milton Grove) and family. ... It was a cozy ‘tobacco shed’ — radio playing, snow falling outside and the small stove keeping us warm. Fond memories.”

Barbara Aukamp, “going on 85,” of Strasburg Township also remembers the “cozy” atmosphere of the tobacco stripping room: “What a glorious, fun activity!”

Marlin Miller of Lancaster says once 15 to 18 leaves of tobacco were placed in one of the compartments, that “hand” of tobacco was tied up with a filler leaf around it and sent to the tobacco bale press (to be baled with other “hands”).

Joshua Zook Jr. of Paradise remembers sorting tobacco with one of these boxes in the 1950s, noting the tobacco sold for 28 to 34 cents per pound back then.

Lee Brubaker of Ocean View, Delaware, says his father also used a sizer to sort tobacco leaves in the 1950s.

Ruth T. Martin of Columbia writes that her grandfather, Adam Burkholder, and her father, Henry S. Tyson, each used a tobacco sorter on their small farm during her early childhood (and her father used one on a larger farm they moved to during World War II).

Charles Watts, 86, of Elizabethtown recalls using many sorters when he farmed 25 acres of tobacco over many years. The sizing compartments, he recalls, ranged from 17 1/2 inches to 32 inches.

And Donald Ridley of Rapho Township says he saw a lot of sizing boxes when he was helping out his father-in-law, Donald Rohrer of Strasburg, a state tobacco champion for many years.

Nancy Stauffer of Lititz has used a sizing box for decoration, filling it with mugs and with glass containers filled with different types of pasta.

Frank Chovanec of Lancaster notes the sizers have been used in flea markets as display shelves for Winross miniature trucks.

Miriam Leaman of Lancaster uses her tobacco sorter to store sewing thread. Denny Denlinger of East Hempfield Township says he uses the tobacco sorter from his grandfather, J.W. Denlinger, to display travel mementos in his home.

And William Mihaliak of Hellam Township, York County, says he has more than 65 of the sizing boxes that he collected in the 1980s and ’90s.

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Trudy Houck of Mount Joy displays china teacups and other objects on her antique tobacco sorter.


CORRECT ANSWERS

• Akron: Leon Brubaker, John D. Dougherty, Brenda Leinbach.

• Bainbridge: Wendy J. Diffendall.

• Chambersburg: Dixie Heacock.

• Coatesville: Ben Lapp.

• Columbia: Al Baum, Dell Boshnaugle, Ruth T. Martin, Sylvia Michener.

• Conestoga: Donald Almond, Betty Kline, Doris Warfel.

• Denver: Randolph L. Meckley, Donald Heil.

• Earl Township: Rick Kochel.

• East Hempfield Township: Joyce Shinton. Jay Enders, Russ Skiles, Jack Esbenshade, John H. Martin, Joyce Shinton, Denny Denlinger, Roger Thornton.

• Elizabethtown: Don Stark, Carl Nitz, Dianne Brubaker, Charles Watts, Michael Weaver, James D. McMullin.

• Ephrata: Doug Stick, Leonard L. Groff, Grace Hoefner, Elsie W. Zimmerman, Ruth Keenan.

• Gap: Samuel Esh.

• Gordonville: Valerie Schindewolf.

• Hellam Township: William Mihaliak

• Kingston, Massachusetts: Jean Landis Naumann.

• Lancaster: Renée Schuler, Kathy Gerhart, Deb Mauro, J. Robert Landis, Dawn Peters, Miriam Leaman, Paul L. Garber, Ed Fuller, Robert Wolf, Lisa Drennen, Gail Andrew, Barry Haverstick, Frances Keen, Betty Herr, Ben Webber, Nancy Groff, Frank Chovanec, Edith Sauder, Kathy Heil, Claudia Ritter, James Zink, Bill Sloyer, Marlin Miller.

• Landisville: Rollin Ebersole.

• Lebanon: James Kenderdine, Nancy Arnold.

• Leola: Deborah Buckwalter, Neal Ressler, Ephraim Stoltzfus, Beverly Erb, John Friel.

• Lititz: Terry Reber, Jim Myer, Nancy Denlinger, Jean Musser, Len Miller Jr., Kay Heagy, Nancy Stauffer, Jon Williams, James Siglin, Marsha Campbell, Wilmer Conrad, Alan Gibble, Steve Thompson, Nedra Nace, William DeLong, Mervin Bare.

• Manheim: Shirley Foutz Etter, Debra Kocevar, Dan Lenox, John Snyder, Denny Hornberger, Patricia Jeckel, Cynthia Levandoski, Marilyn DeLong.

• Middletown: Deborah Wingenroth.

• Millersville: Don McCann, Raymond Kauffman, Scott Haas, Elva Martin.

• Mount Gretna: Landis Garman.

• Mount Joy: Trudy Houck, Woodrow “Woody” Sites, Charles Groff, Cleo Brandt, Mary Ellen McEvoy, Barbara Flory, Sylvia Mueller, Jim Campbell.

• Mount Joy Township: Philip Erb.

• Mountville: Gary Glick.

• New Holland: Ivan H. Martin, Minerva Brubaker, Susen Leary, Steve Ravegum, Mahlon Zimmerman, Sandra Wolfe, Jean Hoover, Betty Musser.

• New Providence: Carlene Wolf.

• Ocean View, Delaware: Lee Brubaker.

• Oxford: Joyce Hostetter.

• Parkesburg: Jenny Landis.

• Paradise: Lydia Beiler, Joshua Zook Jr., Amos Beiler.

• Penn Township: Carl Metzler.

• Quarryville: Glenn Morrison. Darlene Kreider, William Hagens.

• Rapho Township: Donald Ridley, Jeff C. Swarr, Gordon Herr.

• Reinholds: June Groff, Leonard Weaver.

• Washington Boro: Thomasine Lutz.

• Stevens: Eugene Martin.

• Strasburg Township: Barbara Aukamp.

• West Donegal Township: Peggy Shaffer

• West Earl Township: Jim Stoner.

• West Hempfield Township: Barry Siegrist, Bruce Detz.

• West Lampeter Township: Ken Barton, James Linville.

• Willow Street: Doris Morrison, Florence Fry, Nancy Campbell.

• No town listed: Amos Lichty, Cheryl Sides, Nancy Myers.

• October’s mystery tool: A couple of correct submissions for the bottle mold pattern that ran as the mystery tool for September were inadvertently left out of the list last month. They are Albert See of Gordonville and Dorothy H. Sherman of Lititz.

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Do you know what this tool, in the collection of Landis Valley Village and Farm Museum in Manheim Township, was used for?

CAN YOU GUESS THIS TOOL?

Above is a photo of another tool to guess the identify of; it’s also part of the Landis Valley Museum collection.

Royer says it’s 4 1/4 inches tall and 14 3/4 wide and deep.

Do you know what it was used for?

If you think you do, send your guess to Mary Ellen Wright at features@lnpnews.com, with “Antique Toolbox” in the subject line, or mail to Mary Ellen Wright/Antique Toolbox, LNP Media Group, P.O. Box 1328, Lancaster, PA 17608-1328.

Important: Please include your full name and the town you live in with your guess.

Guesses are due by Monday, Dec. 11, We’ll reveal the correct answer in LNP and on LancasterOnline on Friday, Dec. 22.

 

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