by Lisa Boghosian Papas
From inside the car, you could see in the distance the miles of acres located on the southeast corner of North and Indianola Avenues in Fresno County, California. Running north and south, Indianola Avenue road, really just a dusty country blacktop, extends in one direction into acres of scenic vineyards, and in the other, to the well-kept houses of Sanger built in the early 1930s.
Outside the window, you notice that the earth in the small farming community of Sanger lays utterly flat; and the sky, probably a brilliant blue at one time, now glows hazily from the smoke spewed from the industrial machinery nearby. The vastness of the land, and the enormity of the hundreds of acres gives you the sensation that all farmers must feel occasionally that you are a part of one of nature's most precious secrets.
However, as the automobile makes the turn at the famous T intersection where the two roads collide, a sign staked into the ground on the opposite side of the street, reading Chooljian Brother's Packing Company, quickly jolts you back to earth from the romantic setting. Then, a half mile later, several large aluminum-sided warehouses, a concrete office building, trucks and boxes appear amidst the flat and fertile green land. As the car rolls to a full stop, two men approach. They introduce themselves as Leo and Mike Chooljian.
It was in 1940 that Leo and Mike bought their first grape vineyard, located in Del Rey, California just down the road from the original 160 acres purchased by their uncles Thomas, Haroutiun and Hagop, and their father, Mugrdich, in July of 1900. "My uncle Thomas, my dad's brother, was the first Chooljian to come to the United States from Diyarbekir, Turkey in 1885," says Leo. "I think it was about seven years later that Harout and Hagop joined him, working in a ribbon factory in College Point, Long Island until there was a strike."
The three Chooljian brothers heard about Fresno while they were in New York and decided to give the West a try, arriving in the area around 1895. The first thing they did when they settled was rent a 160-acre farm on the northeast corner of Jensen and Clovis Avenue. Later, after Mugrdich and his mother, Tooma, came to Fresno, the whole family purchased the 160-acre farm in Del Rey, dividing it amongst the four brothers. "My dad got twenty," says Mike. "We were all born right just down the road at what we still refer to today as 'the homeplace'- our older sister Astig, Leo and I."
Educated and skilled to work in other professions, Leo and Mike were always drawn back to the land where they were trained as farmers, and weathered the harshest of conditions during their youth. "As children," explains Leo, "we always pitched in to help our family- we were struggling and conditions were hard. If we weren't helping our father in the fields, we were feeding the chickens and cows, or making cheese and butter. We had no electricity in the early years, no telephone, and no heat. For our laundry, we'd build a wash fire outside for our mother, then she'd scrub and scrub and scrub on one of those washboards for the clothes to get clean.
"We went to Bethel school, and then to Sanger High. After that, we got right into the Depression. I wanted to go to college, so I went for a year to Fresno State. After that, I had to give up schooling because of the fact that the family was in a real dire condition- we had to try to salvage the ranch or lose everything and go. I decided to go back and help the folks and see if we could salvage the ranch. We were poor then, but so was everyone else. In fact, we never thought anything different, you know. We didn't have the money and we didn't spend it...that's all. We did try to save every penny we could. We did all the ranch work ourselves. My mother was even out there pruning with us."
After the Depression ended, Leo then decided to work with his brother-in-law in the jewelry business. "My brother-in-law told me," says Leo, "'I've got the jewelry, if you want to go out there and be a jewelry salesman. You can just take the satchel and go.'" Four years later, Leo returned to Sanger from his career as jewelry salesman in New York, and he and Mike bought their first ranch in Sanger. "In those days," explains Mike, "we were doing a little sulfur bleaching. We'd dip our grapes in a solution, spread them on trays, put them in sulfur houses for about three hours, then put the trays in the sun for about one hour. We learned this from our father. Anyway, we started that and eventually wanted to expand our business and bought the ranch where our plant is situated today."
By the end of the 1930s, dehydrators came into use, and sulfur raisins were replaced by golden raisins. No sooner did the Chooljians hop on board for this latest technology, than World War II broke out, and Mike was drafted into the army and sent to serve in New Guinea. When he returned, he and Leo put their gift of harvesting grapes back to work, purchasing their first raisin stemmer in 1949, helping them establish their business in raisin packing which they've been involved in ever since.
"Today, we produce Thompson seedless and golden raisins," explains Mike. "The raisins we produce are packed in our packing house and shipped worldwide, either in bulk, brand, or private label."
Throughout their years in farming, the Chooljian brothers have earned quite a fine reputation in Sanger, having built their business from the ground up, expanding their vineyards and their packing facilities many times over. During that time, they have also seen many changes in their industry: fruit, once bleached and dried in the sun, now is processed and dried in large dehydrators; tilling, traditionally done by horses pulling plows, now is executed by large industrial tractors; and weight, inspection and price once calculated by hand, now is measured by computer. The price of land per acre in Sanger has also changed from the old days, increasing from $100 in 1937 to $10,000 per acre today. They've even taken their farming to the Internet.
Amidst the backdrop of the technological and industrial changes, Leo and Mike have also watched the little town of Sanger change as well. "Sanger, itself has grown considerably," says Leo. "When we first went to high school, there was just the main building and the shop building. I think the total pupils in the high school at that time was around three-hundred. Today, I think it's around 1700... that's quite a change."
"Course, I remember the streets in the olden days," reflects Mike. "They've modernized the city to a certain extent, but it seems to me, it hasn't grown as fast as other cities in this area. A lot of other cities have grown considerably faster. Basically, I would say, it's about the same as it was in the past. A lot of people living here, that were born here, haven't moved."
Today, there are nearly 81 descendants of the Chooljian families combined and 14 Chooljian families still in farming. "Well," says Leo, "I don't think there is a better place in the world that I would like to be living than here. To me, and I have been practically all over the world and all over the United States several times, it seems this is home-sweet-home, and I think it's one of the nicest places in the world to bring up your children."
As you drive out onto Indianola Avenue Road again, Mike, Leo, and their children continue with the Chooljian Brother's Packing Company-working toward the future.
