Back page of our first issue of Off The Vine. With this blog, the entire issue is now posted.

This may be where the true treasures in Off The Vine reside - the interviews Carolyn and I did with prominent tomato folks. Faxon Stinnett was one of those foundational SSE members that brought so much character, and so many wonderful varieties, into the annual SSE yearbooks which ended up in so many gardens. Here’s Carolyn’s interview.

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Fax Facts

Carolyn

Fax Stinnett is one of our pioneer SSE tomato growers. When I interviewed him by phone in late July he had just come inside from tending the 85 varieties (about 200 plants) he’s growing this year and was prepared to settle in by the air conditioner for the rest of the hot Oklahoma afternoon. I had talked with Fax before and we had exchanged a few letters, but on that Saturday morning in July we had a chance to talk in more detail.

Fax was born in Arkansas in 1907, named Faxon after a hero in a novel, and he and his family moved to Oklahoma in 1910. He is the oldest of eight brothers and sisters, five of whom are still alive. Taking after his grandmother and father Fax became a teacher. He passed his teacher certification exam after graduating from high school and initially taught in rural one room schools. By the time he retired in 1971 he was the Principal of the local high school. He and his wife Mary celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary on June 25, 1993; they raised 2 boys and a girl, all now in their 50s. Their daughter lives “within shouting distance” from them on the 10 acre plot he and Mary have occupied for the last 51 years.

Gardens have been a part of Fax’s life for 81 of his 86 years! He clearly remembers responding to an “ad” for the SSE in the Muskogee Daily Phoenix in 1978 and attended the first SSE Campout in 1981 when Diane and Kent were still in Missouri. There were seven SSE members present. Fax remembers Dale Anderson (from Indiana), Auburn Cooper and Virgil Johnson (both from Kansas), Russell Crow (from Illinois), Tom Knoche (from Ohio) and Al Razor of Iowa. He and Mary are still in touch with some of those folks and it’s clear that to them, the SSE friends they’ve made over the years are very special friends.

The first “Yearbook” or SSE Annual that Fax received listed each member’s offerings next to his/her name. His first offering was Little Yellow, a small yellow tomato that appeared as a volunteer. His tomato collection grew over the years to about 400 total varieties of which he was offering about 100 per year in the yearbook. In the past few years he’s planted less (200 plants is less?) because of “advancing” age. But other than an occasional aspirin and eye drops for glaucoma he says his health is pretty good. Recently he’s made a master list describing in detail all 400 or so of his varieties. He gave copies to a few close tomato friends and also to the SSE which has samples of all of his varieties. He enthusiastically praised Beth Rotto of the SSE for her efforts. A few years ago he started the transfer of his collection to a man whom Fax expected would grow and reoffer the seeds through the SSE. This has not happened and clearly Fax is disappointed.

Other tomato friends he spoke of often during our conversation were Gary Staley (Florida) and Thane Earle (Wisconsin), both still active in the SSE, and Don Branscomb, who has not been a member for 2 years and whose present location is not known.

Of course I had to ask Fax for his favorites. He prefers pinks and immediately mentioned Brandywine and Arkansas Traveler as two of his favorites. Fax is not an heirloom tomato “purist”. He grows some hybrids, like Better Boy, because they are good, and experiments with newer ones to see how they do in his garden. He grows some of his plants in metal cages but most of them are tied up along both sides of a metal fence (hog wire) 3 ft apart along the fence and 1 ft apart on opposite sides of the fence; the opposites are of the same variety. He fertilizes with 10-20-10, usually twice, and also uses a foliar feed. He and Mary can tomato juice and whole tomatoes but I have a hunch they give away a lot of produce, tomatoes included! While Fax tends the vegetables, Mary grows a wide variety of flowers; I’ll bet they are spectacular.

Fax says that their association with the SSE over the years has been wonderful and I know I speak for many SSE members in thanking Fax and Mary for part contributions and wishing them continued good health and happiness in the years ahead.

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Craig’s thoughts upon reading this for the first time on a long time

Here are a few thoughts and a bit more information after reading this interview for the first time in a very long time. His full name was Orville Faxon Stinnett, born in Reed, Arkansas on August 28, 1907. Fax died in Sallisaw, Oklahoma, on May 25, 2004, at the age of 96. His wife, Mary Elizabeth, died in 1996.

I requested seeds from Fax twice - in 1989, requesting Big Ben, Greater Baltimore and Long Tom, and 1994, requesting Mexican Beefsteak and Mexican Beefsteak Pole. I also had a nice correspondence with him about Abraham Lincoln, the authentic version of which he was also searching for. It was he that notified me that a conversation with someone at Shumway confirmed that the true strain was lost to the company.

A few years after joining the SSE I made the trip to Decorah to attend the summer Campout. Though I didn’t get to meet Fax, I did get to make acquaintance with quite a few other SSE members that joined quite early on and had impressive seed collections. It was such a special event, and was very important to all that transpired in my gardening world since.

Since this blog post is the conclusion of the article-by-article blog series of Volume 1, Issue 1, I hope that those of you who are reading these are getting as much joy from them as I am, being reunited with our printed words and thoughts from decades ago. I will begin posting articles from Volume 1, Issue 2 next week!