by Julie Green
There were times, much like the present, in carved-out valleys and beaming, sage-covered hills, where emerald rows of layered trees blossomed with the brood of the annual harvest: apples, cherries, and pears. The land was rich with these crops along the glossy ripples of Lake Entiat.
The lake was then, as it is still, a portion of the Columbia River, carving and coiling its way through high desert gorges. The great waterway was dammed in pursuit of hydroelectric power in the 1930s. Projects like the Grand Coulee fueled the agricultural success of this terrain, now lavishly fed by bountiful irrigation flowing through the vales. These elements nourished the fruit industry stretching across North Central Washington: the Apple Capital of the World.
I was born into this sphere of fruit blossoms, grassy aisles, and coyote-peppered foothills. The earthy hues of taupe and green were spellbinding to my similarly colored eyes, eager to take it all in. My mother, also, a child of these sprawling groves, began from a modest upbringing. Fondness and joy met the corners of her lips when she watched me run through the same fields and trees in which she had grown. It stoked memories of days spent playing in the streams of irrigation ditches with her sister, wearing long black dresses to resemble freshwater mermaids, or hiking up the dusty slopes above her childhood house where wildflowers bent beneath her shoes. She had known these valleys and the fruits they bore intimately, as she spent her early autumns picking the yields. Her father taught her to value what the orchards had given. “That’s a whopper,” he would tell her as she plucked a particularly large Red Delicious from outstretched limbs, its crisp flesh awaiting a bite. She tended the trees through the years with her father: a Texan turned Washingtonian who fell into the occupation of orchard general manager upon moving to this region with his wife in 1946. His care for all varieties of fruit trees later rewarded him with a riverside home to raise his family and to plant the seeds that would, in time, branch to me.
Like the restricted current of the mighty Columbia, my days saw the flow of the apple industry’s economic prosperity dwindle, despite the early 1990s clinging to the benefits of yesteryear. The market, which had endured decades of success and provided abundant farming jobs east of the Cascade Mountains, faced several combined perils that eclipsed the once-shining mecca of Washington apple production. Stagnant demand for Red Delicious, paired with health concerns associated with toxic pesticide use, cast a dark shadow across the foothills. Where the Evergreen State once reigned supreme in Red Delicious propagation, it now struggled with demands for new varieties alongside growing competition from overseas fruit commerce. This affected the rural economy, forcing many growers and orchard proprietors to sell, scale back, or overhaul production. The Apple Crisis, as it is known, eroded crops across the region, condemning many farms to bankruptcy. I remember the change—felt it—as orchard after orchard was ripped from the ground in mangled-spur heaps and left to burn in the dirt alongside Highway 97. A heartbreaking scene, one my mother struggled to witness.
It was an early October morning in 1992 when my grandfather passed away, leaving my grandmother alone in their house of Aleutian blue, encircled by arbored slopes she could not fathom tending alone—physically or financially. A few years passed and she decided to sell the house and its fertile property. In the aftermath, several acres of my grandparents’ trees were incinerated for sallow land development. At the time, I watched my mother sit, rubbing the palms of her hands over her eyes. I imagined her disappointment in my grandmother’s decision, as the fruits of my grandfather’s labor were cropped clean. It was easier to sell the house and orchards, my grandmother explained, before purchasing a smaller home with a manageable backyard on a residential street in Wenatchee. It was a logical choice for an elderly woman who faced health issues of her own, but logic and emotion did not coincide peacefully.
Many orchards still stand throughout North Central Washington, a quintessential sight of the region. Groves once cruelly ripped from their earthen foundations have been replanted in recent years. Some with vineyards, others with new cherry or apple trees. The industry has improved, though it means little to those growers and families affected thirty years prior. Their uprooted trees met sparks and showered ash upon the soil that would nurture new sprigs decades later. Though it brings me comfort to know that those valleys are still thriving, reanimated from scorched soil, when I look back on photos of my grandparents’ home, a tinge of longing stirs while a quiet sadness rests. Those days were picked clean from our stalks; our branches pruned to make room for the new yield.
Though that era for my family has ended, my mother and I fiercely cherish our recollections of dry rolling hills viridescent at their hollows. In the 2000s, I watched those sage slopes recede in the rearview mirror as my parents relocated to the Olympic Peninsula in search of better job opportunities. My mother has lived on the western side of the state to this day, but it is impossible not to hear the yearning that leaks through her words when we talk about the past. She and I spoke freely once, long after I had grown up, and even longer after my grandparents were reunited at the Entiat Cemetery. “Would you ever move back?” I asked.
The light that refracted off the frames of her glasses seemed to pirouette as she turned away from me, staring off at something no longer there. “No, I don’t think so. But you could.”
This truth—so brash—travels with me like a hungry stray dog, its mouth watering at the crisp prospect of a bite. It eats when I feed it, and I do so often.