FAMILY PRODUCES WINNING TRADITION

Gerald Vandiver weighed oranges to fill an order at the warehouse on South Middle Street.

A picture on the office desk showed one of the early delivery drivers Red Garner with a Cauble and Field truck.

Richard and Doris Hagedorn stood in the Corner Produce Market that opened last June on Morgan Oak Street.

The year was 1931, and Cape Girardeau, like towns across the nation, was suffering through the dark days of the Great Depression.

But that didn't deter Charles Cauble and his stepfather, M.E. Field, from launching their own version of the American Dream. The pair peddled fresh produce door to door from a push cart along Cape Girardeau's streets, birthing Cauble and Field Co.

From that humble genesis, Cauble and Field has grown, 65 years later, to a produce wholesaler that supplies most of Cape Girardeau's restaurants, schools, hospitals and hotels.

The company's story is one of perseverance and pluck as it not only survived the Depression but thrived despite the ebb of its lifeblood -- the corner market.

"There used to be small grocery stores all over town," said Richard Hagedorn, Cauble's son-in-law who has been part of the business for the past 25 years. "We used to service the corner grocers, but when they started going downhill, we started servicing restaurants, hospitals, nursing homes and other industrial-type customers."

Now the company not only provides wholesale produce to institutions, it sells everything from paper products and dry goods to cheese products and nacho chips.

The push cart loaded down with produce grown on farms and in gardens around town has given way to two tractor-trailer rigs that haul items purchased from all over the country. Those items are warehoused and delivered with 10 delivery trucks to area businesses.

Twenty-five employees make the operation work, the company's founders have been replaced by three salesman who hawk Cauble and Field's products to customers in the area.

"It's changed a lot over the years," said Doris Hagedorn, whose father and grandfather started the business. "I can remember when we used to unload everything by hand with two-wheel handcarts. Now, of course, it's all done with forklifts."

Doris, who is the company's office manager, also remembers buying bananas by the stalks. The stalks were hung from hooks in the company's huge, drive-in coolers to ripen.

"Then you'd have to cut off the bananas in bunches to sell," she said.

Now the Hagedorns are hoping to recapture some of the flavor of the corner produce market. Last June they converted a former Gulf filling station on Morgan Oak Street, a block from the company's main building at 421 S. Middle, into the Corner Produce Market.

The market has fruit, vegetables and some dairy products. It also sells homemade bread and sweets made by a Mennonite woman from Puxico. An Amish community in Ava, Ill., supplies the store with homemade jellies and jams. Along the sidewalk in front of the store are broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and other vegetables potted and growing for would-be gardeners with a less-than-green thumb looking to start a vegetable garden.

"This is going more back to the way it used to be," Doris Hagedorn said. "We're getting back to putting the produce on ice, not under refrigeration, and the people like that. "It's fresher, because we have to keep putting out fresh produce every day."

As in the old days, many customers to the Morgan Oak store come from the nearby neighborhood, but some customers make a special trip from across town and beyond.

The store's location on the bridge route a couple blocks west of the Mississippi River draws customers from Illinois as well.

The blocks surrounding Cauble and Field comprise a business district that, in its heyday, was known as Haarig. Merchants in the area are trying to resurrect some of the district's past luster. The Hagedorns sense the efforts are working.

"There's a real resurgence of interest in this part of town," said Richard Hagedorn.

"I can tell a big difference in the past couple years," his wife added.

Cauble and Field is doing its part to draw patrons into the area. If customers will make the trip, the Hagedorns said, they'll find two things about Corner Produce Market that will bring them back.

"Price and quality," said Richard Hagedorn. "We can pick and choose what we bring up here because we're in the wholesale business. We know what's good, and that's what we sell."