MAKIN' SORGHUM: BOOTHEEL MAN CARRIES ON FAMILY TRADITION WITH SOME HELP OF FRIENDS

HARVIELL, Mo. When sugar became a luxury during hard economic times, sweet, sticky molasses took its place in the kitchens of many rural families.

All it took was some sorghum cane, a roller mill, a hot fire and a little knowledge. In the 1930s the combination was commonplace. In 60 years, it's all but disappeared.

Today a pound of molasses costs about four times the price of sugar. The biggest demand is from tourists looking for an Ozarks souvenir.

On his farm near Hillview School in western Butler County, Albert Coan, 53, is keeping alive a tradition started by his father. Each fall, Coan hand-cuts about four acres of sorghum cane and heads to the old mill next to Highway 160 to make about 300 gallons of molasses.

Coan said he works out of fondness for the vanishing trade more than for financial gain. His product sells for $1.50 a pound and local buyers become more scarce each year as older generations pass, he said.

"Making molasses is a big job and you never know if you're going to sell them or not," said Coan, a farmer and pastor of First Baptist Church at Naylor. "My wife once figured it up, that I was making about 25 cents per hour. There's just not much in it anymore."

Most of his customers are travelers from northern states. Health department regulations don't allow him to advertise, he said. Word still manages to get around, he said, and the old mill near the highway attracts the curious, especially tourists.

"We had a customer the last day I was selling that was from Minnesota," said Alfreda Coan, 24, Coan's youngest daughter.

Another helper is Coan's 87-year-old mother, Mary. Although slowed by a stroke last year, she still works each day, stripping leaves from the cane, feeding it into the tractor-powered roller mill or helping dip molasses while they cook in a nine-foot long pan.

"I can't keep her away from it," said Coan. "Until a year ago, she'd feed that mill for three hours at a time and never sit down. But now she'll work a while and sit down for a while. She's never known anything else but hard work."

He lost a valuable partner five years ago when his wife, Freda, a Doniphan native, died of an illness at age 48. The couple were married for 25 years. His father died about 20 years ago. Their memories come alive each time he builds a fire underneath the old cooker and hooks his tractor to the mill, Coan said.

In recent years, Coan has needed some outside help. Paul Perren, 74, of Neelyville, comes by to work when the mill is operating.

"I started because, after dad died I couldn't find any molasses like he made," said Coan. "I have some in the cellar that he made about 27 years ago. They still haven't gone to sugar. But I'm not a perfectionist like he was."

Ralph Coan began making molasses near Clay City, Ind., in the late 1930s before moving his family to Illinois. In 1952 they moved to the farm about 10 miles southwest of Poplar Bluff. At one time nearly the entire farm was planted in sorghum cane that stood up to 16 feet high.

The elder Coan first used a horse to power the roller mill. One day the horse mysteriously died, Coan said. Since then, tractors have proven more reliable at running the well-worn circle around the mill, pulling a 25-foot oak log that turns the rollers.

The Blue Ribbon Cane Mill, made in 1909, is the only carryover from his father's time. The cast-iron frame and rollers weigh about 1,000 pounds. Any repair work takes a lot of muscle, a little ingenuity and some help from a nearby neighbor who is a retired toolmaker.

"They quit making parts for it a long, long time ago," said Coan.

The mill sat unused for about 10 years before Albert restarted the operation in 1977. It's been a trial-and-error experience to learn the correct technique, he said.

"People always ask me questions like, how do I know when the molasses are done cooking?" he said. "To be honest, I can't tell you; it's just something you have to know by doing."

One-by-one the stripped cane stalks are placed into the roller mill. A sweet, watery syrup is squeezed out of the cane and collected in a wash tub. A hose in the bottom of the tub siphons it to two large drums near the cooking pan.

Next comes the most challenging part cooking. Even after 14 years, Coan admits he's still learning. On average, 50 gallons of juice will make 12-14 gallons of molasses, he said. His maximum output is about 25 gallons per day.

Cooking is done in a long steel pan over a fire fueled by aged scrap wood from local sawmills. Under ideal conditions, a high fire will cook the cane juice into molasses in three to four hours, he said. Although covered by a small shed, there's still wind and other elements that can interfere.

When the molasses starts boiling, some of the hardest work begins, Coan said. All available help is needed to dip the molasses to keep them air cooled so they won't boil out of the pan.

"Before they are done, they boil up high," said Coan. "Then, when they're done, they're pretty well laying level with big holes in them."

The final product is sealed in glass jars.

Keeping the operation going each year requires tight management, Coan said. He salvages the Sugar Drip and Honey Drip cane seed for next year's crop. Local feed stores quit handling the seed several years ago, he said.

"When somebody is looking for seed, the Extension people usually send them out here," he said.

Coan admits much of his father's expertise was lost when he died. As a young man, Albert Coan was "busy and seemed to have better things to do," he said.

His own operation would have been different at least that's how he planned it in the early days.

"I used to have different ideas when I was 25 years old," Coan said. "I wanted to put rollers on wheels and grind the cane in the field. I wanted to use gas to cook it. But that's not what people want to see; they expect to see an old mill like this one and a big fire underneath that pan."

When it comes to traditions, the end result isn't nearly as important as the means, Albert Coan has learned.