Photo - The Great Walnut Cracking Machine
My name is Warren Walker <MCDW@aol.com>. I was born on a fruit farm 2 and 1/2 miles west of Exeter, September 5, 1926. The picture of the Black Walnut cracking machine shows my father, Aaron Walker, and my Uncle, Kenneth Brown.

Kenneth was married to Avo Cargile and lived in Cassville most of his life.

        The year of the picture is somewhere in the range of 1930 - 1932. This machine was to
        make them both rich and famous, such were the dreams of young men back during the
        beginning of the Great Depression.
The Great Walnut Cracking Machine

Kenneth Brown

Aaron Walker
        My father, Aaron, married my mother, Nadine Cargile. He was a lucky man to have done
        so. He and his family lived on his fathers farm (A.L. Walker's Fruit Farm 2&1/2 miles
        west of Exeter) in the old Warren house. He tried farming, trucking, and a business
        (black walnut cracking) to make a living. He invented a blackwalnut cracker that was
        run by a gasoline engine. He would buy black walnuts, have them cracked, and have the
        kernals picked out by local (women) help. He would go each morning and pick up his
        employees (kernal pickers). One I remember had a name of Maggie. Maggie talked all
        day long. She was the best employee of the lot. I still remember her constant chatter
        at the kernal picking table. The black walnut kernals were sold where ever he could
        find a market.

 From my memories as a child in Barry County.........

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