How one barely noticed woman used her tomato harvest to help youth go on a mission trip

This past summer I “plant sat” for Gretchen, my neighbor. She had nine beautiful tomato plants and two promising green pepper plants. That was a lot next to my single patio tomato in a five-gallon bucket.

Gretchen had acquired lots of vacation time, weeks in fact, compared to my zero vacation days. This made her almost apologize when she asked me to plant sit her tomatoes for what would soon amount to half the summer: a week here and a week there.

I told her I didn’t mind a bit. Still feeling bad about asking me to do so much work, she told me to take whatever tomatoes ripened while she was gone. I hoped she didn’t see me drooling. I love tomatoes. And the green peppers would be great, too. Gretchen’s tomatoes reminded me of the real Tomato Lady.

Years ago, a Mennonite lady at our church earned the title Tomato Lady. We had had a cool spring, but our tomatoes were off to a great start. Everyone in the community, at least the gardening community, had great plants, great canning plans, and there was an abundance of produce. A little old widow woman at church was blessed early with a bumper crop. She tried to share. We found tomatoes on our porches and in the driver’s seats of our cars. We had to start locking our vehicles at home and even when we went to church. We avoided her at church and the market because every time we saw her she had a little brown grocery sack of tomatoes. We just wanted her to go away and take her tomatoes with her.

Midsummer, when everything resembling a vegetable was in abundance, a windy rainstorm with pebble-size hail hit town with a vengeance. It took out car windows and dining-room windows. It tore up shingles and made a mess out of our yards. And it took out every plant in our gardens. We had to put aside the grief about our gardens because the glass and structure damage was so severe. It needed immediate attention. Gardening was over (prematurely) for another season.

The next Sunday there was a beautiful little basket of red tomatoes in the back of our church on a table. I didn’t think there would be any tomatoes left in our entire county. I looked closer and saw a tiny hand-printed sign next to a pint Mason jar. “Take some tomatoes,” it said, “and leave a few bucks so the youth group can go out on a fall mission trip.” It was signed “Tomato Lady.”

I laughed out loud. Was this some kind of joke? The funds for our youth group mission trip looked as desperate as our yards after the recent storm. No one would have money this fall after paying for the storm’s damage. Whatever, I thought as I picked out a half dozen tomatoes. If someone thinks they can send the youth group out on a mission trip with a few tomatoes, more power to them. I ate a couple of tomatoes on the way home from church so I didn’t have to share them.

The same thing happened the next Sunday, which was about the middle of August. People had started to notice. You had to get your tomatoes on the way into church because when you came out, they were all gone. Each Sunday after that, the produce basket grew bigger, as did the number of beautiful red orbs. The tiny sign lay on the table, but the Mason jar grew to quart size.

We had a beautiful long fall, and the tomatoes were available every Sunday into October. Sometimes there were wooden fruit boxes under the table with even more extra fresh, washed tomatoes. Some of the families were actually canning these tomatoes now.
I remember seeing the widow woman a few times in church. I guess I figured that the heat was getting to her. She looked pretty tired.

After our first frost there was a selection of green tomatoes that almost overtook the back of our church. People swooped in and bought every last green tomato. The Mason jar was crammed with $10 and $20 bills. There was that ever-passing sadness when you realize summer is gone for another year. No one ever asked where the tomatoes came from; we were all sad when they were gone.

Just before the Thanksgiving holiday our pastor got up for announcements one cool Sunday morning to tell us all our junior high youth were going on a late-fall mission trip. It was called Urban Outreach. The youth were going to an inner-city church to work with poor kids for most of the Thanksgiving week. The funds for gas, hotel and eats had been provided for all the junior high youth to go. That was a miracle. The parents and families left behind were then invited to celebrate a potluck Thanksgiving together in the church basement that year.

It wasn’t until I was warming the gravy on Thanksgiving Day that I saw the widow woman again. While all the church members had been invited, most of the people who were preparing the Thanksgiving potluck in the church basement were, like me, parents of the junior high youth off on their urban mission adventure. The tiny widow woman was laden with lots of dishes, and several of us had to help her before she fell over.

With kind of a twinkling in her eyes she said she felt we were her family, so she came for Thanksgiving with us. She probably had no family. We asked what she had brought; it was in pie tins covered with foil. “Oh, that,” she said, waving in the direction of the serving tables, “that’s green tomato pie.”

It was as if we all were hit at once by a bolt of lightning. Standing before us was a frail old woman whom no one paid much attention to most of the time. She had made it possible for all our junior high children to go on a mission trip, something we couldn’t do ourselves. It seemed like a long time before someone piped up and said what we just now knew: “So you are the Tomato Lady.” She just smiled.

It has been some years since that summer, but every year on a table in the back of our church is a big Mason jar, arriving in midsummer, with that now frayed little sign. It stays until frost. Folks still bring their extra produce and leave it for others.

The Tomato Lady has gone to heaven (I know it is a garden) but not before telling us she was once a missionary. I am always awed someone we considered so insignificant made so much difference in the life of our church and the lives of our children.

I’m going to take Gretchen up on her offer and pick every delicious red orb from her garden until she gets back. The church produce table has been a little lean this year. I know Tomato Lady wouldn’t want to see a single tomato go to waste. Besides, my grandchildren are banking on the fall mission trip.

Pamela Gilsenan lives in Fort Collins, Colo., and is a member of the Association of Vineyard Churches.