Lawrence Jaffe, farmer – lawyer – Grange revivalist
At the recent Farmers Guild meetup in Sebastopol, Lawrence Jaffe gave a colorful, short talk about:
- The history of the Sebastopol Grange Hall,
- CA State Grange‘s split from the National Grange (hint: Monsanto), and
- A reception at next week’s State Grange Convention in Sebastopol on October 9th (more details below).
Transcript:
The Sebastopol Grange was established in 1898, and in 1940 after the war, people in the community would finish their day harvesting or milking and then come over and work on building its Grange Hall. They borrowed money from themselves, like holding their own pancake breakfasts and selling pancakes to themselves. They raised the money by themselves. When I looked through the rule books of our Grange, the people who built the hall and participated in it are the same names as all the streets around here and on all the orchards around here. And yet, for years I would drive right by this building on Highway 12.