PAGE TWO
Laskowski Conducts Last Rites
~ For Old Grey Mares Of Dallas
Rendering Works Has Operated In Jackson
33 Years; Could Even Handle An Elephant
Not many people are willing to pay anything for dead horses.
Bernard G. Laskowski of Jackson knew of a few who would . . . and that’s |
But
how it happened that he went into what he calls the “rendering business”
“some 33 years ago.
To be specific, Mr. Laskowski . .
. or “Barney” as most people call
DALLAS POST COMMUNITY BUILDING EDITION
Former Center
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him . . . is the husky gentleman who can be seen carting dead horses, cows |
and other miscellaneous livestock in an interesting state of demise about |
the Dallas countryside almost any .
day. What he does with the mon-
strous cadavers is quaint and fasci-
nating, and takes place in an obscure
little building back in the woods of
Jackson Township. 3
Barney calls it rendering. What
it amounts to, in a few words, is
the process of placing a dead horse
. or dead anything, for that mat-
ter, in the open end of one of Rube
Goldberg’s better inventions and
then waiting for things to happen.
After Mr. Laskowski finishes with it,
that dead horse may eventually go
into Farmer Brown's pig pen . . . or
into the cake of scented soap in your
bathroom. 2
The whole business of rendering,
as a matter of fact, is very simple.
It all begins with an advertisement
in The Post: ‘Dead stock removed
free of charge. Call Dallas 433-R-9.
Laskowski Rendering Works.” Bar-
ney calls that the opening wedge.
He used to advertise by means of
blotters and cards, but now his
weekly ad in The Post, together
with the reputation he has been
building up over the past thirty
years or so, is enough to put his
business before the public.
As soon as he gets a call from a
grieving farmer, Barney sends his
strapping son, Elmer, out to the be-
reaved with the massive Laskowski
hearse . . . which is nothing more or
less than a large open backed truck
. . . to bring the dead animal into
the plant.
In the loft on top of the rendering
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than the famous old Raub Hotel.
Meyers took out a tavern license.
No Dallas institution was ever more renowned throughout Pennsylvania
Of Hospitality
It was founded in 1837 when Jacob
works, the animal is skinned, neatly
dissected or quartered and dumped
into the top of a large vat . . . three-
-and-a-half by seven feet in dimen-
sions . . . in which the actual render-
ing takes place. Steam from an at-
tached boiler is pumped into the vat
under 60 pounds pressure, and the
mangled remains of the animal are
stewed under those conditions for
two-and-a-half to three-and-a-half
hours . . . or for as long as it takes
to create the proper emulsified state.
Barney says you learn the proper
cooking time by experience;
when the process is completed.
When the stewing is done, Mr.
Laskowski and Elmer go down into
the main department of the render-
ing works and ‘draw’ the vat. This
consists of taking off all excess
water a 1,000-pound horse
| may give off as many as forty
| bucketstull . . . and then draining
_out the fat, which is transferred into
two large grease vats hard aport the
rendering vessel.
After the drawing of the vat, a
vent in its bottom is opened, and
the ‘cooked horse or cow meat is
pressed out onto the floor with huge
plungers wielded from the loft. Into
the maw of a large press it goes,
neatly arrayed on burlap pressing
cloths, and all excess moisture is
squeezed out.
The pressed material . . . which
looks something like caked sawdust
and has a rich, full odor which is
apt to bother any one but a good
rendering man just a trifle . . . is
pitchforked into a shed adjoining
the rendering works, where it is per-
mitted to sit awhile to ripen.
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Over seven years of constant service
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ROSS
WILLIAMS
Proprietor
AtoZ
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SERVICE
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2.
TOL
HARVEY’S LAKE HIG
CAR WASHING
3. BATTERY SERVICE
4. TIRES
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SPARK PLUG SERVICE
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any.
good rendering man khows just| |
When it is good and ready for the |
final process to the discerning eyes
of Barney and Elmer, it is dumped |
into a drier—a huge, squat kettle
affair, something like a washing ma-
chine and kneaded by an agitator
for a'good half an hour until it has
been pulverized into a fine dust-like
preparation.
And then, says Barney, all it
needs is a customer. Pigs like it as
a tasty side dish, and crops thrive
under it. The Laskowskis make it
up for farmers in 100-pound bags
. or any size the purchaser wants |
. and sell it throughout this dis- |
trict.
But the real money in rendering]
lies not in offal dust, but in ihe
grease and hides, says Barney. The
grease is cooked and drained a num-
ber of times in order to draw off
excess water, and then packed in
old 400-pound oil drums. Mr. Las-
kowski makes two or three ship-
ments of 25 barrels a year to dif-
ferent soap companies in Philadel-
phia, and among his best customers
down that way are the Charles
Young Soap Company and Jacob
Sterns, a broker in that line. The
revenue from the grease sales are
the real back-log of his business.
Whenever he has four or five
hides prepared a man from Scran-
ton comes and buys them up, and
in a year’s time that adds up to a
pretty good sideline.
Never Rendered An Elephant
Between Mr. Laskowski and his
son . . . who is the official manager
of the works . . . they render more
than 100 dead animals a year, which
means that the plant has seen some
4,000 cadavers come and go since
it was fir@ opened back in ’07.
Most of the business is divided be-
tween horses and cows, but the Las-
kowskis have rendered a number of
mules, pigs and sheep, too, at one
time or another. They have never
gone to work or a dead elephant,
though, although two have been
rendered in this part of the State
in recent years. Elephants, ex-
plains Barney, come under a special
category; because of their size they
must be delivered at the rendering
plant by their owners, and because
their skin is so tough, no self-re-
specting renderer will take the job
without additional recompense.
They average about 12 animals
a month, and have already rendered
two this week. When the Post re-
porter made his way out to their
plant, one horse had just been made
ready for the cooking .. . and the
old gray mare weren't what she
used to be, as the reporter could
easily see by peering down into
the rendering vat.
Neither Barney nor his son smoke
or drink, and otherwise lead pure
and straightforward lives, but
whether that is characteristic of
renderers, Barney didn’t say.
Mr. Laskowski, who was 64 years
old last week-end is extremely ro-
bust and active . . he can still
render a dead horse as well as he
could when he first started, and
maybe even better . . . was born and
raised in Nanticoke, as was his wife,
Johanna. He used to be a butcher
by trade, and learned all about ren-
dering from his boss, who dabbled
in it on the side. It looked like
pleasant and lucrative employment,
so when Barney moved out to Jack-
son Township in 1907 he built and
outfitted his rendering works right
off the bat and has been at it ever
since. He says that the death rate
among the livestock hereabout has
been very satisfying. Cows die
mostly from nail punctures in their
stomachs and milk fever, while
horses generally succumb from colic
or senility . . . but however death
over takes them, most of them gen-
erally find their way out to Jack-
son via the Laskowski hearse.
Because his rendering isn’t steady
enough to keep him busy all the
time, Barney has a few other enter-
prises on the side. For one thing
he runs a dance hall during the
winter just across the road from his
home . . . which is located just off
the Nanticoke-Huntsville highway
. . . and averages 100 customers
Sunday nights. And on his farm
.. .“Fairview” by name. . . he raises
both veal calves and apples, selling
both in season.
He has four children, Theodore,
who teaches in the Jackson Town-
ship School; Bernard, who is a quali-
fied linoleum layer and works out
of McGroarty’s in Wilkes-Barre;
Elmer, the youngest boy, who man-
ages the plant for his father; and
a daughter, Mrs. Olive Skok.
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