A family tradition
Wooden’s Apple House BY LISA SAVAGE
S
andy Burnett remembers lying in bed when she was just a little girl, listening to the sounds of her father working late into the night at their family orchard and farm.
Her father, Oren Wooden, passed away in 2013, but his legacy remains at the heart of the family business — Wooden’s Apple House. His wife, Nonivee, with the help of their children and grandchildren, carries on the family tradition that traces back to Florida’s orange groves almost a century ago. Burnett heard the stories of her hardworking grandparents all her life. Oren Wooden’s father, Henry, left Tennessee in 1925 and headed to Florida looking for work. That’s where he met Orene Booth and picked oranges in her groves. Henry Wooden married Orene, and during the Great Depression, she traded her land in Florida for land in Pikeville, where her husband’s family had an apple orchard and a sawmill. In 1942, when he was 10 years old, Oren Wooden moved with his parents to Pikeville. By the 1950s, the budding young farmer had set out peach trees, hoping to grow an orchard, but a hard freeze killed the trees. “The freeze-hardy varieties that we now grow were not available back then, so he planted apple trees instead,” Burnett says. “We still grow apples on that same land today.” Oren and Nonivee Wooden married in 1964. As the Wooden family grew, so did the orchard and farming operation. Working on the farm and in the orchard were a way of life when Burnett and her sister were growing up. “When we were big enough, we carried buckets of tomatoes, cabbage and peppers,” she says. 12 | September/October 2019
FULFILLING WORK Long days and late nights still keep operations flowing smoothly at Wooden’s Apple House. Even though the business is open to the public from August to November, work goes on throughout the year with pruning and orchard preparation for the next season. Under the direction of Oren and Nonivee Wooden, the orchard grew to 35,000 trees. They had help, too — from Burnett and her husband, Mark; Burnett’s sister, Carole Smith, and her husband, Labron, more commonly known as Chubby; and then their children. Now, the orchard produces about 22 varieties that become available at different times during harvest season. Until 1995 they sold fruits and vegetables from the packing shed on the farm. That year they expanded the business, building a new Wooden’s Apple House that included The Pie Shop. It’s been overwhelmingly success-
Pruning trees and other work continues throughout the year in the orchard at Wooden’s Apple House.
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