Photo by David Schreiber Diane McCauley, co-owner of Irma’s Family Farm Fresh Produce, helps longtime friend and customer Chris James of Troy select sweet corn at the stand. Irma’s has been a staple on Dequindre since 1958.

Dequindre produce
sellers weather change,
continue to prosper

By Cortney Casey
C & G Staff Writer

STERLING HEIGHTS — Wedged between dense commercial and residential developments on Dequindre is an anachronistic sight: a pair of wooden produce stands, holdovers from an era long past.

While the surrounding area has changed dramatically over the last several decades, evolving from pristine farmland to one of Michigan’s largest cities, Irma’s Family Farm Fresh Produce and Kathy’s Home Grown Farm Fresh Produce have endured since 1958 and 1969, respectively.

From their red-and-white painted stands, perched on the front lawns of their family homes, Diane McCauley and Kathy Jung sell fruits and vegetables carted in daily — sometimes multiple times a day — from northern Macomb County.

“People drive by and think, ‘Wow, two stands. That’s unusual.’ You don’t see stands anywhere, and then you’re in the city of Sterling Heights, and there’s two stands right next to each other,” said McCauley. “It’s kind of a landmark. It’s a piece of the country in the city.”

All in the family
Irma Reed, McCauley’s mother, started her family’s stand by setting vegetables and fruits out on a roadside table — along with a can to collect the profits while she worked the fields.

“From the get-go, they always farmed here,” said McCauley. “Back then, there weren’t many cars on the road really around here that often, and it was pretty major country.”

Over the years, Irma’s graduated from the table to a small square stand, which morphed into a larger octagon structure after its predecessor was decimated in a storm.

McCauley grew up helping her mother out and lent a hand part time and on weekends after high school. Around 1982, she began doing it full time, along with her husband, Chuck, with the assistance of other relatives.

When Reed became ill, McCauley and her family moved back into her childhood home, where the stand is located. They assumed full responsibility for the stand’s operations after Reed’s death in 1997.

Then a 32-year-old stay-at-home mother, Jung started her stand merely as a way to generate some extra money for Christmas gifts.

But to her surprise, “it got bigger and bigger and bigger,” she said. “My husband and I did it ourselves, and then my husband passed away 24 years ago, and I’m just trying to keep it up.”

McCauley and Jung are not related, as many visitors often wonder, but the women said they co-exist peacefully side by side, each maintaining their own loyal customer bases as well as attracting some shoppers who browse both stands in a single trip.

Both women say their patrons — many of whom return year after year, generation after generation — have become like family. McCauley and Jung have watched as new infants have joined the fold, and matriarchs and patriarchs have passed away. Some regulars they’ve christened with nicknames; others have become lifelong friends.

“It’s beautiful, you know?” said Jung.

A changing landscape
Progress has meant mixed blessings for the two families.

In their early days, Irma’s and Kathy’s peddled produce grown and harvested on the families’ adjacent property. But as the population moved northward and subdivisions began encroaching, both opted to sell the bulk of their farmland to developers and turn to farms in Armada and Romeo to stock their stands.       

“We bring the farm to the city,” said Jung.

Intensified traffic on once-sedate Dequindre means delays for drivers easing out of the driveways, but it also means more sales.

As early as May, curious customers begin pulling into the gravel parking lots that literally lead directly up to Jung’s and McCauley’s porches, peering at the empty stands.

But they typically don’t open until mid-to-late July, depending on weather. The availability of sweet corn, one of the most popular products, usually is the determining factor, said Jung.

As summer winds down, McCauley and Jung segue into autumnal fare, like pumpkins and gourds. They both close their stands Oct. 31 and shift to making grave blankets through December.

“Then we sit in the house and hibernate,” laughed Jung.

“You go, go, go, go, go, and then all of a sudden, you stop,” agreed McCauley. “But then you just catch up on things you haven’t done.”

But now, amid the peak season, throngs of eager shoppers have dissipated those distant thoughts of dormancy.

Open for business
On July 16, just minutes after McCauley had officially opened for the season, customers were streaming in, combing through a selection that represented only a fraction of what Irma’s will offer in the next few weeks.

Bulbous watermelon and cantaloupes, paper bags and cartons full to the brim with miniature cucumbers, bunches of Spanish sweet onions, fat red tomatoes — Pasem Wassouf of Sterling Heights eyed it all, adding continuously to his growing pile of vegetables and fruit at the cash register as McCauley rang him up.

“I like everything here, really, especially the tomatoes,” said Wassouf, who’s been shopping at Irma’s for years. “This is fresh.”

Olga Hetkowski of Sterling Heights first spotted the stand a decade ago while working up the street at Beaumont Hospital. Having grown up on a farm, she’s convinced there’s no substitute for local produce.

“It’s all fresh … and they’re all so pleasant, all the people who work here,” she said. “There’s nothing like fresh tomatoes. There’s a big difference between fresh and produce from the grocery store.”

Inquiries about corn were abundant, and McCauley assured shoppers that her husband was retrieving the first batch from the farm at that very moment.

Even as the economy founders, Irma’s and Kathy’s continue to flourish. McCauley said she feels patrons have embraced the stands as a way to support Michigan industry and keep their money local.

“It is a nice way for people to get fresh product for the short season that Michigan (has),” she said. “It’s really a very, very good thing. Sterling Heights is a great city. … We’re lucky we’re still able to have the stands here.”

For more information on Irma’s, call (586) 731-8255. For more information on Kathy’s, call (586) 739-4837. Both stands are located on the east side of Dequindre, between 18 Mile and 19 Mile roads.