1 2 3

(Enlarge) Percy Thornton sorts the produce he grows on his small farm for his stand, Percy’s Self-Service, on Troyer Road, in White Hall. He says he is doing the work of the Lord selling vegetables. “I live a good, clean life and I try not to overcharge. It’s that simple.” (Staff photo by Sarah Nix)

Percy Thornton sits in the shade behind his vegetable stand sorting beets. Slowly and methodically, he gathers six beets that dangle from leafy stalks and ties them together with twine he snips off with a small pocketknife.

After he has a nice pile, he puts them on "Percy's Self-Service" stand on Troyer Road in White Hall. In a day or two, the beet bunches will be gone and Thornton will find a mound of dollar bills inside the stand's locked metal box with a slot in the top.

Thornton -- who says he will turn 99 on Sept. 9 but some relatives believe it is his 100th birthday -- never knows if people overpaid, underpaid or simply walked off with the fruits of his labors.

But he knows he hasn't seen the last of those beets.

"Some of my customers will pickle 'em, then bring those beets back and give 'em to me," Thornton says. "I have lovely, honest customers who treat me right because I treat them the way the Lord wants. God is keeping me alive for a reason. I used to preach at church. Now I preach at the stand."

His preaching style is more "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord" than fire and brimstone. It's not his back-breaking work that produced lush vegetables and fruits, he says. It's God's work.

A few people simply want to buy tomatoes, watermelons, corn or squash and be on their way. They zip in, slide money in the slot and leave without a sermon; without a word to or from Thornton.

But most customers flock to the stand for produce with a promise of paradise.

"We started as customers 18 or 19 years ago, and over time we've gotten to know Percy as a friend," says Dick Hebrank, of White Hall, who brought his wife, Marge, and daughter, Deb. On this particular day they arrive with Marge's homemade applesauce and a pineapple-upside-down cake. "We see him at least once a week now and we'll just sit for a few hours talking, even in the winter. He is a gracious man."

Thornton's poor hearing is his only concession to age as he approaches the century mark. He spends all day, every day from spring through fall working 7 acres off Troyer Road.

Tomatoes are his best-sellers, so this year he put in 300 plants that he started from seeds saved from last year's crop.

He is mighty proud of his sweet corn, just starting to form tassels in mid-July. Towering sunflowers provide shade for his cucumbers, and row after straight row of plants sprout kale, carrots, beets, cabbage, onions, potatoes, beans, peas, broccoli, watermelon, cantaloupe, pumpkins and squash.

Each year, he jump-starts his stand by buying produce from a friend on the Eastern Shore, but as soon as his plot starts producing, everything on the stand belongs to Thornton. He visits grocery stores to check prices and then sets his a few pennies below.

"There's not a lot of profit, and if elderly or poor come around, I'll give them vegetables for nothing," he says. "I live a good, clean life and I try not to overcharge. It's that simple."

A family grows, too

Thornton was born on Troyer Road in a house that once stood "just past where those sunflowers are," he says, pointing to the plants behind his stand. He remembers working the field with his father, Mac, on plows pulled by mules.

Mac Thornton sold his produce in Baltimore and was a local celebrity when he appeared each Saturday afternoon on "Country Camera," a farm show on WBAL-TV.

Thornton's 72-year-old son, Lewis, who lives behind his father's field, remembers going to the television studio with his grandfather, who was paid $10 for each show.

Percy Thorton, the youngest of five Thornton children, went to Shepperd School, a one-room, all-black schoolhouse on Troyer Road.

He finished fifth grade and began working at local farms and for a landscaping company.

He was hired as a janitor of Williamson Veneer Co., in Cockeysville.

"I used to sweep the floors until one day they asked me if I could handle the machine that cuts veneer," Thornton recalls. "Here I was, with only a fifth-grade education, operating that machine and filling out my own paperwork. The Lord let me stay there 30 years."

Thornton married Clara Jackson in 1933. They had two sons and a daughter. Jackson died in 1980. Today, Thornton has 11 grandchildren, 16 great-grandchildren and four great-great-grandchildren.

He proudly says he hasn't seen a doctor for more than 30 years. His granddaughter, Tanya Jackson, only remembers him being sick once.

"Pop-Pop had pneumonia years ago, but that's about it," she says. "People spend a lot of money on gyms and fitness centers, but he's still fit because he's out here working every day."

Thornton has always grown his own vegetables, but after he retired in the 1970s, he took up farming full time. He spends winters at his Troyer Road house looking at seed catalogues and waiting for spring to arrive. He never takes a vacation and doesn't like to travel.

He attended Mt. Joy African Methodist Episcopal Church on Troyer Road for more than 50 years, but doesn't go these days.

"The church is just a building," he says. "The real church is in me. You have to live for God every day. It's God that allows me to still be here all these years. I'll keep on doing this until He calls me home."

user comments (0)