Page 20 - One Thousand Ways to Make $1000

$250,000,000, shows it succeeded.

TheStoryof“MorningGlory” TomatoJuice

T

HE Snead family of Evanston, Illinois, were up against it, just as thousands
of other families were in the early days of the depression. Two sons ready to
go to Dartmouth and Father Snead out of a job. A less determined family
might have decided that “luck” was against them and let it go at that. But the
Sneads are not quitters.

So they put their heads together and decided to get the agency for some lime
drink which would mix with native gin, and see if it could not be sold to the
supposedly well-to-do people along Chicago’s North Shore. But the North
Shore did not get very much excited about the Snead family’s lime ricky.

One day when the Snead spirits were down close to zero a friend on a down-
state farm sent the family a case of very fine seed tomatoes. Not knowing
what better to do with them Mrs. Snead decided to convert them into tomato
juice. Being a good neighbor she sent a few bottles next door. The neighbors
made a great fuss over it. Mrs. Snead began to wonder if perhaps her husband
and the boys might not be able to do better selling tomato juice the way she
fixed it, than they were selling lime ricky. The family went into a huddle, and
since the lime ricky business was getting no better fast, they decided to try
Mother Snead’s idea. They would call it “Morning Glory” Tomato Juice—
because it made you feel glorious, regardless of how badly you may have felt
the night before.

The idea of fresh, homemade tomato juice, squeezed from choice seed
tomatoes took hold in great shape. The Sneads charged more than the grocery
stores charged for tomato juice, but nobody complained. People are that way.
The late Colonel Simmons used to say: “The recollection of quality remains
long after the price is forgotten.” The Sneads were careful to keep the quality
up by making arrangements with a chap who grew tomato seeds, and
therefore had the choicest varieties. They took over his entire crop and