Greetings from…Turkeyville

Turkeyville was in the middle of farmland just north of Marshall, Michigan, surrounded by acres of cornfields and grass.

I pulled into the parking lot, keeping an eye out for turkeys that might be patrolling. I surveyed the wooden building with red shutters and doors.

There was a huge sign out front featuring a running turkey. “Cornwell’s Turkeyville,” it read. “Home of the world’s best turkey sandwich.” Sounded promising.

I love turkey. Besides, I grew up on a farm. There was nothing I liked better than sitting with a bowl of just-picked strawberries still warm from the sun.

But lately I’d spent more time worrying about high gas prices and the declining housing market. We lived in town now and the economy was taking its toll on my husband’s excavation business.

I worried about my kids, too. My son had his own business and my daughter was due to deliver her third child. Life seemed so much more stressful these days, and I needed a break.

I stepped out of the car and was greeted with the most heavenly smells: roast turkey, of course, and baking pies and fresh-popped corn.

“Welcome to Turkeyville!” said a blonde woman in a red polo shirt with the Cornwell logo on it. “I’m Patti Cornwell.” She invited me up to the front porch, where picnic tables were lined up like old friends.

Patti had married into the family that owned the place. “I’m the in-law that stuck it out,” she joked. She’d been working at Turkeyville for 26 years.

It was a real family business. It got its start when her husband’s grandparents began raising turkeys on their farm. As a fund-raiser for their church they made turkey sandwiches and sold them at the county fair. The sandwiches were such a hit folks wanted them all year ’round. Why wait for the annual fair?

So Grandma and Grandpa opened a little restaurant behind their farmhouse…and things grew from there. Now the family cooks 20,000 turkeys a year and serves hundreds of customers a day.

“We’re open almost daily except Thanksgiving,” Patti said. “That’s when we get together to thank God for all the blessings he’s given us.”

The Cornwells had a lot to be thankful for. The restaurant was bustling. There was a gift shop, a dinner theater, an ice-cream parlor and a playground. They had dozens of employees and customers arrived by the busload.

I thanked Patti for the history and went for a walk around the place. I bought a bracelet at the gift shop and checked out the playground with its wooden tractor—a Farmal, like the one we had when I was a child.