Chapman, a little more history.

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This was posted by Bill Jeffers (PV) at another forum and thought this would be a good place for it also. Ami

Brief notes on Chapman

Pretty much all that's given on Chapman is what you read in the SSE Yearbook ... you know ... large red beefsteak, regular leaf vine, mild to excellent flavor, somewhat split resistant, blah, blah, blah.

That and Carolyn Male got it from some dude named Richardson who didn't forward any other information about it, and now he's passed away. Oh, and that Tomato Growers Supply got their seed from Carolyn. Well, that's about it.

But I ran across a little blog article about it and decided to email the writer and ask whether her name for it (Chapman's Beefsteak) was more correct that just "Chapman," just who the heck Mr. or Mrs. Chapman is anyway, and if she happened to know how this dude Richardson came to have the seeds he listed in SSE Yearbook from whence Carolyn came by her seeds.

Here is the lady's response:

I re-read our web page and realized that it isn't clear at all - Aunt Laurette and Uncle Arthur's last name is Chapman. Sorry about the confusion - guess I'll have to do some editing there!

Chapman's Beefsteak is probably more descriptive than just Chapman, if that's what you mean by "correct". Is there some sort of protocol for naming tomato varieties?

I gave Mr. Richardson some Chapman's seed years ago, probably sometime in the mid 1980's. He had shared some heirloom tomato seeds with me through a seed swap in a gardening magazine (memory fails as to which magazine) and in return I sent him some of the Chapman seed (which Aunt Laurette had previously shared with me). He was an interesting and generous man! I remember that he had an amazing collection of tomatoes and truly awful handwriting! I was aware that, at some point, the Chapman tomato had appeared in the SSE yearbook, but didn't realize they had passed through Dr. Male's august hands!

It's interesting - our primary focus at Hummingbird Farm is now on clematis, although I did grow a LOT of heirloom tomatoes when our children were small and we were doing a lot of vegetable gardening. We still grow some in the greenhouse for ourselves and our customers, although not as many as I'd like. But I think that exposure to the terrific variety of sizes, shapes, colors and flavors available in tomatoes really opened my eyes to genetic diversity. "What! They're not all round and red you say!?!" And it's that same genetic diversity that appeals to me in clematis!

Best Regards,

Cindy