Pearls from clam shells?

Here's another little essay from Uncle Joe's "Tales from Ten Oaks." Lake Pepin clams (more accurately, freshwater mussels) once fed a booming "pearl" button industry, but that industry faded when cheaper plastic buttons became widely available. Another change just since this essay was written -- Lake Pepin clams are endangered now by a number of factors, including silt, pollution and invasive zebra mussels. You can read more about clamming on the Mississippi River here and here.

THE PEARL

By ELMER "JOE" SPRICK

A small memento box hangs on the wall of my home in Lake City, Minn. It contains nothing of value, unless one were to count the thousand memories it can generate. Some are sad, but there are also many happy ones that are reminders of hunting, fishing and trapping experiences that we -- Ed, LeRoy and I -- shared as brothers.

One item in particular arouses the curiosity of those who spot it. It is a clam shell with a series of perforated holes, each about the size of a dime. Those in the "now" generation are often curious about what made those holes.

There are still a lot of old folks around who can recall the days of the pearl button industry here in Lake City. The buttons were made from the shells of clams harvested by the ton from Lake Pepin to supply button factories.

My older brother, LeRoy Sprick, who picked this shell up from the lakeshore years ago, knew something about the industry. He knew that the clams would have been steamed open.

It wasn't just button material that people sought from the clam shells. Occasionally a pearl was found in one, and a few of those pearls were valuable -- very valuable.

LeRoy and I fished together on many occasions, often over a clam bed. He preferred to use a heavy sinker and to fish the bottom, while I worked a jig tipped with a minnow. His method of fishing explains why he would often come up with a live clam on his line instead of a fish. He would open the clam and check for a pearl.

One summer day in 1980, he found a pearl measuring a quarter of an inch in diameter. His reactions was about the same as what you might see in the holder of a winning lottery ticket. A photo of his pearl appeared on the front page of the local newspaper, the Lake City Graphic.

The pearl was neither perfectly round nor pure white, but it made his day. He had it mounted on his dad's wedding band and gave it to his wife, Violet. She wore it for several years before passing it on to her daughter, Leah Sprick Davidson, who values it above any diamond.

The clammers are back today, but they are a new breed. They dive for clams instead of dragging hooks, as was done in the old days. A hard day's work might result in a sackful of clams.

If LeRoy were still with us, he would probably be out there clamming too, checking each one for pearls.

I know of a fisherman who checks the stomach of every fish he cleans. I'm not sure what he is looking for, but I bet he has never found a pearl.