Original Raspberry Festival Royalty Member Will Attend Yet Another Parade

Like many west metro residents, Marge Chastek will be at this year's Raspberry Festival parade. It’s only fitting. She was among the Raspberry Royalty at the first festival 77 years ago.

Back in 1934, the 95-year-old was 18 and fresh out of Hopkins High School. Deep into the Great Depression, town leaders launched the festival to promote and celebrate Hopkins as the Raspberry Capitol of the World.

Chastek was known as Margaret Rogers then, and she lived with her family on 19th Avenue North in Hopkins.

“Back then, everybody grew raspberries, whether as farmers who took them to market or for their own use,” Chastek said. “That was during the Depression and so there were a lot of people growing their own food.”

The festival founders decided to select several “berry pickers and farmers’ daughters” as the first royalty. Today, there is a queen and several princesses.

“Back then, we had a queen (Edna Brokl) and the rest of the girls were called maids of honor,” said Chastek, who was one of the maids. 

The parade was small by today’s standards, but it grew over the years.

Chastek went on to be a maid and nanny for a couple of families and then worked for a Minneapolis dry cleaner. She met and married Clint Chastek in 1940. His family owned a berry farm at what is now the area right off Shady Oak and Smetana Roads.

For many years, the farm sponsored a float in the festival parade.

She and her husband raised two sons and two daughters on the farm. The primary crop was—naturally—raspberries. One son, Stan, and his wife, Sharon, are still in the plant-growing business. They own and operate Chastek Greenhouses in Corcoran and sell to local retailers like Bachman’s, Sunnyside and Wagner’s.

The Chastek farm operated until 1968, when it was bought for what was to be the site of a school—although the school was never built.

Chastek then lived in St. Louis Park. Eleven years ago, she moved to her present home in Minnetonka.

Yet she hasn't lost her taste for raspberries. Asked if she still enjoys eating them, the great-great grandmother didn't hesitate: “Oh, yes. They are wonderful.”