The Butcher, the Embezzler, and the Fall Guy: A Family Memoir of Scandal and Greed in the Meat Industry

by Gretchen Cherington

Overview

Three powerful men converge on the banks of the Red Cedar River in the early 1900s in southern Minnesota—George Albert Hormel, founder of what will become the $10 billion food conglomerate Hormel Foods; Alpha LaRue Eberhart, the author’s paternal grandfather and Hormel’s Executive Vice President and Corporate Secretary; and Ransome Josiah Thomson, Hormel’s comptroller. Over ten years, Thomson will embezzle $1.2 million from the company’s coffers, nearly bringing the company to its knees.

The Butcher, the Embezzler, and the Fall Guy opens in 1922 as George Hormel calls Eberhart into his office and demands his resignation. Hailed as the true leader of the company he’d helped Hormel build—is Eberhart complicit in the embezzlement? Far worse than losing his job and the great wealth he’d rightfully accumulated is that his beloved young wife, Lena, is dying while their three children grieve alongside. Of course, his story doesn’t end there.

In scale both intimate and grand, Cherington deftly weaves the histories of Hormel, Eberhart, and Thomson within the sweeping landscape of our country’s early industries, along with keen observations about business leaders gleaned from her thirty-five-year career advising top company executives. The Butcher, the Embezzler, and the Fall Guy equally chronicles Cherington’s journey from blind faith in family lore to a nuanced consideration of the three men’s great strengths and flaws—and a multilayered, thoughtful exploration of the ways we all must contend with the mythology of powerful men, our reverence for heroes, and the legacy of a complicated past.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781647420833
Publisher:	She Writes Press
Publication date:	06/06/2023
Pages:	280
Sales rank:	652,767
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Gretchen Cherington’s first view of powerful men was informed at the feet of her father, Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Richard Eberhart, and his eclectic and fascinating writer friends, from Robert Frost to Allen Ginsberg to James Dickey. As an executive management consultant, she figured out what made powerful men tick by working alongside nearly three hundred of them in their corner suites during her thirty-five year career. Her first memoir, Poetic License, has won multiple awards; her writing has appeared in Crack the Spine, Bloodroot Literary Magazine, Women Writers/Women’s Books, MS. Girl, Yankee and more; and she was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for her essay “Maine Roustabout” in 2012. Gretchen and her husband split their time between Portland, Maine, and a saltwater cottage on Penobscot Bay. Learn more at www.gretchencherington.com.

Editorial Reviews

2024 Axiom Business Book Awards Gold Medalist in Corporate History / Milestone
2023 Best Indie Book Award Winner in Nonfiction: Family Biography

“A dazzling account that deftly combines crime, drama, history, and introspective remembrance.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“A fascinating story that will keep you captivated from start to finish! Beautifully written with an attention to the details of history, Gretchen creates a tale that brings the intriguing facts of management, corporate greed, and the fate of Geo. A. Hormel & Company to life.”
—Dr. Marshall Goldsmith, Thinkers50 #1 Executive Coach and New York Times best-selling author of The Earned Life, Triggers, and What Got You Here Won’t Get You There

“The Butcher, the Embezzler, and the Fall Guy comes to life with its deeply personal exploration of the darkest chapter in the 130-year history of Geo. A. Hormel & Company. This marvelous and meticulously researched book by Gretchen Cherington is packed with arresting detail and personal insights. In her search for answers, Cherington weaves a robust account.”
—Ben Welter, author of Minnesota Mayhem: A History of Calamitous Events, Horrific Accidents, Dastardly Crime & Dreadful Behavior in the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes

“Gretchen Cherington is a bold, brave, and honest writer. Her heartfelt search for family truths is always grounded in thorough research and deep reflection. With both the clear-eyed perspective of a consultant to CEOs and the compassion of a granddaughter able to forgive human faults and frailties, Cherington skillfully honors her grandfather’s legacy, while uncovering complicated truths. A powerful and beautifully structured read.”
—Debra Thomas, Sarton Award-winning author of Luz: A Novel

“The Butcher, the Embezzler, and the Fall Guy is a compelling book of family history, an urgent look inside the machinations of wealth and power, and a wonderfully well-written journey into a fully realized past. Cherington, the daughter of a poet and the granddaughter of an astute businessman, wields the many elements of her inheritance with grace.”
—Beth Kephart, National Book Award finalist and author of three-dozen books, including Wife | Daughter | Self: A Memoir in Essays and We Are the Words: The Master Memoir Class

“What happens when we unravel family myths? In her newest memoir, The Butcher, the Embezzler, and the Fall Guy, Gretchen Cherington finds no easy answers as she unfolds a true crime tale concerning a grandfather she never knew. As we're drawn into this intricate story of high life and deceit in the early 20th century, both author and reader wonder if Cherington’s grandfather was complicit in an embezzlement scheme that rocked a name-brand company. With characteristic honesty, and relevant to readers everywhere, Cherington's powerful prose prompts us to look at our own family stories in new ways.”
—Ashley E. Sweeney, author of Hardland

“Cherington’s The Butcher, the Embezzler, and the Fall Guy combines what I love best about John Carreyou’s Bad Blood and Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City—the fascinating interplay of history, business, personality, and crime. Not just what happened. But, why it happened, and why we ought to care.”
—Shelley Blanton-Stroud, author of the Jane Benjamin Series

“In this fascinating historical memoir, Gretchen Cherington sets out on a determined quest to discover why her grandfather, who played a pivotal role in the early success of the Hormel meat company, was ultimately forced out of the company. To understand this pivotal event that forever changed her family’s fortunes, Gretchen returns to her midwestern roots to uncover the truth about the meatpacking industry and the powerful men who shaped it. Engrossing me from first page to last, this is a compelling mystery of corporate greed, family legacy, and a granddaughter’s search for answers.”
—Laura Davis, best-selling author of The Courage to Heal and The Burning Light of Two Stars

“Cherington dismantles myth after myth in this visceral and emotional story, one complicated by family legacies large and small that are twined by love and loss. At the book’s center, a small town that orbits around buttoned-up businessmen and an industry that feeds the nation’s bellies with slaughtered hogs.”
—Kerri Arsenault, author of Mill Town: Reckoning with What Remains, a New York Times Editors’ Choice and Chicago Tribune Top Book for 2020

“A fascinating story in which the author captures the texture of prosperous early twentieth-century upper–middle class life in a Minnesota company town. Cherington seems to have it all nailed down, but, at the end, a fresh discovery challenges her own narrative. Finely crafted, this book is strong reporting and reflects Cherington’s deep emotional ties to her quest for the truth.”
—Steve Taylor, farmer, newspaperman, and longtime Commissioner of Agriculture for the state of New Hampshire

“Cherington’s second book is a fascinating blend of history, family biography, and personal memoir. Who knew the Hormel company's history was so infused with drama and intrigue? Cherington is a meticulous researcher with keen insights into human flaws and subtleties, born of her professional training in consulting work. She is also a woman on a soul-searching quest into her own family’s shadowy past. A poetic sensibility infuses Cherington’s prose, making this engaging, multi-dimensional story a highly compelling read.”
—Robin Clifford Wood, author of The Field House: A Writer’s Life Lost and Found on an Island in Maine

“Engagingly written, combining elements of history, memoir, and mystery. This book is a delight.”
—Monica Wood, author of The One-in-a-Million Boy, When We Were the Kennedys, and Ernie’s Ark

“I’m not often a reader of history, but The Butcher, the Embezzler, and the Fall Guy, with its blend of fact and memoir and family lore, kept me entranced. Through her vivid prose and clear-eyed honesty, Cherington guides readers skillfully back to a time and place that bustles with life—a trip I would take again and again with this talented author.”
—Cheryl Suchors, author of 48 Peaks: Hiking and Healing in the White Mountains

“A wonderfully written book with great backstory about the early days at Hormel. The author treats her subjects fairly while shining a light on misguided trust between friends, the importance of innovation to leapfrog competitors, and the deep determination needed to succeed.”
—David Barber, executive at Barber Foods

“With crisp writing and an eye for detail, Cherington masterfully weaves a story of ambition, intrigue, and family legacy. Equal parts mystery and memoir, Cherington’s curiosity takes her to the farmlands and feedlots of southern Minnesota as she unearths shocking and long-hidden details of this true-crime tale. I was totally hooked.”
—Bob Keyes, author of The Isolation Artist: Scandal, Deception, and the Last Days of Robert Indiana

From the Publisher

2023-02-22
In this nonfiction book, the daughter of a renowned poet attempts to unravel the mystery of her grandfather’s potential involvement in a corporate scandal.

Cherington never met her grandfather Alpha LaRue “A.L.” Eberhart. But she grew up hearing her father, the Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Richard Eberhart, tearfully relate the great injustice A.L. once suffered while working for Geo. A. Hormel & Company, then a sizable meat-processing firm and now a multibillion-dollar conglomerate. In 1922, A.L. was asked to resign by the company’s CEO and founder, George Hormel, after it was discovered that the comptroller, Ransome Josiah “Cy” Thomson, had embezzled more than a million dollars. The resignation request was based on a “flimsy pretext”: that A.L. personally borrowed money from the company’s brokers. Meanwhile, there were suspicions “that A.L. had known Cy was stealing.” Eberhart often recounted the tale with furious indignation—in his eyes, the innocent A.L. was “six feet of manhood and not a mark of fear,” while Hormel was a “bastard, all greed for laying father so low.” But the author gradually became suspicious of her father’s penchant for poetic embellishment. She began to question the “family mythology” and to reflect with impressive sensitivity on the allure of such fabricated histories: “We cling to our myths, especially heady and intoxicating ones. We want to believe them as truth. We help in their construction by denying what’s in front of us and filling in holes to reinforce their validity. And in every great myth there are heroes, ones we don’t want to see fail.” She conducted an investigation and uncovered some discomfiting details—her grandfather was likely friends with Thomson, and at one time the comptroller inexplicably paid off one of A.L.’s loans, an incriminating piece of evidence. Moreover, there were rumors in the aftermath of the scandal that A.L. was an accomplice to Thomson’s crimes. Cherington rigorously combs all the available evidence and not only reconstructs the details of the scandal, but also the history of the company and the industry it came to dominate as well as her grandfather’s significant contributions to both. This is a mesmerizing story, one filled with drama and suspense and told with remarkable emotional insights.

A dazzling account that deftly combines crime, drama, history, and introspective remembrance.

Kirkus Reviews