81-year-old matriarch of Utica meat-processing business leaving after 47 years
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UTICA — For almost a half-century, Linda Oiler has watched hunters, wildlife officers and friends come into the little butcher shop in northern Licking County, each expecting to convert their harvest into future meals.
Over her 47 years there, she has overseen the processing of countless deer, hogs, cattle and even an elk or two at Oiler Meat Processing. But at age 81, the white-haired matriarch of the business says it’s time to exchange her omnipresent red apron for the comforts of her beloved vegetable garden and her 120-acre farm not far from work.
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Oiler has forged relationships as enduring as the cleaver she wields to skillfully separate the fat and gristle from the slabs of beef, pork and lamb set before her on the boning table.
Business the past year during the COVID-19 pandemic has never been better, Oiler said.
“People are eating at home, and they’re buying so much more meat and they’re learning how to cook,” she said.
She said she’s processed more than 1,000 deer this year, up 30% from past years. And much of that is helping to feed the hungry.
Oiler is a supporter of Farmers and Hunters Feeding the Hungry, a collective of meat suppliers who provide some of their bounty to food banks, ministries and charities.
Metro Parks, a longtime partner, last year donated 280 deer culled in its parks for Oiler to process and distribute to the Mid-Ohio Food Bank..
“I’ve taken every deer that they’ve taken out of Metro Parks. I process them all into ground deer,” she said.
Ohio law forbids the buying and selling of wild animals or their parts. Hunters may bring in deer they’ve killed to be processed for their own use or for donation to a food pantry.
Processing can be expensive, but may yield food for months or years when frozen.
For example, Oiler charges $325 for processing of whole hogs, which includes smoking of hams and bacon. Unlike huge slaughterhouses and factory farming, the meat processed here has no preservatives.
Oiler treats each customer like family, and many have been her friends for decades.
“Nobody should be doing this as long as you have,” Linda Smith said to Oiler as she and her husband, Mark Smith, stopped by to pick up boxes of ground venison to deliver to the Saint Vincent Haven shelter for men in Newark.
The Smiths live near Oiler and Mark plows her driveway. In return, Oiler gives the couple two large bags of meat as thanks.
Her affection for people is matched by her enthusiasm for her work.
Using sometimes salty language, she gives a visitor a quick tour of the shop — a side door where live animals are lined up to enter pens in the “kill room,” overhead hooks to hang the animals for skinning and deep freeze and storage areas.
In the beef refrigerator, she proudly shows off two skinned and gutted cows that, once processed, will feed her for years.
“People want to buy my farm. They think I’m going to retire in Florida,” she said. “But hell no, I’m not going to Florida.”
Her favorite hangout is The River’s Edge Grill, a few blocks away in Utica along the Licking River’s North Fork.
Rod Atherton, who owns the bar and grill, worked his first job at Oilers as a freshman in high school, leaving about 10 years ago to spend time with his construction business.
Oiler now supplies the restaurant with steaks, pork, sausage and secret-recipe bratwurst.
“I don’t know what she’s going to do with herself when she retires, she spends so much time there,” Atherton said. “When you go there, you just feel like you’re family.”
Oiler jokingly acknowledges: “I haven’t been home for 47 years. I’ve been in this plant.”
But she insists that come Saturday, “I’m walking away.”
She purchased the operation with her late husband, Carmel Oiler, in 1974. Previously called McCann Frozen Locker, it housed dozens of meat lockers that hunters could use.
The couple replaced the lockers with the slaughter operation, allowing for an efficient, full-service processing plant.
On Wednesdays, the operation is a frenzy of pigs and cows. On other days, her staff carves huge slabs of meat into steaks, cutlets or strips for stew or jerky. Oiler prepares a hot meal daily. On this day, it’s a potato, onion and carrot beef stew.
Born in Meigs County, Oiler was raised with five sisters and a brother on the aptly named Red Mud Hill, where her parents farmed enough to get by and instilled in the family a strong work ethic.
“I haven’t wanted for anything in my life,” Oiler said.
Her lone son, who works for the Ohio Department of Transportation, wasn’t interested in taking over the business. That was probably a blessing, she said.
“If (family) took over, I’d have to come here and help run it,” she said.
Instead, Travis Payne, of Danville in neighboring Knox County, and his son-in-law, Zach Frazee, both butchers and employees at the shop, will take ownership, while keeping the Oiler name.
What he’s learned most from his mentor: “How to deal with people better,” Payne said.
Payne and Frazee will purchase the operation in a 10-year, land-contract arrangement.
While insisting she is walking away from the business, Oiler said, “If he calls me and needs help, I’ll be the first to come in.”
Oiler takes pride in her service to customers, taking calls for special orders at all hours, she said, and from all walks of life.
The past couple of years, one of Les and Abigail Wexner’s employees brings in an elk for processing.
“We grind it all for her and she feeds it to her dogs,” Oiler said.
Whether affluent or not, Oiler treats all her customers the same.
“When you bring beef out of the cooler and put the work order up, you have to make sure it’s cut the way they want it cut,” she said.
dnarciso@dispatch.com
@DeanNarciso
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: 81-year-old matriarch of Utica meat-processing business leaving after 47 years