Part One: Before the Pallets
Before there was Pilgrim Pallet, there was a boy with a goal.
September 21, 1969.
On that day, Dan and Edna Yoder welcomed their second child, a son they would name Emery.
Emery was born into a family of five children. He had an older brother, Mel, followed by three younger sisters—Erma, Esther, and Elizabeth.
Long before Emery would become the owner of Pilgrim Pallet, before there were pallets, trucks, employees, customers, and a business to build, there was simply a boy growing up in the Yoder family.
And some of the most important influences on that boy would come from his family.
A very young Emery Yoder.
Before There Were Pallets, There Was Weaver
As a child, Emery spent a great deal of time with his grandfather, Weaver.
Those childhood experiences would become much more than memories.
Emery watched his grandfather build and operate his own business, which would eventually become what is known today as Treen Box and Pallet.
Watching his grandfather succeed planted an idea in Emery’s mind at an early age.
Someday, he wanted to own a business of his own.
He may not have known what that business would look like yet, but the goal was already beginning to take shape.
A Young Entrepreneur
Emery wasn’t thinking about pallets when he was young.
But he was thinking about business.
One of his first ventures was selling night crawlers.
Then came rabbits.
Emery began raising and selling rabbits, but he soon discovered a problem: the business was heavily seasonal. Rabbits sold well around Easter and Christmas, but the demand wasn’t nearly as strong throughout the rest of the year.
So, Emery began looking for another opportunity.
The $5 Beagles
One day, Emery saw a sign advertising beagles for $5 each.
He bought a pair.
Emery trained the dogs to hunt rabbits, and before long, those two beagles had turned into something much bigger.
Soon, he had kennels full of dogs.
The money Emery made from his night crawler and rabbit businesses helped pay to feed his growing collection of hunting dogs.
It was another small business built from another small opportunity.
And although Emery couldn’t have known it at the time, these early ventures were teaching him lessons that would eventually become invaluable:
Recognize an opportunity. Take a chance. Work hard. And figure out how to make it work.
Saving for Something Bigger
As Emery got older, his entrepreneurial spirit only grew.
He began taking on odd jobs for people and saving the money he earned.
He wasn’t simply working to have spending money.
He was saving for a dream.
One day, Emery wanted to own a successful business of his own.
That goal stayed with him.
It wasn’t simply about making money. Emery wanted to build something—something that belonged to him, something he could grow, and something that could become a life of its own.
At that point, he still didn’t know exactly what that business would be.
He just knew that someday, he wanted to be his own boss.
Then Came Mary
When Emery was 17, his life took another important turn.
He began dating Mary Troyer.
Mary came from a somewhat different perspective when it came to work and business. Her father had always worked for someone else, and the idea of building a business from the ground up wasn’t necessarily the dream she had grown up with.
Emery, on the other hand, had been thinking about owning his own business for years.
Perhaps they didn’t see the future exactly the same way.
But they must have seen something special in each other.
Because two years later, Emery and Mary were married.
They were young.
They had dreams.
And they had a future ahead of them that neither could fully predict.
Emery had a dream of one day owning a successful business.
Mary was now along for the ride.
Neither of them knew just how big that dream would eventually become.
And This Was Only the Beginning.
Mary Yoder(Troyer) and Emery Yoder
The Story Continues…
Every journey has a beginning, but Emery’s story was just getting started.
The dream of owning a successful business was no longer just a childhood ambition. Emery was now a young husband, with a future ahead of him and a dream that would eventually become something much bigger than he could have imagined.
But how did that dream become a reality?
Stay tuned for Part 2 of The Story of Emery Yoder—where the dream begins to take shape.
