Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Great Depression Story

Blessings Darlings!

Times were tough back in the Depression.  They were especially tough if your father was an alcoholic who had been fired from his job as an insurance salesman and your mother was abusive, and you were still in high school.

This was the situation my Mother In Law was in. 

As a result, they somehow ended up on some rural farmland during the Depression.  I don't know if they owned the land, how much land there was, or where in Illinois the land was.  It was not located 'in town', or walking distance from the high school.

They made it thru', obviously, or she'd not have married and had a son that I ended up marrying. 

They grew stuff and had a farm stand.  I suppose they grew all sorts of things - but what she says got them by were two main crops:  Sorghum, which was pressed for sweetener; and Kentucky Wonder pole beans.  Perhaps these were their 'cash crops', while most other things they grew they consumed and sold only extras.

But while what they raised 'got them by', they didn't provide enough for her to go to high school.  She left home (moved out permanently? during the school year? During the school week only?) to live with the widow who ran the general store in town, working for her after school, to get thru' high school.  That way she could get to school by walking and earned enough cash to pay for books/supplies and clothes and such.

This year, the first growing season after my Mother In Law has passed on, I'm going to grow my first Kentucky Wonder beans, in her honor.

Frondly, Fern

No comments:

Post a Comment