My
mama came from a family of ten kids, two girls and eight boys. She
grew up in a close, knit family that believed in working for ye keep
and learning early on how to survive and get by. Many times she told
how they survived the depression and made do with whatever they had.
Back
then everybody grew their own food but the basics were hard to come
by. During the depression they gave out coupons and they’d pick em
up at the little local store. The storekeeper would hand em out each
month according to how many was in a family. He always had to keep
records of what he handed out for the government. He helped people
out a lot too. They’d bring their canned goods in and exchange em
for something they needed. There was always someone in need and he
knew he would be able to get rid of it all.
Mama
said most of the time they’d just get a couple pounds of coffee to
do a month or five or ten pounds of flour, and a bucket of lard with
their coupons. If they were lucky to get an extra coupon they’d get
a small bag of sugar or an extra five pounds of flour. The flour came
in cloth sacks and their mother saved them up and sewed them into
dresses and shirts.
Mama
said that grandma would boil the same coffee grounds over and over
till that coffee was so thin ye could see through it. Even after the
depression started easing up and grandpa went to work for the WPA and
they had a little more to live on grandma was still in the saving
mode and kept boiling the coffee grounds over and over. My grandpa
got tired of it and told her one day, now Sarie (Sarah) stop boiling
them coffee grounds over so much. What ye doing, straining it through
a white rag, you can stop now I want some real coffee not stained
water. It was hard for grandma to change. She’d been in the saving
business to long.
They
always had plenty of cornmeal for bread since they grew the corn and
grandpa carried big toe sacks to my other grandpa’s old grist mill
every week. She said they only used the flour for breakfast cause
they sure did love them cathead biscuits and gravy. There was many a
morning they had to eat cornbread with their gravy cause they didn’t
have any flour. Of course, cornmeal gravy and cornbread is the best
eating around.
She
and her brothers used to trap rabbits and take them to the little
country store in exchange for some of the basics they needed. This
was after they cleaned the rabbits up good and the head had to stay
on them. My grandma knew exactly what the rabbits were worth by how
many they had caught. He paid by the pound and she knew it. She’d
make out a list of what she needed and send them to the store to fill
it.
One
time she and one of her brother’s that was the closest to her in
age caught ten rabbits and took off towards the store with the
rabbits on a stick and grandma’s list. On the way to the store her
brother told her we’re gonna get us somethin good today. Mama told
him, no we can’t cause mommy knows exactly how many rabbits we got,
she’s made her list. He stuck his hand up under his coat and pulled
out another rabbit. He said, I told you we’re gonna get us somethin
good today. The only problem was the rabbit didn’t have a head.
Apparently, while they were cleaning them one lost its head someway
and he’d stuck it under his coat. The storekeeper always wanted
them with their heads intact. He had a little shed over to the side
of the store building that people hung their rabbits in.
When
they got to the store and hung their rabbits they went in and told
him how many they had and gave him their list. He walked outside and
went in and looked at the rabbits from the door and counted them. He
said, somebody’s counted wrong this time, you’ve got eleven
instead of ten.
Mama
said her brother spoke up and said alrighty, we got enough to get us
somethin good this time. The storekeeper told him ye sure do, so pick
out what ye want. Her brother pointed to a big jar of candy sitting
on the counter and said we want a whole, paper bag of that candy. He
filled their list and the bag of candy and they headed home. The
candy was chocolate drops and can still be bought today, especially
around Christmas time and they’re rich as can be.
On
the way home they eat the whole bag of chocolate drops and by the
time they got home they were sicker than a buzzard. They started
puking and they puked all night. My grandma didn’t know what in the
world to think. She was up with em all night trying to clean up the
messes and do what she could for em.
The
next morning they felt and looked like death warmed over. When
grandma seen they were on the mend she asked em what did they eat to
get so sick. They’d been taught all of their life not to lie and
knew if they did they’d be in worse shape than they already were so
they told her the truth. She marched them back over the road to the
store and made em tell the storekeeper what they’d done. He just
stood there and looked at em for a bit and then he spoke up and said,
well I guess they’ve been punished enough this time but it better
not happen again.
From
that day forward they didn’t take another rabbit without its head
and they never eat another chocolate drop as long as they lived.
To
say times were rough is an understatement but they survived the best
way they knew how and mama said they never went to bed hungry a night
in their life. They always had something to eat even if it was an old
possum baked in the oven. I guess that’s why she hated the sight of
an ole possum. Back then times were so hard they had to make do.
© Susie Swanson, 2018
The above pic is one of my mom and her dad and mom (my grandparents) back when she was a young woman. ~Susie~
