SHARED STORIES:
The Bounty of Home - MK Evans

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          Our farm consisted of eighty acres: rolling hills, Missouri land, of which only forty acres were cultivated. The other forty lay fallow in grassland. Poppa said that was good. So they were known as the Upper Forty and the Lower Forty.

          When you walked about either forth, wonderful things could be found—wild grasses, clumps of clover and trees, grains for hay and row after row of corn and pumpkins, potatoes and strawberries.

          We grew vegetables in a small-sized garden, no bigger than half a present day house. Far too many foods to eat; so the hard, hot work of canning came to our family. Beets, tomatoes, green beans, peas, pears, spiced peaches, simmered beef, pork, smoked bacon, sausage and ham. And then, there were all those chickens.

          Twenty-four baby chicks, ordered from a catalogue, arrived in a cardboard box clearly marked for the postmen across the country to water them. Little noisy yellow balls of feathers, raised with good food and care, allowed to roam the landscape free.

          Other than one fox we caught eating them, and one snake, they were peaceful and secure. Besides, the snake preferred eating eggs. He only settled for eating chickens; but he had eaten so many, he couldn’t move fast and was easily caught.

          Thereafter, as far as chickens were concerned, Momma was the only predator they had to fear, and she killed, cooked and preserved them with impunity.

          Not her banty rooster! She never cooked him. He was her favorite. Terrible little thing. Always bossing somebody around and causing trouble. He was feisty an rude and had been known to tear up things if really unhappy. Momma’s banty rooster, but she loved him so. He was her best friend and had full range of the farm, including the garden and back porch, along with Momma’s undying attention.

          We were content with our life. We had plenty of food and water (although drawn with a bucket from a well) and all sorts of pleasantness. No plumbing, no electricity, no gas, but we didn’t miss them. We hardly knew what they were. But Poppa, a native os St. Louis, I think missed things and I know he missed his drinks.

          During the time of Prohibition, and maybe without a wink from Momma, he started making his own drinks. They said his wine was quite successful, and his sippin’ whiskey could knock a person out. It was that good.

          Momma grew to hate it, she refused to willingly let him drink it, and barely condescended to cook with it, especially after one batch blew up. This put a real crimp on Poppa’s enterprise, and they never did figure out what happened to that batch of whiskey. It was in the mash stage, but sure took a bad turn and blew sky high.

          Poppa was heartsick as the ingredients included Momma’s scarce sugar, which she resented, as well as home grains he could not afford to lose. The remnants from his recipe, not now clinging to the strictly illegal still, got dumped down the road. Old ruts acted as a trough and it headed for pig pen. Baby pigs can squeeze through any fence and they found Poppa’s spoiled whiskey-mash, an enormous treat. They heavily indulged and started squealing like comedians, falling upside-down with four feet pawing the air trying to right themselves.

          The family thought it very funny, until Momma’s favorite chicken, her dear banty rooster, got in it as well. She didn’t laugh, nor say a word as none could describe the hurt of her little friend hopelessly upside-down along with the others—all drunk.

          Our farm produced lives, and grand foods, totally satisfying to our needs, with some left over to ‘buy’ many extras. That was not just true of our land, however, it was true of much of the nation which also felt fulfilled.

          Kansas, for instance, grew a bumper crop of wheat one year, as did we, and more wheat was planted. Lots of wheat was planted. We stored grains, or traded it; so nothing much bothered us. Industrial crops went to market. Too much to market and prices fell. Then it didn’t rain. It didn’t rain for seven years. The Depression hit.

          For us, however, it was not called the Depression. It was instead a disintegrating world that blew away. Thousands of tons of top soil blew away and rolled toward us. Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado, New Mexico—blew into dust. It smothered everyone and everything, reaching as far as New York and a thin layer on Boston. There were days the sun could have shown brightly but did not shine at all on most parts of our country as 150,000 square miles of soil disappeared into dust.

          It spoiled animals and us, causing pain when it filled our eyes and mouths and caused lungs to close and collapse.

          Trees failed to grow. Some plants would set only buds and never come to harvest. Plowing and planting new seed was out of the question since the earth rose to the sky and sent someplace else.

          By eleven o’clock each morning, the dust storms made their way to Missouri. Any activity would be dropped and we ran for shelter. We put wet rags over leaky windows or rolled them up and stuck beneath the doors. We waited and watched while thick deposits of dust laid down.

          People died because they had no food, or else the food they had was of such poor quality, it did not contribute to life and they died of diseases. Momma said it was just a waiting time until it took them. No one could fight the dust.

          The farm base of our nation stopped. Homes were lost, shops were shuttered, banks closed. We were not aware of problem banks since we had no money to put in a bank, but the country did and the entire economic system fell like toys. It was called the Great Depression. I was eight years old.

          To this day, I can still see the yellow clouds, high, billowing and rolling, driven from the West. I can still smell the dust, as if it happened yesterday, instead of years and years ago.

          I have often wondered about the Depression—which came first: the drought or the depression. But I though then, and I still think now, it was the drought that cam first.

          The nation’s way of life had been built on a farming structure, practiced for thousands of years in the Old World, transferred almost unchanged to the New World, but suddenly it could not provide any more.

          Without farms, populations were destitute and America was no longer sustainable. After the drought, the Depression came. It changed America forever.

          However, with all this bad news, I think we were luckier on our farm than others. In the first place, we had Momma. She fixed food for us even when I thought there wasn’t any. Also, our well never went dry. The pond went dry, but the well did not. We had water to drink and sprinkle on the garden.

          Vegetables grew, and we had perhaps a two to three year supply of canned foods. There was meat and produce, sometimes rather plenty, and Momma’s Sunday dinners became legendary.

          Relatives often visited us, they said, to ease our isolation in the Missouri woods, but I don’t believe that. I think it was for Momma’s cooking. Some of the company was quite enjoyable, some much more enjoyable than others. At one dinner, the conversation turned to wild game and its inclusion in menus.

The friend on that day exclaimed her horror about eating such game, “I would never, never eat wild animals! How could anyone eat a furry rabbit? They have ears!”

          Poppa began to talk, he was a big talker. “Well, we don’t eat the ears,” he contended.

          “Oh. But they run on the ground!”

          I don’t know what she thought they might run on—sidewalks? We didn’t have any.

          Poppa added, “Now, I think squirrels are really very good. They mostly run up trees.” He soothed, “Not so much on the ground.”
She was very loud now. “What a hideous thought! Squirrels! They have tails,” she screamed.

          Poppa did not attempt to counter that we do not eat the tails either. She had a few more choice comments to make about the furry creatures with tails and ears and the subject was mercifully dropped.

          Momma was a marvelous cook, pure Pennsylvania Dutch. Cooking was in her blood. She had fixed an equally grand meal that particular Sunday. Mashed potatoes and gravy, snap beans with home cured bacon, cucumbers picked ripe from the vine along with tomatoes, served on a bed of lettuce and light dressing. She had a baked cut-corn casserole made with egg sauce, homemade bread and jelly, mincemeat pie and coffee.

          The guest ate heartily and Poppa for seconds of everything, including the delicious fried chicken.

          “It was especially glorious,” she announced. The lady lifted several pieces over and over on the platter looking for her favorite part. The wings. She asked for wings.

          “Ed,” she questioned my father. “where are the wings? I do love them. Where are the wings?

          Poppa politely replied, “Squirrels don’t have wings.”

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