The Depression
It was in the early 30's, during the depression years. We were having a real drought that summer. Day after day went by and it didn't rain. No crops grew, not even the grass. Everything was dry and brown. As we walked across the fields, the grasshoppers were so thick, they would get into our hair and down our necks. There was no grass for the cows to eat, and we had no feed for them. They got thin and gave very little milk. Dad cut down trees in the pasture so they could eat the leaves, but this was only a temporary solution.
The drought never let up. Some friends of ours at Wayside, Wisconsin, near Green Bay, heard of our plight, and offered to take our cows and keep them and feed them through the winter. Since this was a way out for us, we took them up on their offer, hoping for a better season the next spring and summer. They came with a big truck and hauled away our cows, and with it our livelihood. Eight cows was the most we could keep in our barn. One was sold for $8.00, so we'd have a little cash. Their pay would be to keep the calves in the spring. We made it through the winter and in spring they brought our cows back and we resumed our farming. The drought broke and we were back to normal again.
This must have been a hard winter for us, with no income except from the chickens. Eggs were saved up and taken to the grocery store to trade for the necessary groceries. We learned to do without many things, but the hardest job fell on Mother, who had to use her ingenuity to feed us through that winter. As a result, we often had strange things to eat that we did not like.
One such thing was a recipe she brought home from the neighbors, who had 14 children to feed. It was a flour soup, made with flour and water, seasoned with salt and pepper and some butter. I don't remember that she made this very often, as it just didn't taste good. As a rule, we couldn't be picky about our food, but ate what was put on the table.
During one of these depression years there was a milk strike. We couldn't sell any milk, but just had to dump it. During this time, we all drank a lot of milk. In fact, Dad drank so much that he got a gall bladder attack and had to go to the hospital for surgery. We blamed the milk, but it probably wasn't that at all.
It was hard to dump the milk, since the money we got from it was our livelihood. Can you imagine milking cows every morning and evening only to dump the milk? We did skim the cream from the top and used that to make butter. We would take turns shaking the cream in a two-quart jar. If we didn't have money, we at least had plenty of milk and butter. That probably contributed to the fact that three of my sisters have had heart surgery and I have had angioplasty.
One summer it rained all the time. Because of this, our potatoes all rotted in the ground. We had had an exceptionally good summer growing rutabagas, so when winter came and we didn't have potatoes, we just ate rutabagas day in and day out. They were so plentiful that we cut them up and even fed them to the cows.
Since we grew up during the depression years, we experienced many shortages. We however learned to do without, and are probably better off now having had these experiences.