I was born in July of 1934, and thus my childhood straddled the Great Depression (1929–1941) and the World War II years (1941–1945). The Great Depression caused untold misery for city and country folks alike. When the banks closed, my parents lost the money they had been saving to make a down payment on the home farm, which they were renting. Their income from the sale of milk, hogs, and potatoes plummeted. But unlike many urban people who lost their jobs and were often hungry, farmers almost always had something to eat, because we grew most of our own food. Ma also somehow managed to obtain such staples as coffee and sugar, either purchasing them or trading for them with eggs and other farm produce.
The 1930s also brought severe drought to the West and Midwest, and just as the western and southwestern states suffered through the Dust Bowl, so did Wisconsin. The crops grown on the sandy soils of our home farm were but a shadow of what we produced in years with adequate rain. The hay crop, essential for feeding the cattle through the long winter months, was slight, and the summer pastures that the cattle depended on dried up by August, forcing Pa to feed the cows some of the scarce hay crop. To make matters even worse, a dry wind blew from the southwest, day after agonizing day, filling the air with clouds of dirty, yellow dust and tearing up the soil on newly plowed fields.
I remember a day in the late 1930s when a man stopped by the farm and knocked on the door. He wore torn and dirty clothes and an old felt hat, and he walked kind of bent over. When Ma answered the door, the man said in a low, quiet voice that he was willing to work for something to eat. Ma invited him in, sat him down at the kitchen table, and made him a thick cheese sandwich, which he hurriedly ate.
Jerry and Buster
I had not known about men like this, who had lost their jobs and were riding the freight trains from town to town, in search of work and something to eat. But Ma and Pa had. As Ma poured the man a glass of milk, she told him that he didn’t need to do any work for us. She even made another sandwich and packed it with a couple of cookies to take with him. With tears in his eyes, the man thanked Ma for what she had done. I watched him trudge down the country road, no doubt hoping to find another kind person who would give him food or work.
I do not recall being hungry during the Depression, as we always had a huge garden that we depended on during good years and bad. We did have to make do with the clothes and shoes we had, as every spare nickel—the meager income from our small herd of cattle, the few dollars’ worth of eggs my mother sold and traded for groceries at the Mercantile, and the money from our twenty-acre potato field—went to keep us on the farm, ever hopeful that better days would come.
Ma made do in many ways during those trying years, and no food went to waste. She was a master of preparing leftovers in a variety of ways, from using leftover meat and vegetables in soup to creating tasty hotdishes of many kinds. She used up end-of-season produce in her homemade chili sauce, which she used to add flavor to chili, meat loaf, and casseroles. With bread that was a few days old, she made bread pudding, not wasting a single slice. Likewise, she sewed patch upon patch on our worn overalls and shirts and darned the holes in our socks. Nothing was discarded in those days—no morsel of food or item of clothing wasted.
About the only time Ma didn’t wear an apron was when she went to town for grocery shopping or to church on Sunday. Otherwise, every morning after putting on her dress, she pulled on her apron. It was a full-length affair, with a cloth strap that went over her head and strings that tied in the back, the front of it covering most of her dress. The apron had two pockets in front, large enough to hold a notepad and pencil, a handkerchief, safety pins, perhaps thread, and a needle stuck in a piece of fabric, all of which Ma called into use throughout her day.
Ma would never think of buying an apron; she always made her own, usually from feed sacks. During the Depression years, when money was scarce, homemakers turned these empty bags into practical items, not only aprons but dishcloths and even dresses. Savvy feed companies began printing feed sacks with bright colors, and some printed them with the fronts and backs of stuffed toys. (My first teddy bear was printed on a feed sack. Ma cut out the pieces, sewed them together, and stuffed the bear with quilt batting.)
Jerry with his feed sack bear
Ma had several aprons, some badly worn and thin after many years of use and some newer and more colorful that she wore only when company came. Her apron had multiple uses besides protecting a dress from spills and splashes. Ma gathered up the corners of her apron to tote vegetables gathered in the garden, carry eggs from the chicken house, haul kindling wood from the woodpile, and wipe a tear from one of my brother’s eyes when he fell and skinned his knee. She used it to dry her hands when the Watkins man came knocking on the kitchen door or to dab at her sweating forehead as she worked over the hot stove. If she wanted to capture Pa’s attention when he was working in a field some distance from the house, she’d stand in front of the house and swing her apron in a big circle.
On December 7, 1941, the United States entered World War II, and farm prices that had been rock bottom during the Depression began to improve. But rationing presented a new set of challenges. The government issued ration books to every person, adults and children alike, limiting purchases of gasoline, tires, shoes, rubber footwear, and many food items, including meat, sugar, coffee, and canned goods.
We raised our own hogs and grew a huge garden, so those items were not problems for us. The biggest hardship my mother faced was sugar rationing. She was unable to purchase the amount of sugar she needed for baking, so she turned to an alternative source of sweetener: sorghum syrup.
We grew up to two acres of sweet sorghum during the war years. Harry Korleski, who owned and operated a water-powered sorghum mill nearby, made syrup by running the sorghum stalks through the mill to squeeze out the juice and then boiling down the juice. My mother canned it, stored it in the cellar, and used it in a variety of recipes.
When the war ended in 1945, great changes occurred on farms. That year Pa bought our first tractor. But he also kept our team of horses, as he never quite trusted a tractor to be as dependable as his faithful team. When sugar was again available for purchase, Ma bought two hundred pounds, storing a hundred pounds in our attic. “I don’t want to run out of sugar ever again,” she said. The summer of 1945 was the last that we grew sweet sorghum, even though Ma continued to buy some each year from neighbors who grew it. The family had developed a taste for sorghum cookies.
8 onions
8 green bell peppers
2 red bell peppers
24 tomatoes, cored and cut up
1½ cups sugar
2 tablespoons salt
1 tablespoon cloves
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon allspice
½ cup vinegar
Grind up the onions, green peppers, and red peppers. In a large pot, combine ground onions and peppers, tomatoes, sugar, salt, cloves, cinnamon, and allspice and simmer for 1½ hours. Add vinegar and simmer ½ hour longer. Store in the refrigerator in covered containers.
6 cups uncooked egg noodles
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
2 cups milk
Sour cream (optional)
3 cups diced leftover cooked chicken
1 cup diced celery (optional)
About 20 butter-flavored crackers, crushed
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cook noodles until tender and drain. Melt butter over low heat in a skillet and add flour, salt, and pepper. Stir well. Add milk slowly and stir until smooth. Stir in sour cream if you have some. In a baking dish, alternate noodles, white sauce, and chicken in layers. Add celery, if desired. Sprinkle crushed crackers on top. Bake for 30 minutes.
2 cups new peas
4 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces
2 cups cream
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 tablespoon flour
1 tablespoon butter, melted
Parsley or paprika for garnish
Cook fresh-picked peas in a pan with a small amount of water until just tender. Cook the potatoes in a separate pan. Drain the vegetables and combine.
Bring the cream, cornstarch, flour, and melted butter to a boil in a pan, stirring constantly over low heat. Remove sauce from heat and add to the vegetables. Sprinkle the top with parsley or paprika for garnish.
2 cups flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons butter or other shortening
¾–1 cup milk
Preheat oven to 400–425 degrees. Sift flour, baking powder, and salt into a mixing bowl. Add shortening and blend with a pastry blender or rub in with the tips of your fingers. Add milk gradually, cutting in with a knife, until mixture rounds up into a soft, smooth dough. Roll out the dough ½-inch thick on a lightly floured board (do not use too much flour). Cut out with a floured biscuit cutter. Bake on a greased baking sheet until browned, about 15 minutes. Best served hot from the oven.
Note: For pot pie crust, roll dough ½-inch thick, lay over casserole, and press edges to the dish. Make a slit in the top. For drop biscuits, add an additional 1 cup milk and form drop biscuits on baking sheet. Bake as for rolled biscuits.
6 slices dry (day-old) bread
1 pint cream or milk
½ cup sugar
4 tablespoons butter, melted
4 eggs, beaten
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon vanilla
¼ teaspoon salt
Raisins
“Good Stuff” for topping (recipe follows)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Soak bread in cream or milk about 20 minutes. Add sugar, butter, eggs, cinnamon, vanilla, and salt. Add raisins. Put in a buttered baking dish and set the dish in a pan of hot water. Bake until a knife inserted in the pudding comes out clean, 30 to 40 minutes. Serve with “Good Stuff” on top. (Good Stuff is what the Apps boys called it.)
Good Stuff
¾ cup sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
Pinch of salt
1 cup water
1 teaspoon lemon extract
Combine the sugar, cornstarch, and salt in a pan. Add water and lemon extract. Heat over medium heat until mixture comes to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, stirring constantly for 1 minute. Pour over bread pudding.
1 cup sugar, plus more for dipping dough before baking
¾ cup shortening, melted
⅓ cup sorghum syrup
1 egg
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon cloves
½ teaspoon ginger
Combine sugar and melted shortening in a mixing bowl and beat until creamy. Let cool for 10 minutes. Add sorghum and egg to sugar mixture. In another bowl, combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and ginger. Stir into sugar and egg mixture. Cover the dough and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a cookie sheet. Roll chilled dough into balls the size of walnuts, dip in sugar, and place on cookie sheet 2 inches apart. Bake until edges look brown, about 7 minutes. Let cool 1 minute on cookie sheet and then transfer to a wire cooling rack.
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon nutmeg
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ cup brown sugar
½ cup oil
2 eggs
1 cup sorghum syrup
½ cup canned pumpkin or home-cooked pumpkin
½ teaspoon vanilla
TOPPING
½ cup flour
¼ cup butter, softened
¼ cup brown sugar
½ teaspoon cinnamon
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a 12-cup muffin tin. In a medium bowl, stir together 2 cups flour, 2 teaspoons cinnamon, baking soda, nutmeg, cloves, and salt. Set aside. In a large bowl, combine ¼ cup brown sugar, oil, and eggs. Add sorghum, pumpkin, and vanilla and stir. Gradually stir in the flour mixture, about one-third at a time, until just combined. Do not overmix. Fill the 12 muffin cups to half full.
To make the topping, combine flour, brown sugar, butter, and cinnamon until ingredients are mixed. The mixture will be crumbly. Sprinkle topping over muffins and bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 25 minutes.
¾ cup sorghum syrup
¾ cup brown sugar
½ cup shortening
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs, beaten
3 cups cake flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup milk
Eleanor’s Icing (recipe follows)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease two 9-inch round cake pans. Beat sorghum syrup, brown sugar, shortening, and vanilla in a large bowl until creamy. Add eggs and beat well. In another bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add the flour mixture to the egg mixture alternately with the milk. Pour the cake batter into pans and bake for 45 minutes. Frost when cool.
1½ cups sugar
½ cup water
1 tablespoon light corn syrup
½ teaspoon salt
2 egg whites
1 teaspoon vanilla
Cook sugar, water, corn syrup, and salt in a saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly, until sugar is dissolved. Cover the pan and boil for 3 minutes. Then, to test for readiness, use a teaspoon to drop a small amount of the sugar liquid into a cup of cold water. When it is ready, it will form a small ball. Beat egg whites in a medium bowl until stiff. Remove syrup from heat and pour slowly over egg whites, beating constantly. Add vanilla. Continue beating until it is spreading consistency.
Sugarless Cake Frosting
1 square unsweetened chocolate
½ of a 14-ounce can of sweetened condensed milk
A few grains of salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ tablespoon hot water
Melt the chocolate in a double boiler or in a metal mixing bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water. Stir in half a can of sweetened condensed milk and salt. Stir and cook over boiling water until it is thick, about 5 minutes.
Remove from heat. Stir in vanilla. Then stir in the hot water. Add a few more drops of hot water if it is too thick.
2 cups cake flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1½ teaspoons allspice
¾ teaspoon salt
½ cup shortening
1 teaspoon grated lemon rind
¾ cup honey
2 egg yolks
½ cup milk
⅔ cup chopped raisins
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 egg whites
⅓ cup chopped walnuts
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease an 8-inch-square cake pan. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, allspice, and salt. In another bowl, beat the shortening with the lemon rind until creamy. Add the honey to the shortening a little at a time and beat well after each addition. Gradually add one-quarter of the flour mixture to the honey mixture. Add egg yolks, one at a time, mixing well each time. Add the remaining flour mixture a bit at time, alternating with the milk, and mix well. Stir in the raisins and vanilla.
Beat the egg whites until stiff and stir thoroughly into the batter. Pour the batter into pan. Sprinkle the walnuts on top. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 50 minutes.
VICTORY GARDENS
During World War II the US government encouraged citizens to grow “Victory Gardens” as a way of producing their own food. As many as twenty million citizens, urban and rural people alike, planted gardens in vacant lots and backyards. Gardens were not a new idea for farm people, of course, and my mother never referred to her large plot as a Victory Garden.
Magazines such as the Saturday Evening Post and Life ran stories about growing and preserving garden produce. Just as farm people had done for years, urban gardeners were encouraged to can their own produce so commercially canned fruits and vegetables would be available for the troops. According to the National WWII Museum, Victory Gardens produced more than a million tons of vegetables during the war.