Letters From The Past - Number 3

Dear Family and Friends,
Well it’s been a while since I wrote to you and I know you’ve wondered what in the world I was doing. I’ve been busy here in Arkansas, making some quilt tops, going to physical therapy (arthritis you know), going to church, just regular stuff I guess. But it sure seems like there’s been more regular stuff lately!

I have to tell you about the most wonderful thing. Back in 1971 my Grandma and Grandpa A. (my daddy’s parents) were interviewed by someone from the University of Texas about the depression and how they lived during that awful time. Grandpa was 78 and Grandma was 71 when they were interviewed. I think the interviewers (there were 2) were maybe working on a doctoral dissertation or doing some research about the great cattle kill during that time but whatever it was they never published it. However, that interview was tape recorded on one of those little cassette tape recorders everyone used in those days and it still exists! One of my cousins discovered that information and the fact that the UofT Library would make a CD of the interview for $25. So of course my sister sent the money and we got that CD back pretty quick.

It’s so good to hear their voices! The main interviewer is talking to Grandpa but in the background you can hear Grandma answering the questions and elaborating on the answers to the other person there. She did that all the time – answered for Grandpa – and told lots of details about anything she was telling you. I remember that when I was growing up if you asked her a question you got a really long answer…and you didn’t even have to ask because she just loved to talk! My sister says that she is just like Grandma – she said that, I didn’t!

They got married when Grandma was 16 and Grandpa was 23. Her daddy didn’t want her to have anything to do with Grandpa so they ran away in the night (she climbed out the bedroom window and got in his wagon and off they went!) They lived with Grandpa’s Granny for a while. He was raised by his grandparents because his parents separated before he was born. When they got married they didn’t have even one thing to set up housekeeping so Granny helped Grandma make a mattress. They went out to the barn and got some tow sacks. Those are burlap sacks that cattle feed came in. They took those rough old burlap sacks apart and sewed several together. Then they went out into a field and pulled up sweet grass and filled up that mattress. And that was what they slept on. When the corn crop came in they took the grass out of the mattress and filled it up with corn shucks. I think the corn shucks made it thicker and they lasted longer than the grass. Tow sacks looked kind of like the ones in this picture that I found on Flickr.

They only had a little bit of money and they ran out of soap but didn’t want to spend their little bit of money on that! So Granny said she could make soap. Grandma wasn’t sure about that because they didn’t have anything to make soap with (you need lard). But Granny went out into the far pasture and gathered up old bleached out bones from cows that had died or been slaughtered years before. She put those bones and some lye and water into a wash pot and boiled them. It turned into a jelly like soap that Grandma said was the best soap they ever had. It cleaned up those clothes pretty and white! Here's a recipe I found on Flickr for lye soap.

During the depression the government was trying to drive up the price of cattle on the market, I guess to “stimulate the economy” or something, so they offered to buy cows for $25 a head. You put them in a truck and drove them to the designated place and the government man paid you $25 for any cow that was standing. If it couldn’t stand up he wouldn’t pay for it. Good cows, bad cows, sick cows, didn’t matter because the price was the same for all of them. Once they were counted you had to take them off the truck and shoot them. That’s right, shoot them. At first they would let you skin them and keep the hide which you could sell for $1. But later they wouldn’t even let you do that. And no one could have them to eat. They just rotted in the fields. I keep thinking of all the soup kitchens and the hungry people and they made them leave that good meat laying there to rot. I bet there were lots of bones in that field that Granny could have used to make her soap!

Well I’ve rattled on and on today and now it’s time to go. I’ve got some sewing to do today and bread to make and I need to clean out the refrigerator. A woman’s work is never done! Till next time…

Peace and Blessings,

Marlene