Feeding a Family

In the late 1950’s and early 60’s, money was tight at our house. Daddy worked at Southern Extract, a paper mill, and Mother had begun her teaching career when my twin Jim and I began first grade in 1958. Still, the income was thinly stretched to meet monthly expenses incurred by our family. It was a time that demanded creative thinking in many areas. One concerned food for the family.

Like many families in the Ball Camp area, we had a vegetable garden. Half of our back yard was plowed, rows of corn, potatoes, and beans were planted. In side areas, Daddy put out onions and peppers. He also had a strawberry patch. Jim and I were sent to pull weeds from the garden. When produce came in, we shucked corn and broke beans. Potatoes were spread out on the ledges of our unfinished basement. Mother sweated over the stove as she prepared vegetables for canning and freezing. She also preserved blackberries, grapes, and strawberries, as well as making jellies from them.

Daddy decided to cut expenses by raising chickens. We got the eggs for breakfasts. On some Saturdays, he’d come out the back door, walk to the chicken coop at the edge of the yard, and grab one of the chickens. He’d wring its neck and take the carcass to Mother. She’d pluck it, cut it up, and, on Sunday, make some of the best fried chicken that ever floated in Crisco.

At some point, our parents made an investment in a chest freezer. It was so big that it occupied one whole corner of the bedroom Jim and I used. It hummed as it ran and put off enough heat to make sleeping in the summer sometimes impossible. Mother stocked part of the appliance with the vegetables and fruits she prepared in the summer.

We carried our lunch to work and school each day. A loaf of bread didn’t last long. Daddy saved money by visiting the bread store each payday. He’d load our ’54 Chevy with loaves of day-old bread and a variety of snacks such as fruit pies, jelly rolls, and raisin or banana cream-filled cakes. When he got home, Daddy loaded the freezer. Our sandwiches sometimes had a bit of freezer-burn taste, and on occasion, the cakes or pies were still frozen as hard as rocks when lunch time came around.

One year Daddy bought to calves and enclosed them with electric fence in one section of the yard. They became pets to us, and we were distraught one day when they no longer were there. Not long afterward, Daddy came back from Herron’s with the trunk of the car loaded with all sorts of beef wrapped in white paper and labeled. Jim and I were upset and asked him if he’d had the two calves slaughtered. He told us no. Instead, Daddy explained that he’d “traded” the calves for an equal amount of meat. We bought the story hook, line, and sinker and ate the meat at mealtime. It was only later that the truth—that we’d eaten the calves we'd named—was told to us.

Our family survived, and we boys ate well, as is apparent in photos of two rotund boys with buzzed haircuts. Our parents worked hard to earn a living, and they worked even harder to provide food for our table. I wish I could tell them both thanks.