My daddy grew up deprived of both parents, enough food, clothing and a stable place to call home. There were eight children left orphans in 1936 when their mother passed (father died in 1933). Daddy called them Mommy and Poppy. Their ages ranged at 17, 15, 13, 11 (my dad’s age), 9, 7 and the twins were four yo. There was no Medicaid or other means of help other than family, friends and churches. The children were divided up between an aunt, an older brother (18 yo) who had just married and some good-hearted friends. Gardens were very important back then, often the only means of surviving. Daddy said they dug up roots and hunted to supplement their diets, but he often went hungry. I never remember a time that he didn’t plant a huge garden and worked two jobs to support our family. I think he remembered how he grew up and didn’t want us to suffer as he did. He grew corn, lots of it and tried different varieties every year but he liked silver queen and always grew lots of it. He tried growing various varieties of vegetables other than the standard corn, beans, potatoes, squash. He grew broccoli and cauliflower, and many other less grown vegetables. When he came home from work, he headed for the garden and worked in it until dark. We children had our orders to hoe the garden while he was gone and I hated it. Now, I enjoy growing my own vegetables and working in the soil. Daddy passed suddenly in 2000 just a few days after reaching the age of 75. I remember him every time I look out my window at my own garden and sometimes think I see him bent over a tomato plant tying it up.
—Tricia
I enjoyed Tricia’s comment.
I admire her father’s determination to do better for his own children and the tenacity he had to overcome such a hard childhood.
Tricia obviously learned her love of gardening from her father and that reminds me of the influence Pap and Granny had on me. Making a garden every year was a way of life for them and because of that it’s part of who I am today.
Last night’s video: Matt’s Pecking Away on the Shed.
Tipper
Subscribe for FREE and get a daily dose of Appalachia in your inbox
Trisha’s story sort of rings a bell. My mother never knew her mother. She died when mama was 9 months old. Her daddy died when she was 7 years old so she never had a stable home. She said she used to sit under the house behind the chimney and cry because she didn’t know where she would spend the night. Usually it was with someone who had a baby and needed an extra hand.
I am in my 80’s and though we were poor I always knew I had a safe place to sleep. My mother didn’t have it so good. Sometimes we take what we have for granted. We should be much more grateful.
Please pray for my wife and me. I fell in January and suffered several injuries including a torn rotator which was repaired today. I can’t drive for 6 weeks. We both had covid in March which led my wife to fall and fracture 2 vertebrae. She also has vision issues that limit driving. Thankfully we have good friends that will step up and take us where we need to go. THANK YOU
Jackie, I will pray for you both!
Thank you, Tricia, for sharing such a special story about your daddy. As long as my daddy was able, he had a huge garden every year. He couldn’t wait each spring to get started. It was his passion. I was the baby in the family, and I grew up in the garden soil. We all worked together, and he also gave away to family, friends and folks who were struggling to make ends meet. He was a Godly man and a wonderful role model who always taught us that it indeed was more blessed to give than to receive. He’s been gone since 1997 and there isn’t a day I don’t think of him, even more this time of the year.
I enjoyed reading Tricia’s comment. I too admire her father’s determination to overcome his past and do better for his children. I enjoyed reading the other comments left too and their memories. Lots of memories, in good or difficult times, of hard working parents/grandparents and the love, strength, & compassion instilled in people growing up as a legacy to continue being passed on to the next generation.
I am amazed at how much Matt gets accomplished by himself on his shed. The building is looking good. Your tractor has come in really handy for so many different things! That is great that you are going to have that extra storage space. Maybe you could build a sturdy pull-out tray or drawers or larger shelves on the side to help with reaching stuff in the back of the storage loft. That could be phase 2 of the building maybe : ) One time my dad was building a little storage cabinet out of an old formica table. He cut the table top in half for the top of the cabinet & cut two little doors for the front that opened up w a shelf inside and then across the length on the bottom another narrow storage opening that he was going to put a big hinge across the bottom & a magnetic closure at the top so the door would open out. I asked him how he was going to reach all the stuff underneath in the back. They were going to have to get on their hands/knees to reach, wouldn’t a drawer make it easier to use that space? He agreed and decided to put in a drawer on sturdy full extension drawer slides. It was not the prettiest cabinet you ever saw with the old formica top (bright yellow & orange formica & orange plastic door knobs) plus some leftover plywood & leftover gray paint that he used for the case part but it was extremely practical for extra storage. It made me feel good that my dad took my idea : ) and it worked out well for that particular project.
I enjoyed what Tricia shared for todays blog post. Gardening was of such great importance back in ‘the day’ and it was the same during my childhood years – and with how things are looking in our own present time and age, I’m thinking it maybe should make a come back – if one can do so — “the world – she is a-changing…” 🙁 It is good to watch the changes and see how Matt’s shed is coming along each time he can ‘peck’ away. 🙂 Have a great day and weekend y’all – and an early Happy Mother’s day to all you mama’s – and papa’s – and any grandparents in the role of mama – such as my one daughter and her husband are doing.
Tricia,
Thank you for sharing your father’s life story. His hard work openly demonstrated his big love for you all. So precious!
Enjoyed reading Tricia’s comments today. In our generation our parents planted a garden, worked it, harvested it and that’s what kept us fed! I’m thankful!
This essay is so well written, and touched my heart deeply. Thank you to the author and to you, Tipper.
Tricia, I loved reading about your daddy’s ambition, like so many parents of that generation of hard-working men and women. I hated working in the garden too, but I learned a valuable lesson that will last a lifetime. When my aunt’s mean woman-chasing, drunkard husband left her and a house full of children to starve, they survived by raising a garden. When the produce ran out, family members took the children home with them while she hunted wild greens and such for herself. She said I mostly just went ‘hongry’. I cry when I remember some of my family’s struggles to survive.
My dad didn’t grow up an orphan, but he did have a hard life. His father was crippled from a young age, and he had 11 other siblings. They were very poor. He told me one time that a house they lived in “had cracks in the walls big enough to throw a cat through”. They often went barefoot because they had no shoes. He quit school in the 7th grade to help his dad logging in the woods with a horse. I know his mama made wonderful fried potatoes and biscuits, but I think they often were hungry when they were young. He and Mama always planted a big garden full of corn and potatoes and beans mostly. We also had tomatoes and peppers. He made sure that we were never hungry. I didn’t like weeding the garden, which was a chore for us kids in the summer while dad was at work. But, now I love growing my own food—and even pulling out the weeds!
Such a sweet story. Just loved it!
For some, gardening “gets in the blood”, others little or not at all. Reckon I am one that it did. Least ways I “peck at it” but don’t consider myself an accomplished gardener. Every now and then I encounter a beginner and realize I know a thing or two, but never enough to get proud. Sounds much like Tricia’s Dad lived my Dad’s saying, “You can do what you have to.” But “having to” is much about character and holding oneself accountable to fulfill responsibilities. Then afterwards it continues to show up by thinking having done so was nothing out of the ordinary. And it fits Moms to on this upcoming Mother’s Day. Good Moms and Dads are priceless and the world is blessed in their children.
Years ago I worked with a man many years older than me. We were working out of town once and were ordering supper at a restaurant. The server asked if he wanted beans with his barbecue plate and he said “I don’t eat a bean of any kind “. After the server left I asked him why he told her that. He explained that he had grown up in a large family and they were extremely poor. Often he said that they only had beans to eat at every meal. He promised himself that if he could avoid it that he’d never eat another bean.
Thanks, Tipper. One thing I didn’t say about my daddy was that he taught us to help others. He was always giving away his vegetables to others he knew who were having a hard time. He was saved at age 35 and included God in his life and taught us children to love Him. It will be 25 years June 26 that he will have passed this life to eternal life. I miss him so much.
Tricia, I think my Daddy was similar to yours with his ethics. From my earliest memories, both of my parents were Christians and raised my sister and me in a Christian home, we went to church anytime there was a service. He only had a poor 8th grade education. Most times we barely got by, but in someway we managed to have our needs but nothing for our wants. He would give you the shirt off his back if he thought you needed it more than he did. We would often give and take things from our garden to give to needy people. Right or wrong, one of his faults was he couldn’t care less about an alcoholic, he would do anything he could for their family but had no sympathy for the alcoholic. He died on January 20, 1991 at the age of 69, mother died exactly 20 years to the day on January 20, 2011.
In our modern world some tend to forget there was a time growing a garden was a real necessity. Out of that necessity, fior so many, grew a love for gardening passed down from generation to generation.
My mother and her five siblings were similarly left without parents in Salem when she was sixteen. Some went to live with relatives. The oldest brother headed west, where he married and raised a family. Mom was married at seventeen. Her baby sister went to Tamassee DAR School. Mom told us many stories of her early years, helping with the gardening and farming chores, cooking, being “mother” to the two youngest. She told of seeing her first airplane while she was bringing in stove wood. She said she dropped the wood and ran to tell the other kids to come out and see the wondrous sight.
I liked reading Tricia’s story. Gardening was really the main focus of my life growing up raised by my grandparents and aunt. My grandfather worked so hard in the garden until dark every day. My grandmother canned food, lots of it. Some food was shared with neighbors.
Thank you for sharing! I can see it in my mind’s eye as the story is told. It makes me so sad to think of someone going hungry.
I can never remember a time in my life without a garden. I’m planting a small garden this year. I am hoping for more smut on the silver queen to make huitlacoche tacos again. It has become a fast favorite to the liking of morels. Um doggies, make your tongue slap your brains out. So good. I could never have imagined liking something so strange, but boy howdy it’s good.
We just turned over the garden. Our daughter laughed when we said we were planting a small one. I’m hoping to stick to it. Having a garden is like chicken math. It’s hard to have a few… it’s just keeps getting bigger.
Blessings y’all for a wonderful day and weekend. Happy Mother’s Day to all the women and to the all daddies who are the momma too! God bless
I thought more about what I have already, wrote. I was born in 1954 and I have seen many people in my lifetime go from having the pride and character to make it on their own and not taking handouts to being too lazy to work and being “professional beggars.” They depend on handouts from the government and elsewhere for their living. I don’t feel like there is any shame in asking for help because of circumstances beyond your control.
I was lucky to have my parents. Daddy would work and then come home and work until “can’t see” in our garden or doing other things around our home. Mother, my sister and me would hoe and do what we could during the day while he was at his paying job to help him. My father in law would often work 80 hour weeks, and still have a large garden to helped his family of 5 children- all girls. I think of my Granddaddy Kirby and the man he was, he and his two brothers were orphans. He was born in 1888 and his father died when he was one month old and his mother died when he was 3 years old. He was raised by a family in the community. His two brothers were older and raised by other families.