We had cracklin’ cornbread, mush, spoon bread, and grated bread. My daddy had a big old piece of tin and he drove nails in it, and he’d hold it over a plank and he’d rub that corn up and down over that and grate it. That’s how you made the bread.
My mother set out two orchards—the paying orchard and the pleasure orchard—and we dried fruit. We dried apples and my daddy had tin and we’d just cover it over at night, cover it with another pice of tin and put pieces on two by fours—that dried it. She was a hard-working woman and she had twelve children. And there were two of them that were dead at an early age, and she raised the other ten. I remember how she would go bring in tomatoes with baskets, and we had lots of company, and we cooked on an old wood stove. We had a fireplace; we cooked a lot on the fireplace. We did finally get a stove. She sold a wagon load of chickens to buy her a stove. It was drawn by horses and they had beds on the wagons and they covered it over. There was a wagon full of chickens to get a stove.
We raised corn and would gather it in, and my daddy would help shuck it. He could sit and shuck corn, and then we had to sell it. We sold it for thirty-three and a third cents a bushel. We sold three hundred bushels for one hundred dollars. We had a hard time. I made soap, lye soap. The soap was soft, and sometimes I’d lay it out on a plank with paper under it, and it would dry. We washed with it. We had big old pots, and we’d boil our clothes in them near the spring. We’d boil the clothes and punch them with a punching stick. I washed for other people. My younger sister was going to quit school. I had some washing then, and I had her to help me wash. She never wanted to quit another day. She went on to school. She graduated. She was having a good time compared to what I had.
Lillian Hooper – “Mountain Voices” by Warren Moore
I hope you enjoyed Lillian’s memories as much as I do. Such a hard life she described. I admire the way her family worked together for the good of the family.
This is the time of the year folks start preparing for the growing season ahead with their eye on the garden bounty they will preserve for future use. I know there are many folks thinking about the first fresh tomatoes, corn, and even apples this summer will bring. I am and I’m sure thankful for the modern conveniences I have to help me cook and preserve it.
Last night’s video: Mountain Talk, Wild Men & Sad Biscuits.
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Hello Tipper, I’m a new subscriber and love your blog. We had an apple tree nearly 50 years ago, we moved and till this good day I can’t remember what variety of apple it was, when I opened this April 10th edition there was the picture of the apple like we had, I believe it’s the best apple I ever ate, please let me know what kind of apple it is, I have looked for years trying to find that variety. Thanks a million
Betty
Betty-So glad you are enjoying the blog! That is an Early Harvest apple. I took the photo at John C. Campbell Folks School in their orchard 🙂
I really enjoyed Ms. Lillian’s story!
It reminds me so much of how my Grandaddy (my mama’s daddy) was raised. They came up hard as well, my Grandaddy’s name was Lawrence he was born June 11th 1921 and he had to quit school when he was in the 3rd because his daddy died not long after he was born and then his oldest brother was killed actually while saving my Grandaddy’s life when the trailer they were riding on being pulled by a tractor was sideswiped by a truck, when my Grandaddy’s brother reached over to knock my Grandaddy backwards onto the trailer out of harms way the truck drug his brother off the trailer and he was killed.
My Grandaddy shared with his kids & us grandkids about how he had to plow a mule from sun up to sun down in the summer for 50 cents a week, and the equipment/harnesses was too big for him and kept failing to the ground.
But he made it through the Great Depression taking care of his family as the oldest of his family after losing his daddy & older brother and shared many more stories with us through the years. I passed away on Christmas Day 2015. His work ethic was handed down to many of us kids and for that I’m very grateful. Sorry for the long reply, just felt led to share some of my Grandaddy’s life story. I’m thinking about sharing a video about him on my YouTube channel
Thanks Miss Tipper.
This story reminds me of how my daddy grew up. There were ten children in his family and all they knew was hard work. When my grandpa fell ill, the oldest children had to quit school if they were to survive. They had to do all the work in the fields, and whatever needed doing at the house if granny couldn’t. It instilled in my daddy a hard work ethic also. Daddy always planted a garden way too large but the joy he had from it I can still see on his face. He gave away a lot, but he made sure we had plenty. I remember when he ended up in a nursing home, the workers would sometimes let a few sit outside in their wheelchairs at the front of the building. Well, one day he rolled his to the street and thankfully they got to him in time. They asked him where was he going? He told them he was going home to plant his garden.
Gloria- I enjoyed hearing about your daddy!
Why is it that when we hear of someone living life as Lillian Hooper did, our hearts yearn for that to be our daily way, too? Yet, when we lose power for any length of time longer than 30 seconds, we are pacing the floor bemoaning having no heat or a/c, and how are we going to fix a meal now without a range top, and what are we going to do with our time while waiting for the power to come back on, and has it really only been off for five minutes? It seems like a full day already. I definitely am one of these types of people. I envy the life of a lady who had no other option but to work hard everyday just to do the basic chores of what had to get done. If I had never had the luxury of turning on the faucet in the kitchen sink for immediate water, I wouldn’t know any other way but to go to the well and bring a bucket of water inside. I wouldn’t waste so many precious seconds of my full day doing unimportant things. My time would be managed so much better, I would feel tired at the end of the day for a real reason, and I would feel extremely accomplished instead of irritated at all the interruptions that technology throws at me all day long – business meetings and phone calls, emails that have to be answered, cleaning out the congested lint in the dryer vent hose so the clothes can dry in an hour, etc. I would just hang my clothes outside on the line and pray a bird didn’t leave a calling card on any of it – that would be a much simpler fix than wresting with the vent hose by yourself. I love hearing about other’s lives that was not as soft and easy as mine is today. Does it make me appreciate my modern life? Not all the time. I love the feeling you get after working hard. And I love being able to say I did something all by myself. And I feel so satisfied when my to do list is all the way crossed off at the end of the day. But —- spoiled me really loves her play time everyday, too. So, like you, Tipper, in the end – I am very happy with my modern conveniences, they honestly do make my life easier.
Donna. : )
To go along Ed’s comment, we also had frost on the windshield and rooftops this morning-37 degrees and the forecast for tonight is a couple of degrees colder. I didn’t cover up my taters planted from grocery taters with eyes on them. I have got a good stand and will see what they do. It won’t be long before we start planting and setting out out tomatoes. A lady with two green thumbs and a third one in her back pocket told me to try this last year with my tomatoes. She puts a couple of either Rolaids or Tums tablet under each of her tomato plants when she sets them out to help prevent blossom end rot. I did this and did not have any tomatoes with end rot and will be sure to do it again this year. I have also heard of using dry powdered milk, I guess anything with calcium will do. The lady I mentioned and her husband can and freeze all of their vegetables, hundreds of jars and several freezers of vegetables and deer meat each year.
Randy, The weather channel said it was 29º just up the road at Morganton at 8:00 this morning. I didn’t have to scrape ice because I wasn’t going anywhere.
I put powdered up egg shells in the hole I plant my tomatoes. Egg shells are almost entirely calcium. I wash out the shells I use and put them in the oven after I bake something. That dries them out enough that I can use the bottom of a wine bottle to beat them to a powder. I don’t drink wine but I found a long skinny bottle in the trash that I cleaned up and use for a rolling pin and to crush egg shells.
Eggs are very expensive now so I’m trying not to waste any part of them.
Ed, I will save me some egg shells and give it a try. I think anything with calcium will work. I sometimes buy eggs from my neighbor , she has a mixture of chickens that her two boys help take care of and she will give them the money she gets from her eggs. She has some chickens that will lay eggs with a greenish colored shell and I tease her and tell her they are buzzard eggs. Two buzzards were in her yard one morning last week and I have been giving her down the road about them. Her eggs prove a point, they will have different color shells but when you crack them and pour them in a bowl you can not tell the difference between any of them, they all look the same. This girl, now a grown lady, was my daughter’s close friend.
I am a descendant of Hoopers and others that that lived like that. Some of them still lived that way even as late as my teenage years. I remember visiting a great grandmother many times and seeing her sweep her dirt floor and yard with a homemade broom. I visited others with Dad to get apples to haul to towns to sell. I don’t know if this Lillian was among those relatives or not. I just vaguely remember names of some of the women folk since Dad and I mostly worked and hunted with the men. If you can find out her husband’s name and/or the names of some of the children it might jog a memory.
Tipper, you ain’t a’kidding about being thankful for many modern conveniences. But many more things seem to be gone -maybe because of this very thing. I bet your plants are coming right along. I hope to start my seeds this week. Remember last year I did weird stuff like flour on tomatoes to get rid of aphids. Thanks Google for the kiss of plant death. Lol. I’m calming down. Watching, listening, learning, relying on the man upstairs… I need cookbook details woman!!! I can’t wait and I hope maybe you put a canning section in there. (Maybe an idea for future books.) take care and have a good one!!!
God bless you in Jesus name
My family is one of about six that were original settlers in this area, but they didn’t get here until about 1915. Prior to living here they’d been Northwest of here at Estevan Point lighthouse. My Dad told me a story about his mother, My Grandma Kate, She was a resourceful woman. She’d gone over to the store for supplies but she couldn’t get meat (no refrigeration up there then) She was paddling her canoe back down the inlet from the store and saw a deer swimming. She got alongside it and walloped it on the head with the butt of her canoe paddle. She knocked it out and she carried a knife, slit it’s throat and tied it to the back of the canoe. They had meat for supper that night and many nights afterwards. I know it’s a true story because I have the canoe paddle with a chip out of it from hitting that deer
What great memorable stories Lillian Hooper had to share with Warren. There were a couple of parts that reminded me of stories my mom told us kids about her life growing up. However, they never sold chickens to buy a stove. That had to been a big chore keeping all them chickens in a wagon. I can imagine her siblings could have added some extra funny tales about that day of buying the stove with a wagon full of chicken!
Sturdy stock sounds like. Just met and mastered problems as they came using in part (as I have heard said) main strength and awkwardness. No time for, nor inclination to, feeling sorry for themselves. I do think country folks could return to mostly self a sufficiency if the need happened gradually and not suddenly.
A story of survival when all the odds seemed to be stacked against the family. I think this story also points out the value of the family unit. The parents seem to be hard workers and good teachers.
We had a big frost here this morning. Looked like snow on the rooftops! I don’t have anything planted but a lot of people “jumped the gun” and are wishing about now they had waited. I saw taters Saturday that were 5 or 6 inches tall. You can pull dirt up over your taters to protect them but the dirt here yesterday was all mud. Besides that 6 inches of dirt is a lot of work.
I remember my mother and grandmother putting up vegetables from their gardens and daddy helping when he came home each day from work. They would make jelly from any type of fruit they could find. Mother would always make citron preserves from volunteer citrons that would back up each year- my favorite preserves. Each of them would make jelly and dry apples from a tree they called a horse apple tree. They would dry the apples on a piece of galvanized roofing tin and then store them in a white pillow case and put sassafras twigs in with them. I also remember grandmother washing and boiling clothes in cast iron wash pots and sometimes taking the clothes to the creek and rinsing them out in the creek. I guess some of today’s health experts would say the apples will kill you if they were dried on galvanized tin. I am still here after eating them over 60 years later. I also knew a family that had 12 children, now only 2 still living.
I bet they called it the Chicken Stove. I would have loved to see that wagon load of chickens and the stove she traded for them. Great story! Sounds like hard times but it would appear that they did better than a lot of folks. I know they needed a lot of younguns back in those days to help on the farm but 12 kids. Wow that’s a whole passel of mouths to feed.
I had the best childhood livin just like that when I woul go stay with my great grandma Mammy. In Eaton Holler, Beechgrove TN. I also gained an amazing appreciation for my life as I look back I was poor but ever so fortunate with the abundance of family, hard work, and a peaceful domain to live in. I now own that very farm and lived there when I was in college. I had a skeleton key to the door. Only a wood stove for heat. My little girl was 3 years old. I only took classes when she went to preschool in town. What a beautiful life!!