Depression?

I am the daughter of a woman and a man who struggled through the "great depression" with their families. I am the granddaughter of a coal miner who left an immigrant wife with 5 children, two of whom were still in grade school, when he was murdered during the "great depression". I am the granddaughter of a pioneer woman who, at the age of 6, lost her mother and was left to cook for and care for older brothers and her father. Her 9 children were grown except for my father who was a teenager during the "great depression" and spent several months in the hospital in Denver with what was then diagnosed as a "cancer" in his leg. He lost a lot of muscle as a result of the surgery and my grandmother and grandfather traveled by horse and buggy to visit him in the hospital, a trip which took an entire day one way. He told me stories of riding the grasslands of northeastern Colorado to shoot jackrabbits for his sister's family so they would have food on the table as there was no work for any of the men. What is so great about this "great depression"? All I know is that they survived and it made them stronger and instilled in us that what we need and what we think we need are two very different things. As I reflect on my childhood, I think we pretty much continued to live as if we were living in a depression. We didn't waste anything. We did without. We wore hand-me-downs. We ate well, but we ate a lot of rabbits too! We recycled, not knowing that we were actually recycling. Mother made a lot of our clothes, and we darned socks. We learned to appreciate everything and learned to save.

I saw a bit on the telly this weekend about Clara, the grandmother in her 90's. Her grandson is filming her and she is cooking depression recipes. Check her out here. She is terrific!! Peppers and eggs, canned peas and pasta and much more. Egg drop soup? Eggs dropped in boiling water she told the reporter!

Women continued to quilt during the depression and we are still quilting today. Make do with whatever you have. Save fabrics from clothes, rather than discard. The quilters I observe are continuing to use fabrics from their existing stashes, however, there is something enticing to a quilter when brightly colored bolts of cotton line the windows and shelves of a quilt shop. Eleanor Burns has a book for quilters..Egg Money Quilts. These patterns are examples of depression quilts. Money saved from the sale of eggs so a farmer's wife could buy flour or sugar in a cotton print sack. These pics are a version of a Sun Bonnet Sue and some of the fabrics are from old dresses, and some are new. I hope to get it quilted this week.

If we are embarking on another depression, and pray that we are not, there are lots of ways to survive. Those cute little bunnies in my back yard had better beware!! I can cook rabbit several ways.