Food Independence on a 1930s Farm

1 / 5
We braided onions and hung them to dry in the cellar. 
We braided onions and hung them to dry in the cellar. 
2 / 5
Fried eggs and frog legs was a special breakfast.
Fried eggs and frog legs was a special breakfast.
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Dad bought a 50-pound bag of red beans for the winter.
Dad bought a 50-pound bag of red beans for the winter.
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Green chili chow-chow was our family’s favorite relish. 
Green chili chow-chow was our family’s favorite relish. 
5 / 5
We slaughtered three pigs each fall just as the first snow fell. 
We slaughtered three pigs each fall just as the first snow fell. 

This account was told to me by my former neighbor, Harold Oliver, who has since passed away. He was a young boy during the Depression, and his farming family had food self-sufficiency thanks to their livestock, orchard and extensive garden. — Peter Kohler

I was born in 1929 and raised on a little farm in western Boone County, Mo. I was 16 years old before I ate my first slice of store-bought bread. My mother baked biscuits from scratch every morning in a wood cookstove, before the family got up. On Sundays, she made a second batch for dinner.

There were six of us kids in the family, plus Mom and Dad, and a stray uncle who wandered in and out of the household. We all spent much of our chore time in the garden. We grew sweet corn, cucumbers, potatoes, green beans, onions, peppers, melons and tomatoes. We had a few apple trees and peach trees in a fenced orchard with a wooden gate. Raspberry bushes grew up and “ruined” a corner of the yard. For a couple of weeks every summer, the red-winged blackbirds dive-bombed us kids while we tried to pick those raspberries.

We kept a milk cow, and some hogs in a pen. There were chickens that would raid the garden plot and wreck some tomatoes, but they also kept the hornworms at bay and the ticks out of the yard.

‘Eggs and Legs!’

  • Published on Jul 18, 2011
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