Rose vines, tall pines, and other places in the heart by HELEN LEDFORD
Being dropped by the stork on my parents’ doorstep smack-dab in the middle of the Great Depression was, I’m sure, a joyous event. However, little Helen entering the world on that cold February night meant also one more mouth for our already large family to feed! At the time I had nine siblings, some of whom were already working at public jobs. As my Papa’s health failed and, when I was only 4, he passed away, money earned by my sisters and brothers helped keep taxes paid and our farm operating. I can identify with the 1986 movie “Places in the Heart,” for which actress Sally Field won an Oscar. The poignant film was set in a small Texas town during the Depression era. Field portrayed a young widow with two adolescent children who was trying desperately to hold on to the small family farm.
This last year of dark pandemic waters has definitely been a roller coaster of pain, fear and suffering from that ugly culprit, COVID-19, and many have declared they never had it so hard. We have had to make numerous lifestyle adjustments, some desired products have been hard or impossible to get, and a large part of our population (for the first time) has learned to
do without a few things!
From the mid‘30s to about 1940, many in our country experienced despair and severe hunger – in some cases, even starvation. Jobs were scarce, and those that existed paid little. Soup kitchens were everywhere, and people swallowed their pride and stood in lines for a free meal. There were no stimulus checks from the government to temporarily “fix” economic woes. Ours, and
other farm families worked and grew our own food, depending and surviving on our resourcefulness. As a young child during those hard times, I was sheltered from many of the harsh realities surrounding us. Though we were definitely not rich, there was good, home-grown food on the table, and always a few extra pennies, nickels and dimes to spend in town on Saturday afternoons. I suppose everyone has a private “go to” place in our past that cushions us from the uncertainty of the quickly changing and sometimes hostile world. I’ll admit that I occasionally retreat in my mind to childhood locations where there was a deep sense of security. One such gentle memory is of a familiar “haunt” – the cold, mossy-edged spring that was once our only source of water. It served as a “refrigerator” for our milk, butter, Pepsi-Colas and watermelons. The big rocks there were cool
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JUNE 3 - 16, 2021
5/24/21 1:46 PM
The Northwest Observer • Totally local since 1996
