Imagine not having an extra cent to your name.

Struggling to live thru the great depression on a small farm was something most of us today could never imagine.

My Grandma told me that the times were so hard. Hard enough that the government issued rations to everyone. Rations for meat, oil, gas, sugar. They had a little book with tickets for these staples. When you were out of tickets, you were unable to buy anything else for the rest of the month. Grandma made by hand, everything that they would eat, and she would make it last through the month. They had meatless meatloaf, apple pie without apples and lots of eggs.

They made sandwiches of home baked bread and lard. They traded their farm eggs with neighbors and in town at the general store.

Buying new fabric at the general store was a luxury that she couldn’t afford.

Grandma used the cotton bags that the flour, sugar, seed and animal feed that the farm needs came in. She worked her hands raw to remove the inked manufacturer labels by scrubbing and soaking them in lye.

When she had them bleached out, would use this plain fabric for everything from underwear to tablecloths and towels.

One day in the early 1940s, Grandpa came home with 25lb bag of feed, and instead of the plain white cotton bag, Grandpa had a bag made of lovely printed fabric! Grandma says this literally changed her life. She was simply tickled!

That day, Grandpa and Grandma went right back to town and purchased several bags of feed made of the same print, and Grandma planned and plotted all the way home. There was enough to make much-needed dresses for their 3 little girls, so she picked a conservative blue and white pattern. Then curtains and even an apron. The leftovers would be used with her stash of plain, white feedsacks to make a new quilt.

So, now Grandpa had to get used to a much longer trip to the feedstore. Grandma  would always try to go with him, and would look thru the bags filled with seed and feed.  to see what new patterns were out, and many a time, the whole stack would have to be moved around to find the perfect fabrics. She said “It was just like picking out new fabric at the general store, it was fun!”

Printed feedsacks were a bit of sunshine in a life that was truly hard.

After the sack was emptied, even the thick string would be removed and put saved (this would end up either as a little crocheted lace doily or added to a ball of string that would be hardened with glue and used for a baseball)

She would wash and iron the cotton, then carefully plan her pattern to get the very most out of it.

It was simply a blessing to have, and she appreciated every inch of it.

She remembers that her neighbors would ask if she had a piece of this or that, as they were just a bit short to make something, and she would share what she had.

First she always made the dresses that were so badly needed, then aprons, table linens, curtains and sun bonnets. Every tiny scrap was saved for the quilting pile. The more thrifty you were, the tinier the pieces in your quilt.

Now when I look at these marvelous quilts from the depression era, I give thanks to God for all he has bestowed upon our family, and for the strength and determination that the women of the depression era had.

As told to me by my Grandmother, Virginia Hartley, b.1914 d.2015