Those Places Thursday: Michigan Farm Life in the Great Depression, Part 3

Excerpts from the childhood of my mother-in-law, Donna Garver Mosey, in her own words:

“Mom did the milking, since Dad didn’t like working with the twelve cows.  We sold the cream but not milk—we didn’t have the cooling required for milk.  The man picked up the cream once a week.  We had real butter at home, and real homemade bread in our school lunches—which we took with us to school every day if we wanted to eat—no cafeteria in one room schools! 

At Christmastime, we would cut our own Christmas tree from the woods.  Mom made sea foam candy, fudge, peanut candy, and other treats.  Gifts were practical—clothes for school, mostly.  We would also get those old pinball kind of games that you would play on the floor—not one apiece, but one to share for all…  

When I was little our family had gone to church, but we quit going when there were too many kids to clothe and transport.  We went until there were five kids (counting brothers and sisters), but then it got too hard to get everyone dressed up enough.  But after that, we kids were still allowed to go—my dad would even drive us there—and my sisters and I went—Fern and Virginia and I, and Betty when she was old enough.   

We girls didn’t have bikes, but the boys did.  We didn’t do any horseback riding—we only had work horses.  Summer vacations, we worked in the garden and helped with the canning—I liked peeling peaches and tomatoes because you could boil them and the skins would drop right off!...  We always had enough to eat—but it was a lot of beans and potatoes.  I still like beans of all kinds—now it’s a healthy thing to eat.  I’m a “vegaholic” and I like fruit of all kinds.  Of course I like meat, too.  Butchering days were interesting on the farm!

My mother always made a good Sunday dinner with all the trimmings—meat, potatoes and gravy, salad, coleslaw, pie…  We girls once said to her, 'You always cook what Dad likes.”  She said, “I had Dad before I had all of you, and I’ll hopefully have Dad after you’re gone—so yes, I cook what he likes.”  I got the same story from our Fabulous Five with what I cooked for their dad while they were growing up.

8 boys, 6 girls.  Donna is in the front row middle, between her two parents.

I remember the day Doris (the oldest of the fourteen of us) left home.  It was the first time I ever saw my mother cry.   She left to be a housekeeper for somebody; then she met Lawrence and got married.  Charles left next.  He worked for a farmer nearby, the next farm over from his future wife Ellen...  I remember when Forest left home.  A farmer came to the house, wanting to hire a farmhand for milking, etc.  Mom and Dad said, “Forest can go.”  Forest later felt that meant that they didn’t like him as well as the other kids—but probably he was just the right age to leave home…  None of the boys ever had trouble finding work; all the Garvers had a good work ethic.”

Those Places Thursday: Michigan Farm Life in the Great Depression, Part 2

Excerpts from the childhood of my mother-in-law, Donna Garver Mosey, in her own words:

“At school we had a recess at 10:30 and 2:30, and a one-hour lunch break at noon.  Reading was my favorite subject.  I remember what an awful time I had with long division, though!  I could do short division, but not long…  We played anti-over, where we threw a ball over the school house, and “ducky on the rock.” 

I loved to read; I devoured any books that came into the house—books, magazines, my sister Doris’ True Stories and Modern Romance, Reader’s Digest if I could get them, the newspaper if the store man saved it for us, anything I could get my hands on… There wasn’t any library that I remember.   I could spell in those days—not so good now—because we had “spell-downs” on Fridays third quarter after recess, quite often.

I was terrified of speaking in front of people.  Old Mr. Robinette, even though he burned down the barn at The Grove, was still our friend—he was a shirt-tail relative on my mother’s side.  One time they were at our place, and I had a Christmas program coming up, and I had a part, and I was afraid.  He said, “If you get up there and only look at me, you won’t cry.  And if you say your part, and you don’t cry, I will give you a dime.”  And I did it!   

We bought flour in 25-pound bags, or took our own wheat to the mill to be ground.  Mom would make 10 or 12 loaves of bread at a time, in round pans—she could only fit four at a time in the oven.  The recipe was simple: yeast, water, sugar, flour.  Our stove was wood-burning cook stove with a wood box nearby.  Mom was a good cook and a good baker.  She would make pies on Sunday while we were at Sunday School.  We had a few chickens, and she would make egg noodles.  When we had noodles, they were homemade with about a dozen whole eggs and flour and salt.  They were really a treat with chicken and broth!

We didn’t get too many invitations to eat at other people’s houses—there were too many of us to feed!  But my childhood was a happy time, as I recall it.  We didn’t know how others lived, and it didn’t matter.   

I remember laundry days.  Mom had a washboard, two tubs, and a boiler for whites—no washer or dryer.  She had to pump the water (kitchen pump), haul it to the stove, heat the water, fill the tubs, and scrub the clothes by hand.  She would start the laundry on Monday morning and not finish until Wednesday morning.  I remember her hands were raw and her fingers were bloody by the time it was finished…  I don’t know why, but we used to beg her to let us help her scrub the socks!  We would hang clothes outdoors to dry (even in winter)—they were freeze dried, but they smelled heavenly…  Ironing was a family thing.  The experienced ironers would do shirts and dresses, and the beginners would do hankies and pillowcases.”

To be continued…  Click here

Those Places Thursday: Michigan Farm Life in the Great Depression, Part 1

Excerpts from the childhood of my mother-in-law, Donna Garver Mosey, in her own words:

“I was the seventh born of fifteen children.  (The fifteenth one, William, had a bad heart and lived only a few days.)  I was born at home, as we all were.  When a new baby was about to be born, we would go outside to play, if we could, in the old corn crib if it was empty.  There was no telephone, so Dad would go and bring the midwife.   I remember once telling my teacher that when I grew up I wanted to have lots of children, like my mother did.

My dad was a ‘dirt poor farmer’...  One year a spark from the threshing machine caused a fire on the barn with the crop, so there was no way to make the farm payment to the bank.  So we had to move.  We moved into my great aunt Ellen Garver’s house.  Not a great house, but by sleeping three to four in a bed we kept warm. 

After Grandpa Charles Garver died in 1931, we moved into the family home on Adams Road.  The main floor of the house had a living room with a kerosene space heater, and a sofa, and always some rocking chairs.  The first floor also had the girls’ bedroom and my parents’ room.  In the lean-to part of the house it had a pantry and laundry room and a kitchen/eating area, with a dining table to seat twelve and a wood stove for cooking.  The second floor had only the chimney for heat, and that was the boys’ bedroom.  That house on Adams Road didn’t have electricity until the 1940s, and there was no indoor bathroom until 1946, about the time I got married.

 Besides farming 40 acres of land, Dad worked for the WPA in the 1930s, helping to build Route M61.  They built it by hand, with shovels.  He boarded out during the week and came home on weekends.  The workers who had horses got more money than those who had only shovels and manpower, so since every nickel counted, Dad was hired with a team of horses.   

I started at a country school.  It was 2¼ miles there, so some days, my brother Lester pulled me to school on a sled.  Other days, the milkman saw us Garver kids and picked us up and gave us a ride…  After that we changed schools, to the Browns Corners one room school, half a mile closer to home.  That first school, Brand School, closed after we left, since there weren’t enough students without us!

I had a lady teacher at Browns Corners School, and I loved her.  That teacher was the one who put my name in as the one and only student from our school who was allowed to go on a trip the Upper Peninsula by school bus.  We saw Tahquamenon Falls, Castle Rock at St. Ignace, and rode the Mackinac ferry (there was no bridge then).”

To be continued…  click here

Norman & Donna - A Love Story

My father- and mother-in-law met in an unusual way—through letters.  Their story began in 1944... 

War had been declared, and Norman Mosey, a farm boy from Michigan,  was newly drafted into the U.S. Navy.  A reporter for Michigan Farmer magazine did a story about "our boys in the service” and when he asked Norman, “What can we at home do for our servicemen?” Norman answered, “Write us letters.”  Norman had no mother or sisters or girlfriend to write to him, so mail call was probably not his best time of the day.

Donna Garver, working at a factory in Ypsilanti, saw the article. She and her sister Virginia decided to write to Norman. Donna told me, “Our theory was, let’s both write to this guy and see if he tells both of us the same story!”

I have a copy of the first letter that Norman wrote to Donna—it was found in his desk drawer after his death. He wrote, “Dear Donna, I received your letter today and was glad to hear from you. I too am a former farmer. I lived on a farm near Bad Axe in Huron County… I am 19 years old, have hazel eyes, brown hair, am 5’7” tall and weigh 170. I have been in the naval reserve since February 21, 1944... I have three brothers. One is at home on the farm with Father, as my mother died when I was four years old. Well, I guess I’ll close now. Hope to hear from you soon.”

Over time, Norman’s correspondence with Donna had staying power.  Soon he was writing to her nearly every day.  Near the end of the war he was sent home on a 30-day leave, due to the death of his father.  So Norman went home to Bad Axe in February 1946, borrowed a car from his brother, and drove to Ypsilanti to meet Donna.  They got to know each other in person at last—and by the time he went back to finish his stint in the Navy, they had decided they belonged together.  They were married in November of 1946.  Norman was a hard-working and faithful husband to Donna for the rest of his life.

When Norman died in November 2008, he and Donna were just two days short of their 62^nd anniversary.  In a quiet moment that week, Donna asked us, “Do you think Norman loved me?  He didn’t say so, not in words…”  And all of us answered without hesitation, “Yes, Donna, we know he loved you—there can be no doubt of that.”  Norman was of that generation of men who didn’t believe in talking about their feelings.  But he lived them out every day—his love for God, for his country, and for Donna.