FEED SACKS

In 1985 when my mother was sixty-seven years old, she wrote her self-published “book” which was simply a series of real stories from her life.  I have often turned to its pages to smile again at her memories of growing up in Kentucky, her life on the farm, and our move to Florida when I was eight years of age.  Here is one of her stories that I recently read again and thought perhaps you would enjoy it too.

FEED SACKS

The Great Depression began with the crash of the stock market and closing of banks in 1929.  We had no stocks and no money in the bank, but we felt the effects of the depression as well as did everyone else.  Prices of all farm produce went to the bottom.  People in the cities were out of work and many of them moved back to the farm to try to grow a part of their food.  Old abandoned houses began to be used again and more students were in schools in the country.  We had never had much money anyway, but things got worse.

We hadn’t enough money to even buy the material we needed for housekeeping and clothing.  One feed company was selling the feed in bags that had a big checkerboard painted on each bag.  We discovered that with enough soaking in kerosene and enough scrubbing with lye soap, the paint would almost wash out.  We began making sheets, pillowcases, underwear, dishtowels, bed ticks, and just everything out of the feed sacks.  If the checkerboard still showed a little, we used them anyway.  Some of the other feed companies began putting their feed in prettier sacks and they took away a lot of business from checkerboard.  Many a pretty dress we made from feed sacks, with some pretty trimming and buttons; we were real proud of them.

One funny story was told of a lady who went to be baptized in the creek.  When she came out of the water, her dress had stuck to her slip and on her slip were the words, “24 lbs. of Pillsbury’s Best” which could be plainly read right across the rear.