My Grandparents

Marvelous Minds

How did they do it? Did they plan it? Did it just happen? How could they have been so prepared? They didn’t have much education. They certainly didn’t have much money. They didn’t know people in power. So how did it happen. I marvel.

First of all they scrimped and saved and bought land. Not a lot. Topmost, I would guess 15 acres. Land on the side of a mountain. It was covered with trees, bushes, brambles and plants of every kind. They scrimped and saved some more. And built a house. More scrimping and saving. They took the children with them and cleared the land. The older children helped, the younger sat on a blanket. They built a cistern, dug a well, planted a garden, and an orchard full of apple trees. Then came a grape arbor, gooseberry bushes, quince trees, walnut trees, cherry trees. They labored over a chicken coop and a barn for the cows. And the children grew.

As the family grew, the parents gave each of them a small piece of land so that all the children and grandchildren had a home in a row on the side of that mountain. I don’t know if my grandparents planned it that way or if it just turned out that way but not many people in those days of the Great Depression were so lucky to have a piece of land on which to build a house.