Homegrown

By Jessica Zak 

In the American South today, living near a grocery store is a necessity. In fact, the people of the United States may all agree that a Wal-Mart is needed in almost every town. Fathers make a special trip on the way home from work just to pick up milk, but a short fifty years ago Angela Sherry remembers life to be very different.

 In 1961 Angela was born in a small Virginia town. She was warmly received by her parents, grandparents, and great grandparents; they all lived on the same 300 acres of farmland. From the time she was born, Angela woke up to the smell of homemade bread every morning. Her grandmother was awake before the sun rose making five loaves of bread to feed the family every day. However, before this task was even started, the men would milk the cows at five a.m. Because Angela’s family owned a dairy farm, they didn’t have to physically milk every single cow they owned, but the cows did have to be hooked up to machines that fed and milked each one. Angela reflected on the time saying, “I remember running through the ‘barns’ where the cows were milked. They were milked twice a day, and Daddy used to refer to the milking as ‘five to five’ because those were the times they got milked.”

In this country home there was no such thing as store-bought food. “We would eat wildlife before we went to a store,” Angela said referring to the squirrels, turtles, and frogs that she once consumed. Some typical food her family had for “supper” was cornbread, beans, creamed tomatoes, and corn meal mush. Their protein consisted of deer and rabbit that her father and grandfather caught the week before. Angela remembered “…grandma picking a wild onion called a ‘ramp.’ She would cook it and it smelled so bad.”

In the downtime of the day Angela didn’t have many material things to play with. She and her brother played on the land. Sometimes they got “whooped” by their grandmother for running through her garden, which was half an acre. However, Angela did own one Barbie doll that she received on her sixth birthday. She also grew up without a color television or a microwave. In addition, the farmhouse had no shower and no heat. As a result, when it got cold on winter nights, Angela’s mom would put water bottles filled with hot water at the foot of the bed she and her brother shared. There was nothing her family had that they didn’t work for. 

Although I would prefer a home-cooked meal over anything store-bought, Angela feels differently. She said that when she finally did eat commercially prepared bread, she never went back to homemade loaves. She would rather have quality time with her family than spend time baking. Although her family spent most of their time working, she still feels a close bond. She considers her family to be very united in faith and in each other. “There is no stronger bond than that of tight kin,” said Angela after I asked her how she felt about the unity of her family. Times were hard and family was close, almost as close as your local Wal-Mart.

 Work Cited 

Sherry, Angela. Personal interview. 11 Sept. 2012.




Note: Jessica Zak, who is from Cameron, NC, is pursuing an associate's in fine arts degree at Sandhills Community College.