Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression
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- ISBN13: 9780553384246
- Condition: New
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Product Description
I tell of a time, a place, and a way of life long gone. For many years I have had the urge to clarify that treasure trove, lest it vanish forever. So, partly in response to the basic human instinct to share feelings and experiences, and partly for the sheer joy and excitement of it all, I report on my early life. It was reasonably a romp.
So starts Mildred Kalish’s tale of growing up on her grandparents’ Iowa farm during the depths of the Fantastic Depression. With her father banished from the household for mysterious transgressions, five-year-ancient Mildred and her family tree could easily have been overwhelmed by the challenge of simply trying to survive. This, but, is not a tale of suffering.
Kalish counts herself among the lucky of that era. She had caring grandparents who possessed—and fearlessly tried to impose—all the lead the way virtues of their forebears, teachers who inspired and befriended her, and a barnyard full of animals ready to be tamed and loved. She and her siblings and their cousins from the farm across the way played as hard as they worked, running barefoot through the fields, as free and wild as they dared.
Filled with recipes and how-tos for everything from catching and skinning a rabbit to preparing homemade skin and hair beautifiers, apple cream pie, and the world’s best head cheese (start by scrubbing the head of the pig until it is pink and clean), Small Heathens describes a world of hardship and hard work tempered by simple rewards. There was the unsurpassed flavor of tender new dandelion greens harvested as soon as the snow melted; the taste of crystal clear marble-sized balls of honey robbed from a bumblebee nest; the sweet smell from the body of a lamb sleeping on sun-warmed grass; and the magical quality of oat shocking under the light of a full harvest moon.
Small Heathens offers a loving but realistic portrait of a “hearty-handshake Methodist” family tree that gave its members a remarkable legacy of kinship, kindness, and remembered pleasures. Recounted in a luminous narrative filled with tenderness and humor, Kalish’s memoir of her childhood shows how the right stuff can make even the bleakest of times seem like “reasonably a romp.”
From the Hardcover edition.
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Unless you want to read a name else’s grandma’s diary, pass on this one. It’s entertaining if you are interested in the midwest during the depression (from one person’s perspective) but I just couldn’t end it.
Reader’s Rating: 2 / 5
This buy was made for the purpose of a Christmas gift. I had no difficulty locating the item and I appreciate the prompt manner of language of a product in brilliant shape. Thank you.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
This book was very disappointing. I had read reviews that lauded its descriptions of the Fantastic Depression. As a replacement for, it was a tedious recounting of all the ways life was different then than now. (“We place the wash in the bucket…Then we brought a larger bucket in from the barn. Then we turned the door knob…Then the Huge Kids filled the large bucket with hot water…).
We can appreciate that life was different 70+ years ago, as it will be different 70 years from today. But I wanted to know what it felt like when no one had money, when a fantastic war was approaching, when people were leaving their homes for greener pastures.
I’ll have to find a different book.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
I bought this book because it is about children who grew up during the depression and I was born towards the end of the depression, not in Iowa but in Maryland. It is appealing to read of their experiences and to compare them with my own.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
I just saw this Leader at our local library. She was a doll and I wish I could sit down with her and chat all afternoon! The book was from the heart genuine and simple to read. I wish I could click my heals and travel back to life when it was simple and honest and people were REAL… What a clean time to grow up in…READ IT and dream!
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5