My paternal Grandma canned every summer. My grandparents owned the city lot next to their house in Richmond, Calif. and Grandpa had the entire lot planted with a vegetable garden. You name it, Grandpa grew it. He had corn, green beans, peas, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, beets, carrots, potatoes, cabbage, strawberries, zucchini and every other variety of squash too.
Grandma had a dry cleaners in El Cerrito, Calif. and she did alterations there too. She worked hard all day long, then after dinner in the summer she would can until about 9 pm. She had two big Presto Canning Pressure Cookers for canning. And she also made her own sauerkraut and pickles too. Their basement had two whole walls of shelves filled top to bottom with Mason jars filled with the fruits of her labors.
She also went to fruit farms in Concord and Brentwood, Calif. where she would pick bushels of peaches, pears, and plums, which she also canned and made jam with the plums. She even canned mincemeat, which my Mom adored, said it was the best she ever tasted. <span style="font-size: 12pt;">Her canned green beans were out of this world and every time we had dinner their they were always on the table. </span>
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">And this was a women that couldn’t even cook when she married my Grandpa in 1922. Grandpa had to hire a neighbor lady to come over and teach her how to cook. Grandpa said that his Ruthie couldn’t even boil water when he married her. My aunt told me this was because Grandma’s family was so poor they could affordn’t much in the line of food, other than beans and such, so she just never learned. </span>
Grandma worked very hard all her life. The Depression was very hard on my Dad’s family and really made both of my grandparents old before their time. Grandma was only 72 when she died from congestive heart failure. Too much hard work and poor health care during the Depression and the War took their toll.
Eddie
[this post was last edited: 9/12/2020-18:43]
