Growing Up Country

This project tells the story of a woman who grew up in Rural Retreat, Virginia during the time of the Great Depression. The family survived by the external work of her father who brought in the monetary income and by the skills in managing the house of two women, her mother and her aunt.

It was a two-profession household, the kind of division of work and responsibilities that existed before the Depression and paid off handsomely during it. It is the story of women's work in a time before that work was devalued.

It is also the story of a house and the extended family that loved it and still shares memories about it.

Applesauce Cake Pan

I don't like last times. Yet I am fascinated by them. Sometimes I try to think back to when was the last time I did this or that. Did I realize it was the last time? Like, when was the last time Mother made the applesauce cake in the applesauce cake pan? Was it the last year she lived at Rural Retreat with Daddy? Christmas of 1977? When did I start making one for Susan and did I have the pan then? Did I make for my family before Mother came here to live? I don't think I have ever known a Christmas applesauce cake baked in any tin other than the applesauce cake pan.

When was the last time I made the cake in the applesauce cake pan? Had I made the cake last year before I broke my arm? Did someone else make the 2002 cake and my last one was 2001?

It is a tube pan, made of a metal we called tin, but it never rusted. To be sure we took good care of it, never putting it away damp. It was old. It must have come from the old house when they moved into the new. So it must have already had a 100-year birthday.

Christmas 2003

The watercolor at left was painted by the site's author. The vantage point is the top of the 'cow hill' – an unusual perspective in the remaining images of the house and one that shows it embedded in rolling coutryside. Note the shed sitting in the planted out garden and the grape arbor on the near side of the house.