I was making some vegetable soup today.The weather is getting just right for a bowl of soup. Vegetable soup is best in my opinion, which if I am going to be the one eating it is the only opinion that counts, starting with 2 pounds of pork loin and 1 pound of ham. As you can image I make a big crock pot of soup. A friend of ours gave us some potatoes from his garden.
I was cutting a few home grown potatoes into the crock pot and it reminded me of a story my mother used to tell. My grandfather was blind. He died when my mom was 9 years old. Grandfather had owned a farm but lost it during the depression. My blind grandfather, grandmother and their children, Fredrick, Waltrena, Willem, Cornelia, Edwald, Wilma, and Marion (I always figure they tired of Dutch names as they went along) had no income and nowhere to live. My great uncle knew a man named Joe Crookham. Joe Crookham owned land. I have been told he was in some financial distress himself.
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| Mom Today |
My Great Uncle talked Joe Crookham into renting land to my blind grandfather 50/50. Half the expenses being paid by the landowner and half being paid by the tenant, All income to be shared equally by tenant and landowner with the tenant providing the labor. It really says a lot about the man the family has always known as Old Joe Crookham, that he took pity and provided a home and income for a blind man and his family.
Anyway where potatoes come into the story is my uncle Freddy always planted the potatoes. Freddie was not into over working. That might have been because his kidneys did not work well and he might not have ever felt well doing manual labor. Freddie would plant the seed potatoes in an old straw stack if he could. He wouldn't have to dig any holes in the ground, he could just push the seed potatoes into the rotten straw with the heel of his shoe. The thing is potatoes love to grow in that environment. While peeling potatoes today I asked Sharon how many potatoes would you have to plant and harvest if your family of eight was going to eat potatoes at a minimum of one meal a day. 365 days of potatoes stored away for the year.
Here's the thing, not far from where my grandmother lived there was a family that was poor. The father of the family did not believe in working too hard. Every year grandma and my aunts and uncles would plant enough potatoes so they would have more than they needed. They would give the extra potatoes to their poor neighbors. I sometimes wonder what kind of a man would take food from a blind man's family. Doesn't matter really, my grandmother not only kept her family fed she helped to feed others also. I think there is a lesson in there for me. No matter how little you may have in the eyes of the world, God will always give you enough to share.
