Seven Cakes – Though Dirt Poor, They Had Cake For Christmas
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Life during the depression in rural Alabama wasn’t too different from any other time of year for my people. You see, they were sharecroppers – dirt farmers who didn’t even own their own dirt. They wouldn’t have known if the world had been prosperous, their lives had always been a struggle of hard work and all too often relying on hope for the next meal.
This time of year, there wasn’t a whole lot to be thankful for, other than the fact that there wasn’t any cotton to pick. For them, winter was as bleak as the Alabama landscape. In Alabama, we are not often afforded the sight of glistening snow resting atop hills and trees in a winter wonderland. Here, the sky just gets gray and the landscape browns – bare trees, brown grass, and muddy earth where fields lay in wait for spring as far as the eye can see.
My great grandmother had four children and they all lived in a small shack house. Wood was a precious thing and that meant only heating one room. My grandmamma says “it got so cold at night. Mama would heat rocks and wrap ‘em up in old towels and things to put in bed with us but we still got so cold. You didn’t dare get out of that bed unless you just had to”.
Families would work all year for the farmer in exchange for monthly rations of staples such as dried beans, flour, and the occasional bit of meat. At harvest’s end they’d get a percentage of profits on the cotton, but all of the staples which had been provided for them were then deducted from the final cost, leaving families in a continued state of dependence upon the farm owner for enough food to survive the winter.
But with winter came Christmas, and my great grandmother always did manage to make it special despite their hardships. Lela’s life had always been a hard one. Growing up one of nine children in Jackson County, she had spent her childhood traveling from farm to farm with her parents and siblings, picking cotton and tending to whatever crops the farm owner decided to plant. Now she had four kids to provide a Christmas for and keeping them fed and clothed took about all she had and then some.
But she never failed them. She always came through, especially at Christmastime.
Lela squirreled away ingredients all year long. A little sugar here, some dried apples there, maybe some raisins and a bit of cinnamon. After the kids went to bed on Christmas Eve, she’d set to work. Using only what she had on hand and no recipes to speak of, Lela would stay awake all night baking cakes in her little wood stove. She’d make an apple stack cake, a raisin cake, yellow cake with chocolate icing, peanut butter cake, and so on. There was never a plan beyond that of needing to make seven of them – one for each day from Christmas until the New Year.
The next morning, four sets of eyes would open wide and four sets of feet would hurry out of their cold beds into the only heated room in the house where their faces would light up at seeing the bounty of seven cakes sitting on the worn kitchen table. I know how their faces looked because my grandmother’s still lights up the same way now, some seventy years later, when she talks about those cakes. The kids took turns being the one to choose the cake they ate that day and between the six of them and any company who happened by, they made short work of it and were ready to start with a new one the next morning.
Most kids today would consider having cakes baked for you as your only Christmas gift to be a disappointment. But amid all of the wrappings and bows, gift sets and feasts, I hope your Christmas somehow manages to be as magical as it was in that little sharecroppers house in Alabama during the depression, when four kids woke up with stars in their eyes at finding seven cakes.
Gratefully,
Christy
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Thank you so very, very much for the wonderful story. Brought on tears and many childhood memories. My parents wern’t sharecroppers but, but married during the depression and lived on and off with my grandparents, whom lived in city limits, but at that time could and did raise their own chickens, had a cow and butchered a pig once a year and had a big garden and grape arbor that made the best jelly & grandpas wine. A small city lot with an out house and smoke house too. My dad said sometimes he would work all day for 50 cents.
Sure do miss them “all” and the “good ole days”…….p.s. thanks for the print off book.
I was just able to read your story as our power has been off since Christmas day afternoon. Brrrr were we ever cold and so thankful when it came on this morning.
My mother grew up exactly like your grandmother as she told stories so similar to yours, thank you for bringing back those memories for me. My Mama passed in 1981 and I still miss her so much.
Also, my husbands grandmothers name was Lela and I loved her like she was my own grandmother. She was the only person I had ever heard of with that name.
God bless them all and all of us too.
Thank you, Christy….Hope you had a wonderful Christmas.
With love to you and yours.
Thank you for the reminder to always be grateful for what you are given each day!
Thank you for sharing your story. It sounds like my families story except that it was in north carolina, and the crop was tobacco. My grandmother grew up with nothing, and did not have much throughout her life. But she was the most generous person that I knew. She never complained, and always had a smile on her face. My grandmother died at the age of 94 three years ago, and I miss her more that Words can express. She taught me a lot of important life lessons. I should also add that she was a wonderful cook!
I am so glad you enjoyed the story an that it brought back such cherished memories.
Thanks so much for sharing. I’ve been so busy I hadn’t had time to read until now. A wonderful end to my Christmas. I can relate although I am of a different generation.
But I have to ask – Do you continue the 7 cakes tradition, Christy?
I sure. Hope so.
I do make lots of cakes Judy, and we cherish the memories of our ancestors by regaling in stories that have been passed down from generation to generation every year. I hope you have a Merry Christmas!!
Wow! Thanks for this. It reminds me of the book my Dad (age 82) wrote about his memories, growing up in a coal patch in western Pa. during the depression. Even with the poverty & not much in material things, they had the most important thing a family should have: LOVE…. God bless you, Christy! And may your family have all the LOVE you need this new year!
Thank you for sharing Laura!! I hope you have lots of love and blessings this new year as well!!
Christy, your story touched my heart. My father in law; who we were blessed to have live with us for 30 years until he went to heaven; used to tell us stories of how they used newspaper to stuff between the shack walls to try to keep out the wind; and how many mornings he and his brothers and sisters would wake up and have to shake the snow off the cover before getting out of bed. He also lived in the share cropper house; and life was so hard. We had our own share of hardships when our boys were little; I was very sick and we were so poor; but God answered our prayers, and I am still here and they are all grown; and I want to thank you for reminding us all how fortunate we are even if all we can say we have is one another. Your Tennessee friend, Barbara
And when all you have is each other, you are blessed beyond measure! I hope you had a very Merry Christmas and may you be blessed beyond measure in the coming New Year Barbara!!