By Kathryn Trotta, April 2, 2015 – From the time our family moved to our small farm there was always work. I remember always getting up early to feed the chickens and then off to school. After school, I gathered eggs, cleaned them with the sandpaper rolling machine. On Saturdays we cleaned the house, baked 3 to 4 pies and a cake and worked outside on the farm. Summers included hoeing the weed around the crops my father planted.
(World War II CANADIAN WAR CAKE, recipe dates to WWII, when ingredients were scarce)
2 cups brown sugar or molasses, 2 cups hot water, 3 tablespoons lard, 1 pack, 1 teaspoon of each: salt, cinnamon, cloves.
Boil these ingredients for 5 minutes after they bubble. When cold, add 1 teaspoon baking soda to a little hot water and add to mixture. Stir in 3 cups flour. Bake in slow oven. Do not eat until 2 or 3 days have passed as it is like fruit cake.
After the depression years, my mother made sure we had plenty of vegetables and fruits canned for the next year. This required a house garden and a “truck patch” a large garden producing a great deal for canning. Vegetables needed picking, fruit required climbing trees and picking cherries. The field’s borders were loaded with wild black raspberries which we picked for pies and jelly.
When I reached ninth grade I attended the township high school (a two room classroom with a library) still in existents as an apartment building in Lancaster County. I knew I couldn’t go to college if I continued for two more years. This was the same school my mother had attended and only offered education to the eleventh grade.
At this point my mother and I set into motion an application to a city high school ten miles away where I had to pay tuition. Our town of GAP, on route 30, had two teachers who taught Math and biology so those of us who transferred could share a ride with them when they drove to school.
My older sister worked at a local restaurant and left to attend nursing school at the Coatesville Hospital. This allowed me to take her job at age 14. I was paid 40 cents an hour plus tips and worked weekday evenings and on weekend day. This allowed me to pay the tuition for the next two years of high school. Our township was required to pay the last year as we had no 12th grade available. Needless to say, I had the work ethic drilled into me.