Seven Cakes – Though Dirt Poor, They Had Cake For Christmas
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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Merry Christmas from Southern Plate!
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What a touching tale! Thanks Christy for reminding us what Christmas should be about. And thanks for helping so many of us show our love( the homemade way) for family and friends with your wonderful recipes
What a wonderful family story. Thanks for sharing and for all your hard work keeping us all equipped with your great recipes. Have a very Merry Christmas!
I just love that story! I know you’ve told it before, but this was much more detailed. Just wonderful. Merry Christmas!
My mother grew up in North Alabama many years after the Depression ended, but things were much the same for them! I heard the same sort of stories about going to bed with hot bricks and meager Christmases. In fact, that family photo looks almost just like some my parents inherited from their families!
My family weren’t big gift givers. I guess the frugality was too ingrained in them. But food… boy, food was everywhere at Christmas, especially on my father’s side!
Thank you for the cake recipes!
My dad lived in houses with dirt floors and even a cave at one point. It is such a weird concept to us now days. I think it made that generation have more of an incentive to do better.
My mom would tell me stories of what a treat it was when rich relatives visited and brought them soft drinks. Mom won a dollar from a contest and it bought four bags of groceries for the family.
Now lets talk about how it also made them weary of throwing anything away! The hundreds of plastic shopping bags and empty butter tubs that have found sanctuary with my dad is overwhelming.
What a beautiful story! It helps puts the true meaning of Christmas into perspective. Thanks for the recipes as well.
What a sweet, sweet story! And thanks for sharing your cake recipes too!
I love that you know your family history so well – so many folks these days don’t. Your story reminded me of something I used to do when I was a young girl, something that I hadn’t thought about in years! Back then we only had those tall gas wall heaters in all the rooms, which pretty much didn’t do a lot to keep a room warm and only kept you warm if you were actually standing and leaning up against them! But, in our family room there was a bookshelf that sat over the top of a fake log gas fireplace. The books in that shelf used to get pretty warm so I’d snatch up a big stack of those books and stick them in my bed to warm my bed up before bedtime. Then I’d take them out from the covers and climb in. Every winter morning you could count on finding a huge stack of encyclopedias piled up next to my bed. I’ll bet my parents thought I was one smart cookie LOL!!!
Beautiful, just beautiful.
Thank you.
Steph Oh Steph, thank you all so much for making me feel like I am doing something useful. Every day I am working on Southern Plate is a good day because of all of you. I get the sweetest emails and comments and I cannot tell you how much your kindness means to me!
Laura Thank you so much!!!! I truly love you all.
Stephanie Thank you!! I hope y’all are settled in from your move and ready for Christmas. I’m looking forward to seeing that gorgeous baby in Christmas morning pics on your blog!
Sonya You know, that was the thing, no one really felt all THAT poor because it seemed everyone was poor. I think they were happy all in all, but certainly wouldn’t have minded an easier life!!
The food…boy do Southerners do food at Christmas or what? I think that is especially true now, we’ve come from these generations of people who had to do without and they’ve always felt the big feast was such a special event for that very reason. Its what we have been taught. I hope folks will always remember why it is so special though, and that there were those of us, just a generation or two back, who actually went hungry.
Bill Empty butter tubs!!!! Sour cream containers!! Glass pickle jars!! That’s the FANCY food keepers!! I had to smile at that. Even now, go to my grandmother’s fridge and that’s what you’ll find. Open her cabinets and there will be a little stack of them, sitting neatly atop a little stack of lids. I know exactly what you are saying.
Grandmama used to save coins she got from selling scrap iron. She’d keep it hidden. One day, her brother Albert, found her stash and went to the store and bought a sack of candy. He then came back and shared it generously with all of the kids. They were thrilled, especially my Grandmother – until she found out where he had gotten the money. She said “I just a cried and cried after that!”
Mary LOL What a GREAT story!! I have to call mama and tell her that one!! I’ve been very fortunate to have had a lot of grandparents in my time and a few still with me, so I’ve always been eager to listen in when one of them starts talking about the good old days. Its knowing where you’ve been that helps you appreciate how far you’ve come.
Thank you!!!!
Mike Thank you so very much. I hope you have a wonderful Christmas, Mike!
Gratefully,
Christy
I love this story. It touched me so much. Thank you for sharing and reminding us all that it’s not all about what you get, but about loving each other and being with family.
Thank you for sharing you famiy history with us. It also reminded me of my Great-Grandmother. She rests in God’ arms now, but I do remember her Fresh Apple Cake. I have never tasted anything like since she pasted. My Mamaw could save more from nothing. I mess her so much. Have a blessed Christmas.
This has reminded me of another food-related Christmas custom from another era- getting fruit in your stocking! When my mother was a child, Christmas was about the only time of year that you got fruit, especially oranges! Even though now we can get fruit year ’round, she still puts apples and oranges in my husband’s and my stocking. It was sort of a throw away item to me as a kid, but now that I’m older and more health conscious, I don’t mind it! One year, my husband asked why she did it and I just laughed and said, “To her, that’s just what you do at Christmas!” Last year, I was talking to her. She sounded frazzled and said that she hadn’t had a chance to get to the grocery store to get the fruit for the stockings and would I mind? I assured her it would be fine!
What a great story! It’s nice to meet you too! I love southern cuisine and enjoyed looking at your site. Natasha
Christy,
Thanks so much for sharing your family history with us. My father grew up in Walker County poor as poor could be, in a shack that you could see the dirt through. His father died, and it was him and his sis and brother and mother, many a day he spent in the fields working from sunrise to sundown just for some cornbread and beans if they were lucky. He used to tell me all about how hard they had it growing up, but the love that his mother gave them in what she had to make due with, will forever fill my heart. Dad grew up fast, leaving home at 13 and making his way up north to make money, just to send home, then when he grew to be an adult, he never forgot his younger years. He definately made up for it with us. We had all we needed, and plenty more of what we wanted. But, he never forgot how to spread the love to everyone of us.
I wish you and your family a very special Christmas, and New Year. I have enjoyed your blog/site for a while now, and it brings a smile to my face when I read it. So many things I can relate to when you share with us. Keep up the great work, and Bless you!
What a wonderful, heartwarming story. I can see those children’s faces as they encounter their annual cake-riches.
Thanks for sharing!
What a wonderful story! I was just thinking about what presents I had left to buy and hoping that I get to buy the kids and grandkids everything they wished for. This really hit home. Thanks for sharing this story with us! Merry Christmas to you and your family.
This is a great story, I wish I knew stories of my family history in such detail. My mother told me about bein a child and her house being so cold that they would sleep under so many blankets that you could hardly move and if you moved an inch it was freezing…so you just didn’t move and I am sure it was hard to with multiple kids all sleeping in one bed anyway!! She also told me about cakes being baked and kept in the bedroom where it was cold and she said they would get a big bag of apples and oranges at Christmas and they kept them in the bedroom also!
My mother also didn’t have indoor plumbing until she was a teenager, I think that is the convenience I would miss most if I could go back and visit those times.
I do wish that children and adults appreciated the little things in life more these days, like a cake or a friend stopping by to visit. I am only 30 but I remember that when I was little my Mama and Mawmaw and me would go visit friends or they would come visit with us probably several times a month on the weekend, and now if someone stops by unannounced it seems to be a bother. I miss those good old days!
Does my heart good… hugs to you for sharing such a gem!
Have a blessed New Year!!!