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
For a little Christmas gift from Southern Plate, please click here.
Merry Christmas from Southern Plate!
Posted by Christy Jordan
on Dec 17 2008. Filed under Holiday Favorites!.
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Wonderful story…my mother was from Pelahachee, MS and also was one of 13 children of a sharecropper family!
You know, less really is more. With one or two thoughtful gifts, we are reminded just how blessed we are. Your great-grandmother’s sacrifice and hard work was shown in every morsel of those cakes. It should be the same now…maybe not so downtrodden financially, but for all of us to realize how blessed we are for the little things, not the loud or expensive toys. Thank you for this reminder
I’ve just found your site, lovely story. I miss all the stories like yours, have plenty in my family too along with a few story telling pictures.
Hope you and your family have a safe and Merry Christmas.
I remember reading this post last year and thought it was just beautiful. And it still is.
[...] 6. A post with title you’re most proud of. I’m not very good at post titles. I wish I was at times but its not something I’m gonna beat myself up over. Still, when I wrote the story of Seven Cakes (which is one I had been longing to write about for years) and it ran in a local nwespaper, the editor chose such a wonderful title that I went back and changed my post title to that as well. So thanks to Jennifer Hill, who came up with a title that says it all. The post also features a little gift for you to print. Read Seven Cakes – Though Dirt Poor, They Had Cake For Christmas [...]
Less really is more! My grandmother made lots of special Christmas goodies, which made the holidays very special in the Depression. My mother was always relieved to receive some gift and every year worried that there would not be one. She appreciated even the smallest gift during the 30′s.
How wonderful the memories are for us all. If we could only remember that magic through out the year. Seven cakes what a blessing that mama gave those children..and here we are being blessed by here years later. Thank you for sharing your family blessings with us all.
Merry Christmas!
My mom made the Chocolate Velvet cake last weekend and it was wonderful!
Thank you for posting this! I’m relatively new to your “Southern Plate” table, but you have already inspired me in many ways! I grew up in Alabama too, and had many meals with grandmothers, aunts, and other extended family. Your stories, posts, and recipes have helped me remember those times, and have inspired me to start slowing down and taking time to cook some of my childhood family favorites. What a wonderful gift you have given me!
What a very touching story! Have a very Merry Christmas and thank you for all you do and this wonderful website!
Thank you for sharing your family with us and may you and yours have a blessed Christmas.
What a wonder, touching story Christy. Thank you for sharing. I hope that you and your family have a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Oh thank you for sharing the recipes..a few of them I have been looking for, My grandmother used to make them and I never seen her use a recipe. Now I am going into the kitchen and start baking and dream of gramma being with me for Christmas.
Thank you Christy! My mama is a child of ten kids so we grew up with stories and cake recipes similar to yours. Funny note… Amazon sent me an e-mail saying” you already purchased two of these cookbooks”. Ha, Ha! Hey, i needed more!
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Merry Christmas Christy!!!
Christy, I pray that you and your family have a blessed Christmas and New Year!!!! Love ya!!!!!!!
Awww, bless them & bless you, Christy. Thank you for sharing Southern Plate. Wishing for you & yours a very Merry Christmas & blessed New Year!
Heartwarming story…oh the joys of the past and memories of our loved ones gone! Sweet sweet memories! I can defininitely relate to your story! Merry Christmas, sweet lady!
There are so many untold stories similiar to yours. Mine is also one of them I am from a family of 11 kids, Plus Mama & Daddy and Grandma living in a 4 room house, with no indoor plumbing or gas or electric heat. We too learned to appreciate the simplier things in life like stringing pop corn for the tree that we cut from the woods, and picking up pine cones. We really didn’t consider ourselves poor because we had each other, and everyone else in our community was experiencing the same type of life. We cooked our meals on a wood stove, and really had so much joy when we awaken in the morning to find Apples and oranges, candy and nuts under the tree. There were no toys, but some how we always had a big Christmas Dinner and that was the highlight of our Christmas, and Mama made lots of cakes and Pies, Jelly cake, chocolate, coconut Cakes and Sweet potato and Pecan pies, from the nuts that we gathered from the trees and had to shell. It was the best Christmas ever. We had less but we appreciated it more. Thank God for family and the values that were instilled in all of us. Merry CHRISTmas to all.
Being together to share another year is our gift to each other. It’s hard for 6 year olds to understand but this story brought tears & a lump in my throat. My husband is one of 11 children and he understands this story.
Merry Christmas to you, Christy and your family!!
My mother passed away this past Apri and she was known in our family and in the community as one of the best Southern cooks aroundl. Her father passed away with a brain tumor when she was only 13. She quit school to go to work to help support the family, as she was the oldest (yet still practically a baby herself!) My grandmother washed clothes for people and took in ironing. Times were so very hard without a man in the house to bring home an income. Mom said they were so poor, they saved the burned bottoms of the biscuits. When they had enough, her mother would make Burned Biscuit Pudding, using a little of the rationed sugar and she said Granny would manage to make it taste wonderful. Later, as my mother got older, she worked as a cook. She had already learned to cook from her mother, but she then did it for a living. My mother passed down so many timeless recipes to me. She worked hard all her life and always managed to help others…family, friends, total strangers. She never took one thing for granted and rarely did anything for herself. I learned to cook in my mother’s kitchen before I even started school. She let me watch and help, then later I cooked by myself. I took my love of cooking to college and got a degree and went into the culinary world as a career. I owe so much to my mother, I miss her so much and she not only fed our bodies, but our souls, as well.
Merry Christmas, Christy, and to all the Southern Plate Family!
Being unemployed this year gives a whole new meaning to finding affordable gifts. There are fleece scarves (fleece on sale $1.25 each) with fringe for my grandkids, homemade pot holders out of scrap fabric for my girls and the best gift of all was sharing 4 days with a variation of different grandkids making cookies. They all kept telling me “grandma, this is so much fun. I love you.” What more could a grandma ask for?
Thank you for sharing with me – the story is so touching and so true of that era. Thanks also for the recipes. I hope you and yours have a very Merry Christmas!
Thanks so much for sharing the story & for sharing your recipes. You are so sweet and generous.
Merry Christmas!!
Thank you for sharing such a special story…brought tears to my eyes…Merry Christmas and Happy New Years to you and your family!!!
I definitely had “stars in my eyes” too as you told that story! My grandmother (dad’s mom) is named Lela too, I have always wanted to tell you that and never remember! She is 93 years young and as wonderful as I know your great-grandmother was. Maybe it’s the name! God bless your great-grandmother’s memory and you Christy and your family. Have a Merry Christmas!!
What a wonderful story. I remember with fond memories the old wood stove in my grandmother’s kitchen that she used to cook and bake on. It was wonderful to drop down the oven door and prop your cold feet on after playing in the snow.
Thanks for this post. I printed out the cookbook and can’t wait to make the cakes.
I’m relatively new to Southern Plate and have really enjoyed getting to know you.
Merry Christmas to you and your family.
Stop making me cry while I’m at work! Jeesh! But really, that was such a touching story. I’ll remember it forever.
Christy,
My grandparents were sharecroppers in Arkansas. And my mother was the youngest of their 8 children. I remember my grandmother and my mother telling very similar stories. My Mother went home to Jesus back in August. She would have been baking all day today for Christmas if she was here. And my favorite would be her Coconut Cake with 7 minute icing and Carrot Cake with cream cheese icing. I am so thankful to have these recipes passed down to me and I’m passing them onto my daughter & daughter-in-law.
I recently got your cookbook and it is definately the way they cooked and I am continuing the tradition.
Hope you and yours have a very blessed Christmas.
Thank you Christy. I pray that you will have a wonderful, touching Christmas as well.
Christy, First of all,i want to say thank you for bringing us southern plate, but most of all,sharing this wonderful story about christmas and to think how sad we don’t really understand the great blessings we have in this day. I was a sharecropper as a child with little at christmas time. I am thankful for that life,because I know now how thankful I should have been then. We have been spoiled terriblly. We need to go back to some of those happy days. May God bless you and your family. I printed all the recipes and plan to use them soon……Thanks again,,
Becky
Christy, you are a beautiful person that God has been generous to share with all of us and I am so glad to have your uplifting spirits in my days! Merry Christmas!
Thanks for the video of your grandmother and the 7 cakes. That brought tears to my eyes as you shared. I know what it means to not have much growing up either, but I am thankful that my husband & I and our daughter and her family are so blessed. I too was born in raised in Mississippi. My hometown is Gulfport.
Lord bless you and your family at Christmas and may the New Year bring you many blessings.
Linda
Beautiful story. Brings back such wonderful memories of my own family. We were poor, but really didn’t know it. Thank you so much for sharing the love of your family.
Merry Christmas to all of you. This is a wonderful place to find food for the body as well as the soul. So thankful I found this site, and I know it was not by accident. We are so blessed!!!!
You brought tears to my eyes with your wonderful story. I also grew up without much…but Mom never let us down, making what she could with what she had. We never knew we were poor and we were happy. Thank you for your memories and wonderful recipes. Wishing you and yours a very joyous Christmas and a bountiful New Year.
Thanks for the Christmas gift. Hope you and your family have a wonderful Christmas and the best New Year!
Have a wonderful Christmas full of God’s blessings!
Thanks you for the story . Some of my family did a cookbook a few yearas ago and I still love reading the stories in it. Have a wonderful Christmas. I can’t kiss my own Mom she has been gone 17 years. so Kisss your Momma for me.
What a wonderful story. Merry Christmas to you and yours!
Have a wonderful Christmas Christy
Merry Christmas Christy and family!!!! Merry Christmas to everybody!
Thank you for sharing your family’s story. I have similar stories about my parents’ families in Tennessee and Arkansas. We are so blessed so with so much today but the most important thing is the love of our families. Merry Christmas to you and yours!
Thank you so much for sharing that, and Merry Christmas to the Jordan family!
Isn’t that what Christmas should be all about? We are way too comercialized today. Basic is better.
Am looking forward to your coming to almost my neck of the woods (NYC), I’m from down South too – South Jersey that is!!! I do hope you remind us again of the date you will be on the Today Show – it’s my favorite morning show when I turn the tv on. Can’t wait to see you and hope you have something special to make for everyone.
Have a blessed and happy Christmas to your whole family.
A fan,
Wendy
Christy, thank you for the story of your ancestors. Sounds just like mine. I remember my grandmother heating big rocks by the fireplace to wrap up and put in our beds at night to keep us warm in winter. I always loved to go and spend the night with my grandparents. Ma,as we called her, would make the most wonderful breakfast. Unfortunately it would be about 4:00 am. She would call out,”wake up, half of the day is gone”. She made it worth getting up early. I do miss her and my Pa.Merry Christmas to you and your family.
My parent’s were sharecroppers and it is a hard life. You have to admire the women who had so little but could could make Christmas special for their familes. My mother is 91 now and she was a wonderful cook who never used a recipe. She could strech a dollar further than anyone! Chirsty I love your recipes because they are so much like my mother’s cooking. Thanks.
Christy, thank you for the wonderful cookbook I just printed out! Just to think, how long her night was for she had no cake mixes all baked – from “scratch”. What a loving mother she was to her children. How blessed you are to be part of this family. Thank you so much!!!!
Merry Christmas and thanks for reminding us the true meaning of Christmas.
Blessing to all your family at home and on the internet. Jackie