Depression Era Easter Eggs........
A Family Tradition

 

 

Grandmother was a young woman during the Great Depression, that brought poverty to this nation. She was married on her eighteenth birthday, October 5, 1929. The stock market crashed at the end of October that year.

Most of Grandmother's early married life was spent moving from farm to farm, cotton patch to cotton patch. It was in 1932 that Grandpa secured a job on a farm in rural West Texas, near the town of Breckenridge. The farm was owned by German immigrants, Hans and Hilda.

A day or two before Easter, that spring, Grandma went up to visit Hilda in the main farmhouse. As she entered the house, she was surprised to see a basket of beautifully decorated Easter eggs on a small table in the front room, by the window. The basket was atop a lace doily and had a framed picture beside it of a young man.

Hilda was a very prudent woman and Grandmother could not imagine her spending the hard earned pennies of the time on dye for Easter eggs. When she commented on the beauty of the eggs, Hilda began her story.

"Hans and I came to America with our families when we were but small children. We married when Hans was twenty-two and I was seventeen, and purchased this farm. It was in the autumn of the year in 1899 that we were expecting our first child. I had a difficult time but a strong healthy baby boy was born on November 15, 1899. The doctor said that I would never have anymore children. But, we were so proud of our son and named him August, and vowed to each other that we would raise him to be a fine young man."

Hilda continued, "It was when August was about six years old, Hans and I had saved all of our profits from the farm and bought more land. We were in town one Saturday and August spied some brightly colored Easter eggs on display in the mercantile store window. He thought they were the prettiest things he had ever seen. I persuaded Hans to purchase a small amount of dye, and August and I came home and colored some hard boiled eggs. This began a tradition of coloring eggs each Easter and hiding them in the yard on Easter Sunday for the children in the farming community, following church services and Sunday dinner."

 

 

"After August became too old for the egg hunts, I continued to color eggs and display them in the front room, as a reminder of the joy we had all experienced and the many ways we had been blessed. The three of us, Hans, August and I enjoyed them each year and then on Easter Sunday, we continued the hunt for the younger children of the neighbors."

"By this time, August had become a very fine young man. He stood over six feet tall and was muscular and robust from all the farm work he did here. Hans and I were so very proud of him. During the summer of 1918, he decided to marry a nice German girl, Heidi, from a neighboring farm. He built the house you live in and they made plans to wed on Christmas Day of 1918."

"The harvest was in full-swing during the fall of 1918 and Hans and August were picking cotton with the workers from early morning until darkness overcame them. The harvest was great and everything seemed to be wonderful," she remembered.

"One night in late October, August came in from the cotton field and milked the cows. When he brought the milk to the back door of the kitchen, he mentioned that he had the chills. I gave him some medicine I had bought from the peddler and he went to bed that night early and without his supper."

"I checked on August before I went to bed, and he was asleep, all-be-it a fitful sleep. The next morning when Hans went to wake him at milking time, August has a high fever and was unable to leave his bed. Hans woke me and I tried to determine the source of his illness, but could find no cause. As soon as Hans had completed the morning milking and eaten his breakfast, he hitched the buggy and traveled to town for the doctor. The horse seemed to go slow all the way for Hans, when his boy lay sick at home, however, the twelve mile trip into town was made in record time."

"The doctor arrived and examined our August and diagnosed him with the flu. It seems that a great epidemic was going through the country and people were contracting the disease in record numbers. The doctor gave me some medicine for August, but he continued to worsen. Three days later, our August was dead."

"We buried our eighteen year old son in the community cemetery up the road. It was the saddest day of our lives. Hans and I both took the flu, but we recovered. We both would have given our lives in place of our August, but God chose our precious son," she declared, with immense hurt in her voice.

"Sadness clouded our home throughout the winter of '18, and when the Easter Season of '19 came, to remember our August, I dyed some eggs and placed them on the table as I had always done. I placed the framed picture of him by them. August was our little boy and we still miss him. Many children died of the flu, that fall and winter and are buried in the cemetery."

"When the Depression hit on our farm, I didn't know if I would be able to afford the dye for August's eggs. I had noticed how onion skins stained the bowls if you did not wash them immediately, so I decided to wrap the porous
eggs in the onion skins and let them dye the eggs. I secured the skins with white cotton thread and I am still able to enjoy the Easter eggs. I just drop the wrapped eggs into a pan of boiling water and let nature dye them in a beautiful pattern that the skins make on the eggs."

Tears were in Grandmother's eyes when Hilda placed two of the beautiful boiled eggs into her hand and told her to remember August on Easter Sunday. When she got back home, she made some eggs for herself and began a family tradition of coloring eggs using onion skins.

Hans and Hilda both are dead now, gone to join their beloved August, but the memory of them and their son continues each Easter, as the family tradition continues with a basket of beautifully dyed eggs, using the Depression Era dying materials. It wouldn't seem like Easter without them, and they are treasured by each generation, as the story of their beginning is told and re-told each year.

 

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