Home » Mind & Soul » Prophecy » Old Roanie

Old Roanie

© Florence Cardinal

THE THIRTIES

The thirties--the Great Depression. People look back on those years almost with fondness now. They were a time of testing, a time for tempering steel already toughened by pioneer life, a time when people had to become strong or else become too brittle and break. Farmers who had nothing all their lives suddenly found themselves with less. The one advantage of living on a farm during the Depression was the food situation. At least we had our own eggs and meat and garden produce. But things were rough otherwise. The basic foods we could no longer afford from the store had to be forgotten or substitutes found. Dad ground our own wheat into flour and cereal. Dad was raising pigs at the time and the old sow farrowed in the spring, blessing us with twelve healthy piglets. By the time fall came, the pigs were no longer a blessing. No one would buy them. Dad couldn't even give them away.

Winter was coming on and feed was scarce, He had no choice but to butcher the litter. Mom canned some of the meat, but, with no freezer and most of her jars filled with vegetables from the garden and wild fruit she had preserved, a lot of the meat was wasted. It was a tremendous loss of cash that Dad had been counting on for necessities.
Me & Roanie - 1939

Cash became so scarce that Dad decided to sell old Roanie. She was a gentle cow, and had been in the family ever since Dad and Mom were married. She had been, in fact, a wedding present from my grandparents.

But she was getting old. Soon her usefulness would be over and she would be unable to give us any more calves or milk. Much as he hated to do it, Dad decided to ship her to the stockyards in Winnipeg to get a little money.

The next time Dad heard of old Roanie, it was through a letter from the stockyards. Sometime during the trip, our poor old cow had lost her footing and been unable to get up again. She had been trampled to death by the other cattle.

Instead of a check, there was a bill of lading for the shipping charges.

The copyright of the article Old Roanie in Prophecy is owned by . Permission to republish Old Roanie in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.