‘Possum for Supper is one of the stories in Chapter 5 of The Immigrant and the Outlaw: A Collection of Stories from America’s Heartland. It’s such a compelling episode of a family struggling with enough to eat during the Great Depression.
I loved reading the letters written by younger siblings to their older “Navy boys,” with their comments about having ‘possum and sweet taters.
‘Possum for Supper
When I think about someone having to eat a ‘possum or ‘coon, I think of poor folks in the Deep South.
But from old family letters, I learned that my mother’s family–from Dexter, Iowa–ate both during the Great Depression. At least two family members enjoyed it.
Clabe and Leora Wilson had seven children. There were three more babies, but twins Jack and Jean succumbed to whooping cough in 1929 when all nine kids came down with it. The last baby, Marilyn, died of a weak heart. So seven of them grew up together.
Clabe and his sons trapped and hunted. The family mostly ate squirrel and rabbit, supplemented with whatever they could grow in their big garden.
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Because of the Depression and their father having no steady job, the two oldest brothers–Delbert and Donald–joined the Navy. Not only were they kept out of trouble, their bellies were kept full and they could sometimes even send home a five dollar bill which was a real god-send to the Wilsons.
Because of the boys in the Navy, Leora Wilson saved all the family letters.
Dec. 4, 1935, Dexter, Iowa. From Leora on her 45th birthday: “My, what a wonderful present from my Navy boys! thanks a lot, boys.” They had sent a card and some candy. Leora’s mother had sent her $1.”
“We had roast coon 2 years ago today, remember? You caught the last one on Dec. 3rd and the folks [her mother and brothers from Omaha] and surprised me, but the next day was the 4th and we had that nice fat coon.”
Four days later, their brother Dale, age 14, wrote about a football banquet and added, “Today we had possum and sweet taters. Boy it was sure good.”
His twin Darlene wrote Del and Don, “The sun is shining beautifully this morning. Dad and the boys are out trapping this morning, so Mom and us girls clean house and get dinner for the hungry hunters when they come. They came in with two opossum yesterday, and today we’re going to have opossum and sweet taters. Yum! Yum!”
She chats about her twin Dale playing football, older sister Doris playing basketball, younger brother Danny old enough to hunt with his dad. “Well, I’ll write more after having a piece of the good opossum with the fumes just a-oozin’ out, and some gravy and sweet potatoes.” . . . .
The whole story is in Chapter 5: Grandma Leora in The Immigrant and the Outlaw: A Collection of Stories from America’s Heartland.
It was first aired over Our American Stories in January 2022. That August, they learned from their “podcast side” that this was one of their most downloaded episodes recently. This also part of Leora’s Dexter Stories: The Scarcity Years of the Great Depression.