The Great Depression challenged American families in ways many of us can hardly imagine today. Our American Stories takes you to an Iowa farm, where scarcity meant rethinking everything, including dinner. Forget your usual pork and beef; for one resourceful family, survival meant hunting and trapping, bringing unexpected meats like raccoon and possum to the table. This true story reveals the incredible ingenuity and resilience of everyday Americans who found unique ways to feed their families during the toughest of times.
These powerful insights come directly from the family’s own letters, collected and shared by our contributor, Joy Neil Kidney. You’ll hear how the Wilson sons learned to hunt and trap, not for sport, but to put food on the table and trade pelts for necessities. And how their mother, Leora, masterfully preserved every garden harvest to ensure winter meals. It’s a deeply human account of resourcefulness, determination, and the unwavering American spirit that kept families going through the Great Depression.
📖 Read the Episode Transcript
When I heard about someone having to eat raccoon or possum, I thought of poor folks in the Deep South. Dad wasn’t a hunter, and having grown up on an Iowa Hogen cattle farm, I couldn’t imagine having any kind of wild meat instead of good old pork and beef. But from old family letters, I learned that both raccoon and possum showed upon the table of my mother’s family during the Great Depression. Some family members reported enjoying them. Clay and Leora Wilson had seven children: five sons and two daughters. Clave taught his sons to trap and hunt. Pelts could be sent to Sears, Roebuck and Company in exchange for food and clothing. Clay insisted that his boys wait until they were twelve and could demonstrate safe handling of a gun before he was allowed to carry one to go hunting, and no animal was to be killed just for sport. Squirrel and rabbit were their main sources of protein during those days. The saying was that Leora would cook any thing the hunters brought her, as long as they were already skinned, cleaned, and ready for the skillet or the roasting pan. Clave taught the boys how to do that and to stretch pelts to cure. During the hard weeks of winter, Clay hung carcasses on the porch, where they’d freeze until they were needed. Dinner and supper also included fruits and vegetables from their big garden. Fresh during growing season, Leora canned hundreds of glass Mason jars filled with produce, any thing she could put up for winter. Because of the Depression, Clave had no steady job. The two oldest Wilson brothers, Dilbert and Donald, graduated from Dexter High School in nineteen thirty-three. No jobs for them either. A classmate had joined the Navy and was happy, having a full belly, days filled with activities, and an income. Leora said that the boys with not enough to do would probably get into trouble, so she and Clave okayed the plan, only asking them not to get tattoos. Those boys in the Navy were so good to write home. Young siblings followed their world travels on a map. Their mother saved all those family letters. What a joy for me to read through and transcribe them decades later! One was from Leora on her forty-fifth birthday, dated December fourth, nineteen thirty-five. “My, what a wonderful present from my Navy boys. Thanks a lot, boys.” They had sent a card in some candy. “We had roast coon two years ago today, remember?” Leora went on. “That would have been just before Dilbert and Donald enlisted in the Navy. You caught the last one on December third, and the folks — that would be her mother and brothers from Oha — came and surprised me. But the next day was the fourth, and we had that nice fat coon.” Their next brother, Dale, age fourteen, wrote about a football banquet and added, “Today we had possum and sweet taters. Boy, it was sure good!” Dale’s twin, Darlene, enclosed her letter in the same envelope. “The sun is shining beautifully this morning,” she wrote. “Dad and the boys are out trapping this morning, so Mom and us girls clean house and get dinner ready for the hungry hunters when they come. They come in with two possum yesterday and today we’re going to have a possum and sweet taters. Yum, yum.” She chatted about her twin playing football, older sister Doris playing basketball, and younger brother Danny being old enough to hunt with their dad. “Well, I’ll write more after having a piece of good old opossum with the fumes just to oozin’ out, and some gravy and some sweet potatoes.” A possum were good for something else than food. Clay wrote just before Christmas that he’d shipped eight skunks and five opossum to Sears in trade for goods from the mail-order catalog. Two years later, in November nineteen thirty-seven, Delbert rode home from the USS Chicago. “You boys coming home with all that game makes me sort of homesick. I thought for a while you boys weren’t going to take to hunting and trappin’ so well. But it looks as if you boys will break downs in my records. Go tour boys. It’s good outdoor exercise and a lot of fun. Sure like to sink my fangs into some coon meat for a change.” In spite of Dale’s and Darlene’s comments about how good powsome and sweet daters were, and even Delbert’s memories of coon meat, I’d have to be desperate as they were during the Depression to try. Annie. Just in case you want to try roast coon or possum with the fume zoosan out, you can find recipes for both of these these days on the internet.
And great job is always by Monte Montgomery on the production, and a special thanks to Joy Neil Kidney, a fan of the show and also one of our best contributors. Possum, raccoon, and rabbit all showed up at the family dinner table during the Great Depression years. The kids, they all knew how to trap and hunt, and Mom, well, she’d cook anything that was shaved and clean. Dinner and supper included food from the garden they canned, and any and everything. The story of Joy Neil Kidney and her family during the Great Depression, their food measurement, here on Our American Stories. Lee Habib here, as we approach our nation’s two-hundred-fiftieth anniversary, I’d like to remind you that all the history stories you hear on this show are brought to you by the great folks at Hillsdale College, and Hillsdale isn’t just a great school for your kids or grandkids to attend, but for you as well. Go to Hillsdale.edu to find out about their terrific free online courses. Their series on communism is one of the finest I’ve ever seen. Again, go to Hillsdale.edu and sign up for their free and terrific online courses.
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