Cackle a Bit

Dear Boo and Bubble,

I was cracking eggs this morning for breakfast and remembered a story that great granddaddy Schaefer used to tell about your great, great, great grandmother Mamie Peninah Robinson Bryant.  I double checked to see if I had already shared this morsel with you in my post way back exactly five years ago today — January 24, 2013— entitled Long Live the Depression…but, it did not appear there…and so I’ll tell it to you now.

To reiterate some context as explained in that post of 2013, The Great Depression was the deepest and longest-lasting economic downturn in the history of the Western industrialized world. It began in 1929 with the crash of the stock market in the United States.  A panic engulfed the country as millions of investors lost everything.  Depositors raided the banks frantically trying to seize their money before the supply ran out.  This created a domino effect on consumer spending and business investment.  The decline in both caused industrial output to virtually cease.  Unemployment rose as failing companies laid off workers. 

By 1933, at the height of the Great Depression, some 13 to 15 million Americans were unemployed and nearly half of the country's banks had failed. The economy would not fully turn around until after 1939, when World War II kicked American industry into high gear.

Granddaddy Schaefer described that, during this time, Mamie Peninah lived by the mantra  Waste Not, Want not’ and, when tempted to buy something new, made her decision this way—  ‘Children, I don’t ask do I need it.  I don’t ask can I afford it.  I ask can I do without it.’

And so…true to form…she applied this same formula to her baking. In describing the requirement for eggs in a recipe, Mamie explained that “If it calls for three, I use two. If it calls for two, I use one.”  But…what if it only called for one egg?  “Oh…I just cackle a little bit and go on!”