I am a depression , WWII brat. I remember those hard times with some fondness. Thrift and doing without was just the way it was. Hobos rode the trains to Orrtanna and Mother fed whomever came. I talked with the men as they ate. They weren't scary, just broken and sad. Everything was rationed; gas, meat, flour, sugar, milk, shoes. “Oleo” came in plastic bags with a little color bubble in the middle. We wore hand-me-downs, bought war bonds, gathered milkweed silk to make parachutes, recycled metal including gum wrappers, rolled old sheets into bandages, grew victory gardens, canned and froze anything edible. My dad got Mother a freezer and when Earl and I married years later we used that freezer for another 43 years! Resources then were just too precious to make junk! Patriotism meant everyone did their part. If wars are worth fighting then they are worth asking citizens to support them with higher taxes and a new series of war bonds.

My grandfather owned the Orrtanna Canning Company, so as the boss's brats we raided the ice cream freezers in the cafeteria, played in empty trucks, took turns falling into the cherry tanks! German POW's worked at the plant, since most men were in the armed services. We discovered POW's were people just like us. For years we sent food and clothing packages to their families and other post war victims. In 1959 Earl and I went to Europe to participate in post war efforts. We distributed food and clothing, helped build houses for refugees.

Every summer the community women canned fruit and vegetables at the Orrtanna Methodist Church. Hundreds of jars for the county home and needy! We kids peeled peaches and tomatoes, snapped beans, husked corn. Orrtanna's annual Halloween party was amazing. One guy, stuffed in a burlap bag and and dumped in the corner won first prize as a sack of potatoes. Winters we shoveled snow, built snowmen, skated on the cold storage pond, sledded down the schoolhouse hill.

Summers we kids picked cherries. We rode to the orchards in an old model T school bus that wouldn't start without a good cussing. Afternoons we rode our bikes to El Vista Orchards for a refreshing swim in their pool. August's “dog days” included feared polio outbreaks. 

If you had a phone, you had a party line. When mother called anyone her first words were “Aunt Verna, hang up!” Orrtanna had a post office and a general store. King's Store carried food, sewing supplies, sheets and towels, shovels, seeds, car parts, and local gossip. Dried beef was really cheap. We ate lots of dried beef. 

Orrtanna's school had only 2 rooms: the little side and the big side. We bought our own pencils and paper and walked home for lunch. Once we mastered our grade level material, Miss Miller and Miss Walters assigned research projects, book reports, had us tutor kids who weren't as far along. The school had pot bellied stoves and a stinky outhouse. We used old catalogs for toilet paper. When the Orrtanna Canning Company burned to the ground we kids stood by the school windows and watched.

Adams County may be more conservative than I'd prefer but it was a great place to grow up in. It still is!

Joyce Shutt is pastor emeritus of the Fairfield Mennonite Church You can follow her blog at Fairfield MennoniteChurch.org.