How did my grandmother manage when the war reached its height of
deprivation?
When the war was
almost over, in the winter of 1945, things got much worse. They had six children now, and six of my
grandmother’s adult relatives moved in with them too. Slowly her store of food began to shrink with more mouths to
feed, and people continued to knock on the door as well. Her husband had a business where he would
often be able to swap goods and add to the food supply, but that last winter he
was too ill to work. So the food stocks
could not be built up again.
Yet the Lord
always provided. There was a kind of
soup kitchen set up at the butcher shop, and each family could get cabbage soup
from there according to the size of your family. There was also an underground movement where they secretly
slaughtered cows and then cooked them into a nourishing soup for the school
children. Twice a week her children
were allowed to go there for a hot meal.
Her eldest son also helped a dairy farmer after school, and that farmer
allowed him to pour a bit of milk into the lid of the milk can for him to
drink. In these ways they made it
through that difficult winter before the liberation.
Even in difficult times there were blessings we could give
thanks for. In her life she tried to
live generously even if she didn't have much and was never put to shame. Jesus words were real to her!
No comments:
Post a Comment