Early Winters, Harsh Realities
The garden story begins in Kansas City, where winter snow towered over a small child standing on a shoveled sidewalk. The cold was unforgiving. So were the times. The Great Depression devastated families, and for many Black households, even basic food access was fraught with exclusion and inequity.
Mama Ross remembers her father, exhausted and frustrated, returning home after searching for work that was rarely available to Black men. Photographs from that era often show soup lines filled with white families, but the absence of Black faces told another truth: even suffering was segregated.
Food scarcity was constant. Ingenuity and resourcefulness were survival.
A Mother’s Garden as Lifeline
Mama Ross mother’s backyard garden became a sanctuary, producing greens, cabbage, beans, and whatever else could be coaxed from the soil. It was a modest plot, yet it sustained the family when stores could not. The garden was nourishment, culture, and continuity in a world that often withheld dignity from Black families.
It was also a classroom.
One day, at just two or three years old, she decided she would surprise her mother by cooking dinner. She lifted the freshly picked greens laid on newspaper, placed them—unwashed—into a large pot, and mimicked turning on the gas stove just as she had watched her mother do. No water. Dirt still clinging to the leaves. Flames rising beneath the pot.
In her young mind, she was helping. She was participating in the sacred ritual of feeding family.
The pot burned. The greens scorched. And when her mother discovered the scene, frustration met innocence. A quick scolding. A memory forever sealed.
Dandelion Greens and Determination
Food in that home came not just from the backyard, but from improvisation. Her father would forage at night, pulling dandelion greens from neighbors’ lawns—an edible weed that became a staple when the garden yields ran thin. Seasoned well, served with hot-water cornbread made without eggs, milk, or butter, those meals embodied both deprivation and creativity.
They were the meals of resilience.
Memory as Inheritance
Mama Ross recalls these moments with astonishing clarity. The frigid winters. The burn of the gas flame. The texture of dirty greens between her small fingers. The sting of discipline. But also the warmth of family, the strength learned in struggle, and the way food stitched generations together.
This garden story is not just nostalgia. It is testament. It reveals how early experiences with land, food, and care linger across decades, shaping identity long after the garden is gone.
