June 9, 2008
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…I’ve been considering all the talk about “going green.” It seems to be the catch phrase of this year and appears to embody a radical new way of living, a turning away from the conspicuous consumption of the last few decades toward a more responsible, environmentally-friendly attitude of conserving, preserving and saving.
Greensburg, KS, the town that was destroyed last year by a devastating tornado, is going to be, appropriately enough, the first all-green town. The popular advertising campaign encouraging the use of flourescent light bulbs in place of incandescent ones is built upon the concepts of lower energy use and less to put into landfills. The new green cars are not so called because of their color but because of their lower fuel consumption and emissions. Cleaning products, food, even the fiber from which our clothing is made can now bear the label of green. In a short span of time, every area of our lives that is addressed by advertising has green potential.
But is this really a new concept? I wish I could pose that question to my husband’s late grandmother. In fact, I believe Velma could have been the prototype for living green. She is remembered in our family for many things, not the least of which was her trait of economy. I seriously doubt if the woman ever wasted a thing in her life. Not ever…never.
Velma’s green Ozarks roots ran deep, through many generations of subsistance farmers who lived off the land, grew almost all their food and bought very little in the way of material goods. It was the way she was raised, and it was the way she lived out her 95 years of life.
When she did buy something, Velma got her money’s worth. At Christmas, after presents were opened, she would immediately gather up the used wrapping paper and ribbon, fold it up neatly and take it home. We would see that paper again, next holiday season, wrinkles smoothed out. When the dinner dishes were washed, the rinse water was carried out and poured on the tomato plants growing outside her kitchen door. Catalogs, magazines and old issues of Capper’s Weekly were stacked away, to be read and reread, over and over again.
Have you considered carrying your own shopping bag to the store to avoid the use of both paper and plastic? Every bag, box, piece of string, aluminum foil or cloth of any kind that entered the home of Velma, our family’s queen of recycling, was used, reused, and then used again. Her kitchen knives, handmade by Grandpa, were sharpened down to nubs on his pedal-turned sharpening stone. Every scrap that wasn’t eaten at the table became dinner for Velma’s hens. And she could have written the book on composting. The dirt in her garden was as loamy, loose and rich as any I’ve ever seen, without benefit of any artificial fertilizer or commercial soil amendments.
Our family lovingly recalls Sunday dinner at Velma’s table. The centerpiece of the meal was always a fried chicken. Just one. She had killed it, plucked it, cut it up and cooked it just for us…all eight or ten of us. Somehow, Velma could cut one chicken into more pieces than I knew a chicken had. And to my surprise, there was always plenty! Nothing in that chicken went to waste.
In Velma’s house, bedroom doors were kept closed to conserve heat for the living room. Wearing layers was not fashionable; it was necessary to stay warm. Lights weren’t turned on unless they were really needed, perhaps for reading. Trips to town were reserved for necessary appointments and were few and far between. Clothing and shoes were patched and mended to last longer. Vehicles were driven until they were truly worn out, and even then the mileage was low, for mostly they were parked in the shed. At 90, Velma still grew a huge garden, filling her cellar shelves with quarts and quarts of preserved food. Even though she lived alone by that time, it was a way of life, so deeply ingrained, that she could not change.
Velma was green long before it was cool to be green. I’d love to hear her comments about this new green fad. “Shucks, that’s not a new idea,” she’d scoff. “That’s just good horse sense. They should a knowd that all along.”
She sure did.
Velma Clarkson Taber
August 6, 1905-December 17, 2001
Comments (13)
That was a great post. I want to be like Velma.
Hmmmm. . . I think I need to make some changes around here! Velma sounds like she was a wonderful woman and a great example of someone who took care of what she had and was content with them.
Absolutely! You are so right about this, how “green” as aconcept has been around forever under a different name. But then it was only for the less well to do. Consumption and waste became a sign of how you could afford to… So it’s a tough sell to get people to conserve, they have to repackage and rename everything. I’d love to go back and find out what Aldo Leopold would have said regarding our current emphasis on global warming?
I agree with prairie cowboy. Those of us with small town/farm/no money backgrounds can certainly remember all this and relate. That is one of the scary things about the younger people who have never had to do without or make do with anything and the current economy. Rationing is something they have no experience with.
Velma sounded like a wonderful woman who lived a simple and productive life…one worth following. Isn’t that what “green” should be able anyways?
Grandma Velma proves that there is nothing new in the world; good ideas are just recycled. Now there is even a new healthy food movement called “slow cooking.” Fancy that!
What a great post! Thank you for sharing apart of your memories.
I find it interesting that my parents were in the generation that you wasted nothing. My generation got a little careless. Why else did they make plastic and paper cups. Wasn’t it so we could throw it away? It’s interesting to see how my children are more concerned about saving and waste then I am. I need to take lessons from both sides of life. My parents and my children. Thanks for the post.
Velma is inspiring, thank you for writing about her.
Velma reminds me of my mother-in-law, and of my grandmother-in-law in Mississippi, Miss Lillian, who would wash aluminum foil and use it over and over again until it was rusty in the folds! I used to laugh at that, but I may start doing it myself if the cost of gas and diesel keeps going up! We’re of the generation that must seem so wasteful to that Depression-Era generation. We have a lot to learn from them.
Interesting, well-written, and thought-provoking post.
Janet, if the world had 6 billion Velma’s – this planet would be ‘Green’ for eternity. Loved the story and, without even knowing her, I love Velma for her life-style, her unconcious efforts to keep this world ‘Natural’ and ‘Green’ and for being a real ‘Unsung’ heroine in her life-long contributions to our planet. Great post! See you at church!
I sometimes wonder if I will ever COMPLETELY have that kind of mindset. It seems to come and go depending on our income.
Thank you for your encouraging words on my blog. The longer I walk with the Lord the more clearly I see how truly ‘other’ I am than Christ. I pray that I continue to decrease that He may increase.
You’re a sweetie!
Velma sounds like many people of that era who knew what it was to “you use it up, you wear it out or you do without!”