Once There Was a Farm: A Country Childhood Remembered (The Virginia Bookshelf Series) - Softcover

Dabney, Virginia Bell

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0813918472 ISBN 13: 9780813918471

Publisher: University of Virginia Press, 1998

Synopsis

Nearly fifty years after she left the family farm of her childhood, Virginia Bell Dabney was compelled to write a memoir. She and her two sisters were raised on a Virginia farm during the hardscrabble years of the 1920s and 1930s. Her determined, independent mother managed to make a life for her famiy, despite hardships such as the Depression and a fire that destroyed their home. Although raised in a spare environment where leaky ceilings and cold winter nights were the norm, Dabney finds much to love, and to rejoice over, in her country upbringing: the wonder of hens laying eggs, the sensations asscoiated with milking a cow, her warm friendship with her mother's black maid. The remarkable clarity of her half-century-old memories and her simple, unaffected tone bring this country childhood unforgettably to life.

About this title

About the Author:

Virginia Bell Dabney [1919-1997] lived on a farm in the Allegheny Mountains of Virginia.

From Publishers Weekly:

It was an unusual household: the mother and three daughters lived on a ramshackle farm in western Virginia while the father stayed in Chicago, visiting his family during summer vacations and at Christmas. Virginia (Vallie), much younger than her sisters, never felt comfortable with her father. Playmates were a rarity, but she found rewards in the company of farm animals and the three black people who were hired help. Vallie wistfully observed her sisters and their friends, dreaming about her future suitors. Strange for that time and place, the sisters received no religious instruction; Vallie's attempt at self-baptism and the cook's reaction makes an endearing story. A devastating forest fire destroyed the farmhouse, and the family lived in a shed until a new home was built. In her debut book, the 71-year-old Dabney paints a wonderfully nostalgic picture of rural life in the late '20s through the Depression years. Author tour.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Virginia Press
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0813918472
• ISBN 13: 9780813918471
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 273