In this continuing series, I am speaking to Mr. Harold Smith, well-known and highly respected president of the Northampton Historical Society and former employee of the landmark Miller's Department Store and Kotsch's Market in Fullerton.

Born in 1927 Harold, as most families in America, faced the Great Depression. I asked him to recall his youth.

"As a youngster I spent summers on my mother's uncle's farm in Allen Township," he said. "My mother, Helen Hoffman Smith, was born on the farm. It was later purchased by uncle Charles Schall for $2,800, a 62-acre farm, $45 an acre." The year was 1937.

"I helped with field work and helped feed and care for chickens and livestock. The harvest season was very busy cutting and threshing wheat and oats. In the fall it was potato picking, all by hand."

I asked Harold if he was paid for his work.

"My mother said I didn't need to be paid as I was provided food and lodging and taught the value of a hard day's work," he said.

"In January we butchered hogs and used everything, there were tasty hams, sausage and scrapple," he said. "My grandmother cleaned the hogs' intestines. They were used as casing for the sausages, so you can see nothing was wasted.

"While on the farm we also drank raw unpasteurized milk, today they called it organic. The milk was fine, full of cream without any health problems.

"To help feed the family during the Depression, we also had a large vegetable garden in our yard at home. Vegetables and fruit were canned for the winter. Apples and peaches came from our neighbors' fruit trees. Sausage was also canned in jars. All the cooking was on coal kitchen stoves.

"My father's favorite soup was rivel soup. (Ladies get out your old cookbooks). Rivel means lump, the soup is full of lumps. Here's the old Pennsylvania Dutch recipe:

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Rivel Soup

1-1/2 pounds cooked beef roast, cut up

1 cup cooked rice

Beef broth, boiling

1 egg

1 cup flour

Put rice and beef into boiling broth. Beat egg, add flour and mix with fingers until crumbly. Drop crumbs a little at a time into broth. Simmer for 10-15 minutes and enjoy.

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Because times were difficult, Harold's mother would go to the butcher and purchase one quarter of a pound of meat instead of a pound and a half of meat.

Their home was heated by a kitchen stove and parlor heater. The main heat in the upstairs bedrooms was provided by large, long comforters blankets that kept you warm during those long winter nights. Getting out of the bed in the morning was a temperature shock in the cold room.

There was no bathroom. The outhouse served the family well. Imagine using the outhouse when the temperature was 10 degrees. Burr! Burr!

Harold, what about Christmas?

"My sister Dorothea and I were given one toy and clothing that was needed," he said. "Up at Zion Stone Church, each child was given a half-pound box of candy and two oranges – what a treat!"

Harold, did your father own an automobile?

"He had an old Motel T which could not make it up to Kreidersville, so he purchased a secondhand Plymouth in 1933 from George Beil, a longtime Plymouth dealer in Northampton," he said.

"Our longest trip was to visit Mr. Schall's daughter Esther in Philadelphia. She worked for Jacob Reed's Clothing Store. Our mother covered us with blankets because the car had no heater. There in Philadelphia, we took a walk and for the first time saw an African American couple. They had a nice daughter with a red ribbon in her hair.

"Esther would come home from Philadelphia every two weeks on the Liberty Bell Trolley which stopped at Eighth and Hamilton in Allentown. Mr. Schall would take us down to see the trolley, something we always looked foward to.

"My father did not have an automobile for the rest of the Depression, so we used the trolley and shoe leather. Mr. Schall drove us each Sunday to attend services at Zion Stone Church in Kreidersville."

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More memories in two weeks.

Do you remember when bread, milk and ice were delivered to our homes?