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Children Snacked on Deer Jerky

My parents pioneered away back in a mountainous place in Oregon on the edge of a lake. We had plenty of fish, and my father hunted deer. We usually had a 50-pound flour sack or two of deer jerky (dried meat). It was delicious. We children would just get a hunk and chew it off!

All of our supplies had to be packed in on horseback. My father went out twice a year to get such supplies as flour, sugar, oatmeal, baking soda and salt.

Mother’s refrigerator was a place dug back under the creek bank like a shelf where the water ran about an inch deep. Once a rain came in the night and washed all the crocks of butter, cream and milk into the lake.

My father cut bee trees, and we had wild honey all the time.

Mrs. Charles Pidgeon
Salem, Iowa


Back in 1955 a call went out from the editors of the then CAPPER’s Weekly asking for readers to send in articles on true pioneers. Hundreds of letters came pouring in from early settlers and their children, many now in their 80s and 90s, and from grandchildren of settlers, all with tales to tell. So many articles were received that a decision was made to create a book, and in 1956, the first My Folks title – My Folks Came in a Covered Wagon – hit the shelves. Nine other books have since been published in the My Folks series, all filled to the brim with true tales from CAPPER’s readers, and we are proud to make those stories available to our growing online community.