So enjoyed the article about your family in Michigan. Reminds me of my own family history growing up in south Florida a few miles from the Everglades in the 1950s.

Our house was built of "board and batten" siding that had warped over the years so that one could see the outside through the cracks. Besides our family of seven, it was also home to many huge brown woolly spiders who mostly resided in what would have been the attic if there had been a ceiling (which there was not). Tin roof, open beneath the floor (providing the dogs respite from the scorching sun), and no indoor plumbing. Only four rooms -- we had an "open floor plan" before it became trendy.

My father would trap wild hogs in the woods and bring them home to be fattened with sour corn for a few weeks before butchering. Swamp cabbage, now known as "hearts of palm," made from the heart of young cabbage palms was a delicious regular in our diet as well as a variety of fish caught mainly on a cane pole. And I must not fail to mention the wild guavas and the delicious pies and jellies they provided, not to mention an easily accessible snack for hungry kids! It was a "hard knock life" to use the phrase from the musical, "Annie," and I couldn't wait to escape it.