Growing up in Calvert County in the 1950s was a lonely experience if your dad drove red Cadillacs. My friends’ dads were mostly tobacco farmers who drove around in pick-up trucks and some even had the ultimate status item, the rear view window shotgun rack. There was just no way to fit one of those in a white-on-red convertible Cadillac, although the rear tail-fins on that beauty could be quite lethal.
Not having my own half-acre of tobacco to grow, I remember helping the neighbor kids pick up “ground leaves.” OK, so what are ground leaves? Simply put, these are the leaves from the bottom of the tobacco plant that fall on the ground during it’s growth cycle. We’d go around after the plants were cut down, pick up these downed leaves and spear about a dozen of them on little wire rods. They would then be hung up to dry in the barn along with the rest of the crop. Come the late winter and spring, the dried leaves would be bundled up with the main crop and sold at the local tobacco markets.
Looking back, the ground leaf game was probably the “starter kit” for breaking the kids into the tobacco farming business.
Farming was a big deal in Calvert in the 1950s and tobacco was the king of the crops. All that’s gone now as the plant is now justifiably condemned as a terrible health hazard. Back then, it was how a lot of families got by.
In an upcoming post, I’ll give you my bystander’s view of the world of tobacco in a small rural county in Southern Maryland in the 1950s.
Brooke
