People limped through the Depression without the government assistance

People limped through the Depression without the government assistance programs that today ease the Ijfe of the poor. There was no Aid to Dependant Children, no food stamps, no general relief, no Medicaid and Medicare no Supplemental Security Income. . . In Rappahannock, they had only the county poor farm. “It was for them that had nothin’ — no where to stay, nobody to look after them—white and colored,” said Charlie Lewis, who was a boy went with his pastor to the poor farm in the F T. Valley to conduct services Sunday evenings. “Them that was able did things to help. Them that couldn’t was taken care of. But thev didn’t fare too well I do know that.”

Folks didn t just show up on the doorstep of the Poor Farm looking for shelter. They had to be certified as paupers by the county’s supervisor of the poor. “They always came without anything—not a thing. No clothes except what they had on their backs, no food, no belongings,” said Mrs. Hugh Woodward whose husband was overseer there from 1933 until 1941.

It was a hard life, both for the care givers and their charges. “We usually had 12 to 15 there on the average,” Mr. Woodward recalled. “Mostly they were the elderly and disabled or handicapped.”

“And we’d get unmarried women who were in, you know, trouble. Their families had thrown them out and they had no place to go and nothing to call their own, not even a single piece of baby clothes. We’d have to get the midwife and I’d help when their time came. They didn’t usually stay long after the baby was born. It would be put up for adoption or taken in by the family and the girl would leave,” Mrs. Woodward said. “They were sad stories. Once five little children showed up. They were just like stairsteps, the oldest about nine or ten years old. Their parents just walked off and left them. If those children had cried', I’d have boo-hooed too. Their kinfolk came and took them away after a few days. They’d come and go at the poor farm. ”