1974 Helen Verigin interviews Tom Oglow, born 1886, (1974).

. . . Beans was a very rich, filling and sustaining food. The type of food we had has left me with a memory for the rest of my life. How good everything tasted, maybe because we never had enough, compared to the rich food now and plenty of everything. After land was cleared we planted all kinds of vegetables. Watermelons really grew here. It was very warm and with light rain showers, didn’t even need irrigation. Now it’s hard to grow with irrigation, fertilizer and sprays. Since it took quite a while for fruit trees to produce we planted small fruits, strawberries, raspberries, carrots, gooseberries. Fruit trees came later, apples, prunes, pears, peaches, apricots. Started living good then. Planted buckwheat, millet, some wheat, but mostly got the wheat from the prairies and milled our flour here. Flax we grew for oil and made linen out of it for clothes. The Doukhobor people adapted and utilized every available and edible thing from the land. They found a way to use it for their own benefit. Things that grew wild in the forest such as roots were used for medicine. In springtime wild onions, garlic, mushrooms, a form of spinach, with salt brine on them, wonderful with fried potatoes, a delicacy.

In autumn hazelnuts husked and dried used in baking and instead of candies for Christmas. Morel mushrooms dried for winter. Sunflower seeds dried used for enjoyment in winter evenings.

We people will never go hungry as long as we live on the land. Even in Siberia we survived by digging and eating certain roots. We found certain grass that was used for cleaning [mare’s tail] but for brooms collected a weed that looks like a tumbleweed. For our steam baths we had spring twigs from hazel nut trees tied together. So many other things.

Our village women were truly a marvel. They worked summer and winter, their hands were never at rest, continually moving. Cooking, sewing, spinning, weaving, knitting, whole winter. I always thank God that he made women. They didn’t know how to be tired.