Patchwork: Stories of Growing Up in the Depression and Breaking Away

by Barbara Jodry

“Suddenly there it was. The locomotive was a black one-eyed monster coming at me.”

Barbara Randall grew up in the small town of North Haven, Connecticut in a house beside a railroad line. Her father farmed 35 acres of quality farmland and her mother worked the long hours of a farm wife. Barbara and her four brothers shared a childhood where there was always work before play, her father defended the garden from Depression-years hungry unemployed wanderers, and the end of World War II brought big changes. As the town grew from 2,000 people in 1925 to 20,000 people in 1962, it was time to break away to a different life.

Read Barbara’s posthumously-published memoir, a collection of stories, placed just so, to make the pattern of a life, like the artwork of a patchwork quilt.

232 pages, Paperback

Published September 5, 2025

Reviews

[Bbouffard · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book about my aunt who lived on a farm during the Depression. It includes my father Arthur Jr. her eldest brother. I learned many things about my aunts and uncles and my father, who endured many trials and tribulations.