The Root Cellar

In pioneer times a root cellar was part of the structure of the family home. The practice of having them continued for many years and root cellars are still part of many farm houses. I can still remember my grandma's root cellar in her house in Sacramento. A root cellar is a great way to store your autumn harvest or to stock up on root vegetables for the winter. When we bought our home in Springville Larry decided that a root cellar was a very good idea. He made plans for digging one in our small backyard.

You have to dig down at least 6 ft. Larry planned to make the root cellar 8x10 suare and 8 ft deep. That is a lot of digging. Lucky for him Jay was a strong 16 year old and his friend Bill was willing to help too. The rest of the boys were too little, and although the girls did help some, most of the job was accomplished by Jay and Dad. We bought 100 lbs of potatoes from a local farmer, along with some apples, onions, and carrots. Those potatoes really came in handy as money was tight that winter. The kids can still tell you a million ways to cook, fry and grate potatoes.

Ever since the Lord told Adam to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow man has known that work is good. Every child needs to learn to work and boys need to learn that working so hard you sweat is good!

When we moved to West Valley in 1981 we had a new crop of boys. We needed another root cellar to teach that great principle of work til you sweat! This time Mark and Mike were the teenagers so they got life's great lesson. I think Dad even put Vic and Dave to work with a shovel. They were only 8 and 9. We did get a great root cellar again! It was even a little better than the first one and boxes and boxes of fruits and vegetables were stored for the winter.

Probably the best thing produced by the Root Cellars was strong boys. They learned that work is good and sometimes it really feels good to work until you sweat!