Grandma Barker Gathered Dandelions Too!

Grandma and Linda in Newport Rhode Island

Grandma Elsie Maxwell Barker said as a child she used to gather pails of the fresh greens and sell them for a nickel. Later when she was married and had 4 daughters, she gathered the yearly dandelion greens from the same field where she ate the dandelion greens as a child.

My mother, Kathryn Louise Barker Kingsbury remembers going into that field where generations of women from her family gathered the dandelion greens. She says,“We’d clean the dirt off in a bucket of water, then cut off the root, and wash them in a sieve. Then my mother would boil them in water. We ate them with butter. She said, “I didn’t like taste very much, it as bitter”. They were just there in the beginning of the year, not all the time. We liked the yellow flowers too. We’d put the flowers in a little black vase and have them on a corner table.

What would our world be like if everyone ate their dandelions instead of killing them?