•March 27, 2019•

By Evelyn Burtcheard
for the News Progress

During World War II the schools and any boys’ or girls’ organizations, scouts and 4-H kids were asked to search and collect milkweed pods.
The fluffy white inside the seed pods was used to make lifejackets for the Navy. Milkweed contents replaced something called kapok which grew on trees in the East Indies but was lost to the Japanese during the war.
Uncle Ray, Mom’s youngest brother, was in Germany so all his nieces and nephews joined in the effort to collect the milkweed pods.
Mom cut burlap sacks in half, stitched the bottoms and tied the tops together leaving a small opening for us to put the pods through. If an overripe pod burst, the white fluff inside went everywhere.
At first we gathered the pods on foot, and then we started riding our roan mare Queen to collect pods faster and easier. Dad showed us how to hang the bags over our horse’s withers or flank which we did, and off we went to gather pods.     Login or Subscribe to read the rest of this story.