←Part Two Country Life with Fred The Stock Market Crash of 1929 hit everyone hard, including the newlyweds. In early 1930, they moved to the outskirts of Redding, Connecticut, to a 55-acre farm for their retirement. They, like many during that time, felt they could live cheaply off the land. That spring, Ruth Stout planted her first garden and she and Fred adjusted to married life. Ruth had lived an
←Part One New York City Soon after May’s death, the family made the move to New York City. Their new home would be a four-story brownstone on West 118th St., less than a block from Morningside Park (designed by the famous American landscaper Frederick Law Olmsted). Ruth would live in New York City for the next twenty years. That first year, before they were settled in socially, the family
It’s 1975 and Ruth Stout, in her early 90s, is being filmed at her home. She’s explaining her daily schedule, how many hours a day she works to maintain, harvest, and freeze food from a 45 x 50 foot vegetable garden which grows enough food for two people. (She hasn’t been in a grocery store for 14 years.) She also has a few flower beds to take care of, does
