Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch (1934 film)

Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch is a 1934 American comedydrama film, directed by Norman Taurog, and based on the 1901 novel of the same name by Alice Hegan Rice. The film stars Broadway stage actress Pauline Lord in one of only two films she appeared in. ZaSu Pitts and W. C. Fields appear in supporting roles.

Mrs. Wiggs Lord, facing eviction, scrabbles for survival with her number of children and hopes for the return of her husband, who left many years before, looking for gold in the Klondike. The family owns the shack but it has a mortgage ofin 1901, about 675 in todays money and the evil moneylender is threatening them. Mrs. Wiggs is a laundress but cant manage to save enough back because whatever extra money she gets is used to help others, often animals. The oldest son, James, has worked hard all his life, but now is seriously ill with tuberculosis. The little girls are all named out of geography, Europena Virginia Weidler, Asia Carmencita Johnson and Australia Edith Fellows. The secondoldest boy, Billy Jimmy Butler, is something of an entrepreneur. When he finds a spavined and dying horse he brings it home and the family nurses it back to reasonable health, naming it Cuba. Neighbor Tabitha Hazy ZaSu Pitts seeks a husband and takes out a subscription to The Matrimonial Guide, the 1901 version of a dating service.Alice Evelyn Venable, a wealthy girl who is a volunteer social worker, brings the family a feast of a Thanksgiving dinner in the book, they promptly sell it and buy cheaper food. Her fiance becomes involved, finally taking Jimmy to a hospital. Billy makes enough to take the family to a vaudeville variety show, and Mrs. Wiggs describes it all to Jimmy as he dies. She places an advertisement in national newspapers, directed to her husband, saying that Jimmy is dead and he must come home. ........

Source: Wikipedia