Family Farm: Treasured Memories of Life on the Farm

"How dear to my heart are the scenes of my childhood. When fond recollections present them to view." I remember awakening on cold winter mornings on our family farm and hearing my dad shoveling coal into the furnace. As I descended the stairs, the aroma of bacon would rise to meet me. Every morning my mother would prepare a breakfast of bacon, eggs, fried potatoes, homemade bread, oatmeal and coffee.

Life on the farm at that time would probably be boring for today's generation. We had no electricity nor indoor plumbing, which meant no electric lights and no household appliances for the kitchen or for cleaning the house, but we managed very well. I remember and still marvel at the amount of work my mother managed to do in a day. With nine of us in the family, she would bake 10 loaves of bread every other day. She raised 100 or more chickens every year, getting up at least once during the night to make sure the chicks didn't huddle together and smother each other. She managed to make several quilts during her lifetime and prepared three big meals each day. When I was quite small I would watch her scrubbing clothes on a washboard and rinsing them out in a tub of water, twisting them to get the water out and then taking them outdoors to hang on the clothesline. She ironed clothes with heavy old irons with interchangeable handles like those found in antique shops or museums today. She canned vegetables and fruit and lined the shelves in the basement with enough food to last a year. Although we were poor and we had to wear hand-me-down clothes, we had plenty to eat.

The most exciting day on the farm was butchering day; when neighbors came to help butcher five or six hogs. I would rise early in the morning and help my dad fill a large black kettle with water. I would put logs and corncobs under the kettle, and my dad would pour kerosene on the cobs and throw a match on them. Within an hour the water would be very hot. After the hogs were killed they were put in the scalding water and the hairs could be easily scraped from them. I wanted to skip school on butchering day but my mother would never allow it. When the school day was over I would run all the way home and eat cracklings till I was full. Although most of the butchering was over by the time I came home the hams still had to be wrapped. We would pour salt over the hams, wrap them in newspapers, then wrap a gunnysack around them and hang them in a shed, where in the summertime the temperature would be above 100 degrees.

We studied our lessons by the light of a kerosene lamp and did many chores by lantern light. Baths were taken by carrying buckets of water from an outside well to the basement and pouring the water into a galvanized washtub. Needless to say bath days were few and far between in the winter, as it was very cold in our basement.