My parents worked well as a team each pulling
more than half of the load.
We always had a few acres of wheat, which
at harvest time we put in the grain mill, and took out flour, cereal and wheat stuff. We
ate a great deal of bread for a family of fifteen……which mother mixed ‘by
hand’ and baked [twelve] loaves every other day in a large dripper pan the full size
of the oven in the coal stove. We also had home-made ice cream often, cookies, plain cake,
(good, we thought, without icing on top). Mother also bottled all the fruit and vegetable
or dehydrated fruits. She bought several bushels of apples and put them in a carefully
built storage pit and they were enjoyed until the next spring. When the food was used in
the spring time the ground was leveled again and a new garden was planted. We also had at
least [three][?] cows so we nearly always had fresh milk, butter and also meat. We always
had a couple dozen or more chickens and eggs were plentiful. There were no supermarkets in
my parents’ day. Mother planted, with father’s help and preparation, a large
garden, carefully cultivated, watered and weeded. Mother worked hard at it. She cared for
it and when produce was ready she had regular customers who bought all their vegetables
from our garden. It was hard work but mother and the older kids [bunched and picked][?]
and then with a horse hitched onto a ‘flat’ rack buggy, mother usually took
Naomi and I with her as she drove certain regular routes where we had regular customers,
where Naomi and I each took one side of the street. We usually sold everything on our
[load][?]. Mother paid us well and she helped with the family expenses.
There was a new baby regular every two
years and one of the kids older and totally responsible was left at home with the smaller
kids and baby. It worked well. Mother was a great manager. Sometimes I think she was the
“World’s 8th Wonder.” She sewed every stitch we wore besides our stockings
and shoes. She even made pants for the little girls out of cloth sugar sacks. She was a
beautiful seamstress. She made tailored suits and coats for us girls and made over
trousers for the boys until they were old enough to earn and buy their own clothes. Her
sewing machine was powered by a foot tread and I wondered how she endured peddeling it by
foot hour after hour.
Mother could read the newspapers and sign
her name, but she never wrote letters or notes. I wrote letters for her many times. She
only went to 5th grade in school, but she surely knew how to figure and keep
records. She was better at business than father. When small pigs were