Voices of American Homemakers

Great grandmother was a domestic diva

I love old books with heart wrenching tales from diaries of women traveling west by wagon train, WWIIs Rosy the Riveters adventures of being the first women in a machine shop, and harrowing recounts from dust bowl era survivors. I even read through Lewis and Clark’s adventures to the Pacific northwest. Not because they were so interesting, they were of course, but because of a very young Indian girl named Sacajawea. Her life was simply fascinating.

I shed tears at the stories of torment during the womens suffrage movement and children in horrific turn of the century working conditions, holocaust survivors, African women living through the terror thrust upon them from the Janjaweed. At the hands of truculent oppressors did some these brave souls survive to tell their tale.

Hard times make hard men. Hard men make easy times. Easy times make soft men. Soft men make hard times.”

So I came across this latest book “Voices of American Homemakers.” It is similar in content to that of the “Foxfire” series. I believe this book was self published by the National Extension Homemakers Council, however, I was unable to find a publishing date for this book.

If we were to ask our ancient sisters how we women and girls in 2022 stack up against the women and girls of their day. Our ancient sisters would call us something less than tough. Case-in-point;

You said your dad was a farmer. Did you work the fields? Asked an interviewer, of Opal Cypert, 68, of Arkansas. (From the book, “Voices of American Homemakers”)

“Yes, and when we was too little to work, why mother would take us, because she had to work in the fields. And we would stay at the end of the field on what we called a pallet.

My mother would work all day in the fields. First, early of a morning, she would get up and she would get the breakfast over with and get the dishes washed and put away. Then she would take us out to the fields.

Then, we would quit to go home for lunch, why she would fix lunch. You couldn’t cook anything that morning and leave it, because of no refrigeration or ice. She’d cook lunch and then we would eat, and she would start doing up the dishes. My dad, he would always go in and lay down and take a nap and rest awhile. When my mother would get the dishes washed, she would say she was ready to go back to work.

I have often thought about how hard she worked. The rest of us, we had time to rest for awhile, but my mother never rested. Of an evening when we quit work—we worked almost to dark—then we’d go home and she had to get the evening meal. But she never seemed to get tired. I often wondered why mothers didn’t get tired.”

I’m tired just writing that. But to be fair, today’s woman has a lot on her plate. And for those with children, you should be praised for balancing your 15 plates spinning on sticks high in the air. Not quite a juggling act but far more stressful.

Here’s one more;

“Now you can go in your kitchen and turn on the electric stove. Then you had to go out and get you some wood and make a fire.

If we were going to town, we had to go and hitch up the mule and get the wagon out. Now you just go unfasten your car and back on out of the garage. And the telephone; we can call our friends. We didn’t have that then. You had to go and visit friends if you wanted to talk to them.”

As the years went along, and the modern conveniences did come, what do you think was the biggest help to a woman in the house?

“Either the electric lights, or the water in the house—hot and cold water. Heat, you could go in the basement and fill up the furnace and have your good heat and didn’t have to carry out the ashes. All of those, I think.” Josephine Nixon, 90, Wisconsin

This book is a gem! How they appreciated things we now take for granted.

I’ll leave you with this;

If this country goes to third world economic status, gets our gas or electrical grid hacked or God forbid, we go to a mad max situation, will you have enough survival skills to teach your children and make it to the other side of the chaos?

Get books! Hard copy, hold in your hand, books. Start your library today.

Thank you for reading my first post. I have lots more just waiting in the wings so stay tuned. Any if like this content, please share.