Leon Reporter, Leon, Iowa
Thursday, November 4, l898

'Pioneer Days in Iowa'

What the Early Settlers Ate and How They Conducted Themselves Generally:

In an early day the settlers had hard work to get necessary food, and when they had company the menu was rather limited. When roasting ears and cucumbers came they were a God-send, and for days no other food graced the table. As soon as the corn hardened enough, an old tin pan was punched full of holes and the corn grated into meal and made into hasty pudding or dodgers. Pies were made of sheep sorrel or ground cherries, being sweetened with Orleans molasses. Fortunately, everybody had a good appetite.

There was an abundance of vegetables, but tomatoes were considered poison and were cultivated as a curiosity. Those were the days of the melons, and they were not shipped from the Island either. Buckwheat cakes were a sure thing for winter, but it was some trouble to get lard to grease the griddle. Two farmers living near each other, had good crops of buckwheat and one of them had procured a large greaser, the other had none. When one family got their breakfast, the other would sent up and borrow the greaser and after dinner take it back. This was kept up throughout the winter.

When young people met at a party, for light refreshments turnips were passed around in a half bushel and each took an old fashioned case knife, cut off the top and the scraping commenced. Someone would tune up the fiddle, and the fancy dances were, the French four, cotillion, corn row, peel the willow, etc.

Everybody attended church and kept the Sabbath. At church the brothers sat on one side and the sisters on the other. The early settler was a true-hearted Christian and no more thought of going to bed without saying his prayers than he would to stop breathing. A man in this country who always prayed at least a half hour, had a young calf that would walk up on a little back porch and he was afraid it would fall off and get crippled. A young lady was at his residence overnight. In the morning, he drove the calf down by the stable and then began worship. The family knelt down and he prayed for everything and just got started after the heathen when they heard the calf walking on the porch. He jumped up and said: "That darned calf will break its fool neck yet." He ran it down to the stable, came back, knelt down, took up the prayer where he left off, fixed up the heathen, tapered off and finished the prayer before the calf got back on the porch.

Vegetation grew very rank and the country was full of malaria. Wells anywhere on the prairie were only eight or ten feet deep and seldom walled, as the water stood nearly level with the surface. Hundreds of persons died of fever. The old doctor would ride night and day with the saddlebags full of bottles. Ague was very prevalent. It was a peculiar disease. The victim would shake and chill every other day, and then be able to work some the next day. The chills were called fits. Quinine was unknown, but whisky, and Peruvian bark was a common remedy. It was customary to drink sassafras tea every spring to thin the blood, and also lobelia. The doctors said all the trouble was with the blood and the first thing to do in being called to see a patient was to bleed him and get rid of the bad blood. Usually the blacksmith or some person in the neighborhood had a spring lance, and if one of the family got sick he was sent over to be bled. The most famous medicine in use was castor oil.

--Washington, Iowa, Gazette.

Copied by Cordelia Suzann
"With permission from the Leon Journal Reporter"
November 30, 2002