LOUISA COUNTY, IOWA

Submitted by Lynn McCleary May 11, 2022
(transcribed as written)

Page 13

HOME LIFE IN PIONEER DAYS
Given Before 4-H Club Girls in Columbus Junction

    YOUNG LADIES: Your leader has asked me to talk to you about home life in pioneer days. I am a pioneer, having been brought into the territory of Iowa, and am older than the state. Many things of the state history I remember hearing talked over in the early days, as where the state capital should be located. Fredonia was spoken of at that time, but Iowa City was chosen.

    You may hear persons now say, “I would like to live over the good old days”. I am not one of those. I would not like to go back and live over those early days. When I visit one of the modern kitchens and look around and see the many useful helps contained in them to shorten the time of preparing meals and other work, I think of the few things my mother had to use and how it would have lightened her work to have had some of the modern equipment.

    Compare the making of brad, for example. First we must makeour own yeast. And often the strength had died out of the supply on hand and we must borrow a new start from a neighbor; unless salt rising bread was used, which was a sweet bread and good when successfully made, but one not always had good …

Page 14

… luck with it. Soda biscuits and corn bread were generally used. Ow we buy all kinds of bread from the bakeries and think little how they are made.

    Then there was the soap making, and it was hard work. So much water needed to be carried to leach the ashes for the lye, and when the soap was boiling it required constant care. Then sometimes it did not turn out well; the failure due to sour lye, or too much or not enough grease. Sometimes the failure was blamed to the soap having been made in the wrong time of the moon. Now we buy our soap. It always was, and still is, a necessity.

    Washing was always a hard job and one that came every week. We rubbed the clothes on a washboard, or used a pounder made from a block of wood with a handle. The garments were generally of heavy material and the handling of them was no easy. In the spring when general housecleaning was done the bedding was washed – quilts, blankets, bedticks (for we used straw beds and feather beds then; mattresses are modern). This often required several days of hard work to finish.

    Our fruits were principally wild fruits, from the thickets of crabapples and plums, grapes from vines on fences or trees, or wild strawberries growing in the grass. To keep for future use they were preserved or dried. Foreign fruits came from Italy and Spain – raisins, currants, citron, lemons and oranges. Apples came from the southern and eastern states and were not common. They were used only for festive occasions. Watermelons and pumpkins we raised in quantities. Pumpkin was dried by cutting in strips and handing to dry; or cooked and spread on plates to dry, then rolled and put in a dry place. It then needed to be soaked in water until soft enough to use. Many other fruits were preserved in the same way.

    Many of our desserts were made from milk and eggs, I have eaten molasses made from watermelon juice. Sugar sap was made from maple trees. We also had plenty of honey made by wild bees. Pickles were put down in brine and when wanted were freshened with cold water and put in vinegar. The vinegar was home-made from sweetened water or fruit juices. Compare all these with our modern canned goods.

    Our meats were home cured; bee was fried or corned. I remember when wild turkey, quail and prairie chicken were as common on our tables as your domestic chickens are today. We also had venison in the winter.

    Our garments were of course home made, and much of them were made from home woven cloth. Men and boys’ clothing as well as those of women and girls were all sewed by hand. Yarn was spun and knit in the home. I knew an old lady who earned her board, and often some money, by going from home to home to knit the stockings. In a large family that meant work, for …

Page 15

… each one was supposed to have at least two pair, and long stockings were of slow growth. So summer and winter that old lady was busy, for the cotton stocking were hand knit too.

    No scraps of material were allowed to go to waste. Quilts, comforts and rag carpets and everything. You can see how much time was needed for making the necessary things in the home. Girls were early taught to use the needle; the long seams in the garments were the first lesson, and so on, the buttonholes being the last to accomplish.

    Each child could do something useful about the home. The boys supplied the wood and kindling and helped about the barn. The girls when quite young could set an unset the table had many uses. There was no separate room for eating and the same table had many uses. Knives, forks and spoons had to be kept bright by scouring; knives and forks were of steel and the spoons were pewter. The forks had only two tines. The silverware was kept for company. Candle sticks and sniffer trays were of brass and must be kept bright. The candles were made at home and little fingers could thread the wicks into the molds ready for the hoot tallow. Yards and porches must be swept. And when the table was set for the meal someone must “mind the flies” – march around with a paper fly brush, or a branch from a tree, or a peacock-tail brush and whisk the flies. Think of a house without screens. As soon as old enough the children must help mike and churn.

    Compare those times with the present when electricity does so much of the hard work and makes our homes so comfortable. With all kinds of canned products from our own and foreign countries we can vary our meals and have much leisure. Now who would like to go back of the old times. I for one am glad we can be free from so much hard labor. As young people we enjoyed our good times and the work only made us appreciate any vacation the more.

    I never lived in a log cabin but visited in many; and while the big fireplace is often spoken of, I prefer a stove or a furnace. For with the big log fire much heat went up the chimney while one’s face roasted and one’s back was cold. Yet now a fireplace sounds so romantic. Our first home was built of brick. With plenty of good clay at hand bricks were quickly made, and the house so built was warmer than a log house. Many of the first homes in this part of the country were built of brick.

    I am glad to see the young people taking up the work of today from pleasure and choice which we did from necessity. We enjoy the things we make ourselves more than those we buy. You are copying things we made from necessity or for our comfort, and the craze today for antiques brings out many old things. We all have some things we prize for the associations connected with them, like the woman in “The Covered Wagon”. She went through many trials to keep her bureau and her garden.

Page 16

… seeds on the long journey to Oregon but later had her flower garden and vegetables to remind her of her old home.

    Another thing given much attention now is care in beautifying the yards about the home. England is noted for her beautiful gardens and some of them are very old. But we can have as fine as any country if we give the same amount of care and attention that the English give and so leave behind us something for the future generations to enjoy.

    I think I am addressing young women from the farms in the greatest member and my advice to you is to stay by the farms. With modern facilities you have enjoyments the people of the cities do not have and your file is more independent.