The following represents a week
in the life of a farm wife, 1938, taken from my grandmothers diaries. I added
only a little to clarify, where needed.
Day 1 - High of 18 washed clothes,
they all dried. One of her sons stop
Day 2 –Cold all day strong NW
wind went, cleaned hen house started to crochet baby booties for new grand son
Went to card party won high prize
Day 3 – Fourteen below zero
froze in the house, what snow there is in piles, clear and windy. Daughter-in-law over while her husband took sheep
to sale
Lux Radio Theater, “Green Light”,
grandma sick
Day 4 – Blizzard in morning, kept
daughter home from school, did mending and crocheting, finished baby booties
Day 5 - Mended socks all pm, a son
visited but was heading to town to a BB game, 8 below clear and cold sewed and
ironed in morning, varnished table and chairs
Day 6 - Cleaned upstairs and
downstairs baked bread, snowed heavy with west wind. Six above, cleaned
upstairs bathroom and basement. Noted a granddaughter turns 2 today. Her husband took three hogs to sell in town.
Club in the afternoon, a son and daughter in law visited in eve.
Day 7 - Warmer with light rain
went to card party.
Nice day should have washed but
needed to go to town to get my new teeth, they have been out for 6 weeks but
will wait some more, not ready yet.
Visited daughter, her daughter
was ill. Turned cold, turned to ice.
Next time - a discussion of
what could be learned from a week of very short diary entries, there is some pretty
good stuff here.
2 comments:
This is so cool! lucky you that you have these! It's interesting she writes "a son," "a daughter" instead of their names.
Ah, 1938. I was six years old and loved playing in the snow. Your lucky, Neil, that you had someone that kept a diary. A lot of info there in this short excerpt.
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