Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Farm Women in Older Generations

People say that they worked so hard, but if you look at movies, TV programs, and illustrations of the era, all they did was sit on the porch and either shuck peas or snap beans.

Likewise, according to TV, the only thing that today's women do in the kitchen is slice carrots.

My grandma took care of livestock and drove a tractor.
Said she used to shoot pheasants and rabbits on the farm too (back when it had pheasants).

She was a cool lilttle gal.
Think of her often.

Been gone a while

My great-grandmother shot and killed a black guy who was trying to break in, and buried him somewhere on the farm, back during WWI when The men were gone to war.

My grandmother had to grow the beans and spend most of the morning picking them before she could sit on the porch and shell them ,then there was the blanching and putting them in jars for the winter.

My grandmas and great grandmas were some rugged gals to put it mildly. No way would today’s women put up with the hardships they faced.

The last I remember my grandmother, she was wearing army boots to go in the barn and milk 7 cows, by hand.
She said the big red cow demanded to be milked first.

Just buried my 98 year old mother yesterday. Until just a few years ago, she could work me into the ground. Never just sat around. Always sewing, working in her half acre garden, canning and freezing stuff that she just gave away to family and friends. They do not make them like her any more and the world is a smaller place because of it.

my grand mammy kilt grizzlies by hand. had them drug back skinned before sunset

My grandmothers grew up mostly in town. My grandfathers and their sisters grew up on small farms in Michigan. One in Alpena and the other in the thumb.

An old picture of my grandpa and my great aunt on the their northern MI farm taken in the early 1920’s.

What a different era. They both left the farm and North MI for better job opportunities and both eventually retired to and passed away in FL in the 2000’s in a completely different world from the one that they were born into.

A family near me had a dream to buy a ranch someday, and the old woman, Jesse, shared the dream of her husband, Carl. Carl was log bucker in the days before chainsaws...with the aptly named 'misery whip'. The company, McCloud River Lbr Co paid on how much you actually cut. Carl and his partner would leave their cabin to arrive at the logging site just at first light, buck the huge pine logs all day, with a lunch break, and not return to the shack until the light failed. Carl and his partner were legends in a world of hard workers. A normal day for the other pairs was 6 or 7 hours.
Anyway, Jesse described a typical day to me, some years back. Long before first light she would rise and prepare a full breakfast and rouse the men when it was ready, and pack their lunches and water. After they left, she prepared the day's baking. As it got light she would carry water for the day, do laundry and dishes. While the baking was taking place she would nap. Then she would fill the lamps and saw oil bottles for the next day, maybe gather or split more wood. Then start preparing the evening meal, a huge affair of thousands of calories. After the men had eaten and gone to bed, she would light all the lamps, gather the big 10 foot crosscuts and begin her night job of setting and filing saws and grinding axes well into the night by lamplight. And kept it up for several years. In the height of the depression they found their dream ranch, purchased it with their savings and so far their children have not ran it into ruin. Jesse lived to age 90.

The days of my grandmothers, were harsh to my understanding. A short history. Dads side. Grandpa born 1879, Grandma born 1888. Eastern Oregon loggers and farmers.. Moms side. Grandpa born 1880, Grandma born 1889. Farmers and loggers. Times were different, work was never ending, religion and honesty bound the communities together. Skid houses raised children, cooked for crews, served as church, hospitals and school. Farms were worked in season, and logs were cut the rest of the year. Hard times to us, life to them!

Mom told that her grandmother milked the cows. The red one was always difficult. Great-grandma would come into the house and say to my uncle, Bill, "Villie, you know diese rote Kuh? Das heiBt a son-of-a-bitch!"

Neither would today's men put up with the hardships they faced.

My Grandparents had the last farm on their lane in Northern , Wisconsin. G'pa was working on the Soo Line.

My Grand mother would have to tie the kids inna chair to keep them from getting burned on the wood cook stove, or other dangers. Then she would run through the woods with a axe to chop a hole in the creek for a pail of water.

Me and your gramms hunted pheasants together. With Steve McQueen and Paul Newman

Your about as full of schit as a Christmas turkey

My grandparents homesteaded on the Northwest Angle (the tip of Minnesota that juts above the 49th parallel). Granddad died in the Spanish Flu epidemic, leaving grandmother with four young boys,, aged 1 to 8. She managed to raise them by herself, on a small farm along with running a store and post office.

Recall that Joe Foss was hassled by the early TSA after 911. For having a “sharp pointy object” in his carry on.
Sheboon airport security and a team of others to [bleep] dumb to realize it was his Medal of Honor.

Up through the depression, life was hell for a farm wife. What changed it the most was electricity. Light, cooking, cleaning, milking, etc. Rural electrification made it vastly easier on the women. A while back I saw a rerun of Silverado. The good looking widow, Hannah, was determined to make a go of farming new land. She said that her looks wouldn't last long but she was going for it. She was right.