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When
this home was built hemlock lumber was worth $6.00 per 1000
feet, spruce and pine $10 – $12.
The shingles used were hand shaved spruce at $3.00 per
thousand.
The
original roof is still in good condition.
The large kitchen and woodshed are back of the wing.
The woodshed bottom is down to the ground which is 3 feet
below the level of the kitchen floor.
It is open to the roof and provides storage for 75 to 80
cords of wood. Furnace or steam plants were not used; wood was
the fuel for heating, and with stoves.
Wood being our only fuel, Father would buy, during the
winter, 75 to 100 cords of green maple, beech, and birch 20 inch
stove wood delivered in our yard at $1.00 per cord. Some was split fine, other in the slab, for the heating
stove. This would
remain in the yard during the spring to season, then it was my
job to put it in the shed and pile it to the roof.
This house was considered a high class home although
we were just an ordinary family.
As was usual, the large front room was reserved for a
parlor to be closed up and used on special occasions only. The
parlor was finished in white enamel.
The living and dining room was in the wing section.
This was finished with pine wainscoting 3 ˝ feet high.
The painting, as in most homes, was graining to imitate such
woods as cherry, maple, oak or ash.
I have seen Father point to the parlor door many times
and say, “That door cost me $18 to have it painted”.
That meant some time was required with labor at $1.50 per
day of 10 or 12 hours.
The outside of the house was white with green blinds.
The barn was built a few years later. The outside was
spruce coping and sealed inside with pine to the eaves.
At that time the Rice and Emery Tannery was operating at
Edwards and the space between the studding of this barn was
filled with hemlock tanbark which made it warm and vermin proof.
A box stall was provided for our horse off the carriage
room and we had one cow. The
Ash and Poultry houses and Pigpen were added later.
This home is on a lot of ˝ acre of rich black soil.
The garden was fertilized each year with the manure of
the horse and cow stable. In those days much planning had to be done for winter supply
of vegetables and to see that nothing was wasted. The large
cellar is six feet deep which makes a grand vegetable cellar.
Our cellar was arranged on a systematic plan with a large
potato bin built about one foot from the floor, boxes of sand
provided to pack vegetables, and a platform 4 inches high by 2
feet wide built around the wall to place the pork, apple, soap,
sauerkraut and pickle barrels, also for smaller crocks.
We always had 40 to 50 bushels of good sorted
potatoes. They were worth 25 to 40 cents per bushel. The small
ones were fed to the pig, first being cooked and mixed with corn
meal.
We had several rows of sweet corn and when at its peak, the corn was cut from the
cob and placed on tins or trays to dry for our winter use.
The perfect ears of yellow corn were traced up to dry,
later to be shelled for hen food.
The cull ears were fed to the pig.
We always raised enough popcorn for our use during those
long winter evenings. After
the corn was harvested, the stalks were cut and stored in the
barn and later cut by machine for the cow.
The
cabbages, after making a large crock of sauerkraut, were pulled
up by the roots and hung from the ceiling of the cellar.
There was always a good supply of cucumbers, and a
full barrel of pickle size was packed in salt for sour pickles.
Many were left to grow and ripen and these were made into
sweet pickles.
Tomatoes were not raised as plentifully as today when they are
considered our leading vegetable. Just a few ripe ones were used and the green ones made into
sweet pickles.
Very few green peas, string beans or such were canned
and we had to wait for next season for a fresh supply.
And people could not run out to a grocery store during
the winter and get a head of lettuce as of today.
Our bed of parsnips was left in the ground during the winter.
They made a nice spring vegetable.
In some corner of the garden we had several roots of
horseradish that made a nice spring tonic.
Mother always looked after her bed of carroway to use
in making sugar or butter cookies, seldom seen today.
She also had her small bed of dill, sage and mint.
We had four crabapple trees that furnished nice sauce and
jellies.
Father’s favorite lineament was wormwood and vinegar and he
had a shrub of wormwood growing.
In those early days in small villages every family
raised a pig for their supply of pork for the winter. There was much strife as to who would have the best pig.
Ours was generally up with the top ones and would dress
about 300 pounds. On
the day of the slaughter, the family would feast on pig’s
liver. When the pig
was ready to cut up, the leaf lard and other pieces of fat were
rendered, even the scraps were saved, pressed dry, salted and
laid away to lunch on. The
sparerib was taken out with the whole rib and most of
the lean meat (now called pork chop or loin) was left on
the sparerib. These
were used fresh for Christmas or New Year dinners and was
preferred to turkey or chicken.
The hocks and shanks were pickled and used for boiled
dinners. The
shoulders were ground into sausage, seasoned and packed into
pans with a light covering of lard and stored in the cold room.
The hams were prepared and pickled, then smoked in the
ash house with cobs saved from the corn shelled for the hens.
The broadside pork was packed in salt in a 30 gallon
crock, then enough water was added to make a brine to cover and
a heavy weight placed on top.
The head was skinned of meat that was made into head
cheese.
For the beef supply, father would buy one fore and
two hind quarters at 4 ˝ cents and 5 ˝ per pound. Mincemeat was then made - about 100 pounds.
This was stored in stone crocks.
Mother was an artist in the making of mincemeat.
Next was the rump, brisket and chucks taken for corned
beef. The leg, or
ham of beef, was sliced into steak and packed in the cold room.
The suet and fat were rendered and used for many
purposes. The shank
with many pounds of meat left on the bone was used for soup.
My father
was a grand provider for man or beast, and milk was a large item
of our living. He
said a cow could not produce milk unless being well fed so ours
had a pail full of corn and oats or bran made into a mash twice
daily and she responded with a 12 quart pail of rich creamy milk
twice a day for nearly the entire year. We used plenty of milk for cooking and on the table.
Mother took care of the surplus, putting it in pans
arranged on a rack in the pantry with orders for no one to
disturb it. After
about 48 hours it would sour and the cream was taken off and
made into butter, which was also an item in our family.
The sour milk that was not made into cottage cheese was
divided with the hens and pig.
The hens furnished a good supply of fresh eggs and a fowl
for roasting when desired.
We had two sugar tubs made with covers and holding
about 50 pounds each. These
were sent out to a farmer in the spring and filled with soft
maple sugar. This
was used to sweeten Johnnycake and sweeten biscuits.
We also bought 10 or 12 gallons of maple syrup at 75
cents to 90 cents per gallon.
Our breakfast in those days was a regular meal and
not a make believe one as of today.
We had a stack of griddle cakes with syrup, hash brown
potatoes and a large slab of sausage or ham with homemade bread
and one or more cups of Old Government Java Coffee.
Our cereal was not of 100 different kinds but instead was
the old-fashioned whole kernel oatmeal cooked over night.
Father would buy a 60 pound full cream September
cheese that cost 6 to 7 cents per pound.
Meat markets, or butcher shops, as they were called,
would only be open a couple days each week, or just
after they had slaughtered a beef, hog, lamb, or veal. Most people considered that meat should be used as soon as
possible. The
ruling price was 10 cents per pound for round, sirloin or porter
house steak, pork steak, lamb or chicken.
Beef shanks with 4 or 5 pounds on was 25 cents.
The liver, heart, and tongue were given away free to
customers.
You might wonder about our entertainment or amusement
as there were no moving pictures, radio, or electric lights.
When night came on it was black dark on the streets and
grownups and children did not roam the streets at all hours of
the night as is done today.
Our evenings were spent at home with the family, both
grownups and children. Some
evenings a large dishpan would be popped full of corn.
Some liked this with milk and sliced apples, others
enjoyed it with melted butter and salt.
Another evening it would be a large pan of apples, on
another a pan of cracked butternuts when all would gather around
the table and pick the meats out.
Butternuts were very plentiful around Edwards. We would gather 10 or 12 bushels each year.
These would be stored above the kitchen to dry.
They never spoil, are just as good when 5 or 6 years old,
and they cost nothing, only the gathering.
There were no rich people in those days, but many
well to do, and all hard-working people.
No one ever starved or went hungry; neither did they
count their vitamins. I
think the families and children were as happy and contented as
of today. We were
early to bed and early to rise.
We slept on rope bedsteads with generously filled straw
ticks on top, had plenty of wool blankets and flannel underwear. Money was not so easy to get, but more caution was used in
spending.
Our family was large; 6 of our own, and Grandfather
and Grandmother Raymond lived with us in their latter years.
Also two of Father’s employees, Myron Huntley and Oscar
Allen, boarded with us and Mother had a hired girl part of the
time, so there were 11 hungry people to feed at each meal.
Father purchased a second hand dining table from a Mr.
Barbour for $55. It
was solid black walnut with 6 inch legs, had three 18 inch extra
leaves and could seat 14 people.
That table is still with the family relatives.
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