SEGMENT: FARM EQUIPMENT, FOOD & MEALS, & FAMILY BACKGROUND

Robert A. Taylor>UIS Collection T-Z>UIS Collection T-Z, Segment 1

SEGMENT: FARM EQUIPMENT, FOOD & MEALS, & FAMILY BACKGROUND,

duration 13:19
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FAMILY BACKGROUND
FARM EQUIPMENT
Used a corn planter operated by a family friend. Raised corn, wheat, and oats, fed oats to livestock. Had a binder and a thresher. Stacked wheat. Sold some corn in Chandlerville but did not raise much, not a good price. Man who ran the thresher also shelled corn. Threshed in the late fall and shelled in winter. Wheat was sold in Bluff Springs. Bought equipment in Chandlerville when Bowman-Haynes & Company ran the elevator. Discusses the elevator and mill ownership. Paid cash for equipment. Traded wheat for flour. Father once hauled wheat to St. Louis. Took two hours to haul wheat to Beardstown. Bought and ate cheese and crackers in Beardstown for lunch. Father was first to break some of the prairie land with a walking plow with three horses.
FOOD & MEALS
Raised potatoes, apples, peaches, and made sauerkraut. Kept apples in cellar in bins, but they would start to rot. Canned peaches in glass jars. Had chickens, and neighbor's turkey's would roost on their house at night. Neighbor let them keep a turkey. Butchered own hogs and cured the meat with salt, then hung it in smokehouse. Washed off the salt before eating. Describes process of smoking meat. Ground sausage and seasoned it with salt, pepper, and sage, then stored it in a covered crock. Set the kettle of hog fat outside on a fire to make lard, then put it through a lard press. Describes the lard press. Lard kept for two years, and used it all before it got strong.