SEGMENT: FARM WORK & FARMHOUSE
Jessie Ruth Saiter>UIS Collection S>UIS Collection S, Segment 2
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- FARM WORK
- Hay cut in spring using scythe, piled in shocks, & let to "ripen" & dry. Describes piling hay. Mentions harvesting oats also with horses. Wheat then cut with a binder. Describes binder & harvesting of wheat. Mentions having to change horses often due to heat.
- FARMHOUSE
- No refrigeration. No air-conditioning. No fans. Wonders how they slept at night in summer. Houses not as well constructed, not as tight, as today.
- FARM WORK
- Mentions that during WWI girls helped shock the wheat. Description of shocking wheat. Wheat ripened in shocks for 4-6 wks, then stacked in the barn. Then wheat put into thresher from this pile of wheat. Father & uncle co-owned threshing machine. Straw separated from grain, & straw put in feed lot. Mentions water-wagon boy who hauled water for steam engine & to drink. Mentions that less men to cook for when threshing than when filling silos. Description of women tramping corn silage in silo in September, then ready to be fed to cattle in December. Discussion of changes in hay baling then & now. Description of putting hay in barn. "Women weren't supposed to know much about men's work." Brief decryption of 1 & 2 row planter.
- CROPS
- Grew mainly corn, no soybeans. Whippoorwill Beans; Bean grown in sandy bottomland. Discussion of hoeing beans to remove Morning Glory & weeds as a child. Younger children separated by a row with an older child who would help the adjacent younger ones with the hoeing. Work done in bare feet. Sandburs made hoeing painful.
