# ISO info on 1930's farming



## Constance (Nov 10, 2007)

I am writing a book about my parents lives as they were growing up and how they got together. My dad grew up on a farm in Iowa during the 30's, and while I have my dad's stories, and have done a lot of research on line, there are many details I'm not sure about.
If any of you had parents or grandparents who were farmers back then, I would appreciate any information you might remember about farm life back then.


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## Uncle Bob (Nov 10, 2007)

Miss Connie... Are there any particular things you are interested in?? Specific questions?


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## Constance (Nov 10, 2007)

Really, anything about farm equipment and the way they did chores.

For one thing, I have a question about windmills. I know my grandfather had one, and my dad told about how sometimes the lights would be real bright, and at others they would flicker and go out. But my husband says they just used windmills to power the pump on the deep well, that they didn't have the technology to use it for electricity in the house. 

I also remember Dad telling about how they chilled the milk in the deep well, but I never asked just how that worked. From what I remember, there was just a pump, with maybe some kind of wooden structure around it. That was after they moved to town, though. I never saw the one on the farm. Do you suppose they had some kind of chilling tank adjacent to the well?

Right now, I'm into picking the field corn. I know they did it by hand, but I'm wondering about how they shelled it. G'pa did have a tractor, although he still used horses for a lot of things. Was there some sort of tractor or horse powered machine that they used?

I'm also wondering if anyone has an idea of how many bushels per acre they could get during a good year back then. Iowa wasn't in the dust bowl.

I also find I'm lacking in knowledge about the wood cook stove my Grandmother used. The only thing I know for sure is that, in the winter, it would get cold enough in the kitchen at night that the water in the "well" of the cook stove would freeze up. But was there any way she could regulate the temperature in the oven or the stove top? Didn't some of them have a separate oven for bread?


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## Constance (Nov 10, 2007)

One more thing...I know g'pa planted an acre of potatoes for their own use. Does anyone know about digging an acre of potatoes without fancy machinery? Did they use a plow to loosen the ground? Was there some kind of special attachment other than a plow they might use? Did they have some sort of rake attachment to pull out the potatoes, or was that done by hand, with potato forks?


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## Uncle Bob (Nov 10, 2007)

Miss Connie.... On small farms of that era, the Old box mounted "BlackHawk" hand cranked sheller was very popular. I have on in my shop that I use to shell corn for the grist mill. As a small child at my Great-Grand Father's I loved to turn the crank and shell corn. He told me one time if I didn't stop, I would shell the whole crib. I'm sure there were commercial shellers in that era as well. Also, there were many different "hand" shellers that one could use to keep your hand from getting sore.


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## BreezyCooking (Nov 10, 2007)

I know the internet is easier to access, but have you done any research at your local library, as well as any local museums?


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## Uncle Bob (Nov 10, 2007)

Constance said:
			
		

> I also remember Dad telling about how they chilled the milk in the deep well, but I never asked just how that worked. From what I remember, there was just a pump, with maybe some kind of wooden structure around it. That was after they moved to town, though. I never saw the one on the farm. Do you suppose they had some kind of chilling tank adjacent to the well?


 
Miss Connie...Rather than a well it may have been a Cistern. An underground holding "tank" to collect and store rain water. These were dug out and lined with bricks and mortar. Sometimes the water was filtered (charcoal) before going into the Cistern. Above ground would have been a round/square brick/wooden structure with a wooden 'lid" to keep out leaves etc. Often times an old well pump would be mounted on this lid to pump water out. Milk was often times placed in containers and lowered into the cool water. These Cisterns were usually built near the house so they could maximize rain water collection, and for convenience.


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## Constance (Nov 10, 2007)

BreezyCooking said:


> I know the internet is easier to access, but have you done any research at your local library, as well as any local museums?


There isn't much available here, Breezy, and since I'm stove up and don't drive any longer, I'm pretty limited in that area. I do have the number a friend gave me of "Uncle Thurmond", who is 80 years old and been a farmer all his life. 

Uncle Bob, you are giving me just the kind of information that I need! The info about the corn sheller is great.
I also think you're on the right track about the cooling tank, except I know for sure it was a deep well they used for this. (G'pa was very proud of that well...it never went dry.) Perhaps they were able to set up the same sort of system, using the well water? They did have a windmill powered pump on it.


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## Constance (Nov 10, 2007)

PS...What did your grandpa great's corn crib look like?


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## Uncle Bob (Nov 10, 2007)

The Corn Crib was just a room within the larger barn, made from rough sawed lumber. There was an outside (big) door of course to facilitate putting the corn in the barn from a wagon that came from the field. I would "guesstimate" it being 12 x 16 feet. It may have been much smaller, because I was looking at it through the eyes of a child. It was full of corn banked to the back. Just inside the door was a corn box with a Blackhawk sheller mounted on it. Corn was shelled mostly for chickens that were running loose everywhere. There were also a couple of resident Chicken Snakes that would scare me to death!!! My great-grand dad would just brush them out of the way. He wanted them for rodent control in the crib


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## Constance (Nov 10, 2007)

Thanks, Bob. We have resident rat snakes and chicken snakes both. I've seen those chicken snakes pretty darned big!


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## buckytom (Nov 10, 2007)

connie, my dad was raised on a farm in ireland in the 20's and 30's, so i'll ask about the potatoes.

i know they used livestock to pull a plow for planting and harvesting potatoes, and the harvesting was done in combination of a plow and workers hand harvesting with forks. supposedly, you didn't want it to rain for a few days up to and including the harvest because the ground was 10 times heavier when wet, which made gathering the spuds all that more difficult.


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## Uncle Bob (Nov 10, 2007)

Miss Connie....

 On small family farms potato digging methods were determined by the size of the crop and the means of the family. Some had tractors, others had mules. The plow of choice was a Middle Buster or either a Turning Plow. The object being to get the plow underneath the potatoes and turn them to the top. There was always some damage, but on an acre of potaoes the object was to get them out of the ground and into storage. With 4-6-8 Kids in a family being the norm, on smaller plots they were dug by hand using shovels/potato forks etc.


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## Uncle Bob (Nov 10, 2007)

BT... Digging potatoes out of wet ground will also add to the decay rate of the potatoes. The old farmers wanted dry fall weather to dig in for that reason as well as the one you mention. 

Fun!


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## Angie (Nov 10, 2007)

My grandfather was born in 1910 and farmed all his life, here in Iowa!  He passed a few years ago but I can ask my mom a bunch of questions for her to ask Grandma!

Where in Iowa???


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## Uncle Bob (Nov 11, 2007)

Constance said:
			
		

> I'm also wondering if anyone has an idea of how many bushels per acre they could get during a good year back then. Iowa wasn't in the dust bowl.


 
Miss Connie....

During the period of time (1930ish) you are refering too, based on some gerneral information I have I would say corn production per acre was in the 25-35, maybe 40 bushels, (56 lbs/bushel shelled) per acre range. Ouite a contrast to the 166 bushels Avg. per acre for Iowa in 2006. This is due to improved genetics, and production technology. Fertilizers, weed & insect control, etc. 
Hope this helps.


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## Constance (Nov 11, 2007)

Angie said:


> My grandfather was born in 1910 and farmed all his life, here in Iowa!  He passed a few years ago but I can ask my mom a bunch of questions for her to ask Grandma!
> 
> Where in Iowa???



Angie, that would be great! Grandpa's farm was near Bondurant, which, when I was a child was a wide spot in the road with a grain elevator, post office, general store and garage. Now it still only has a small population, but it is part of the greater Des Moines metro area. 

One thing you might ask your grandma is about canning methods she used and what sorts of things they grew in their vegetable gardens. What did they eat in the summer, when there was no refrigeration to keep meat? Dad said other than chicken or meat their mother had canned the previous fall, they didn't eat meat in the summer. I've talked about fried green tomatoes, potato cakes, bean sandwiches, meat-spread from canned beef chunks, etc, but I'm running out of ideas.

I also wonder:
Did they dry any beef or sausages? 
What kind of lady's magazines they may have gotten through the mail. 
Did your g'ma make her own starch for ironing, or did she buy it in a box? 
How did she hang her washing to dry in the winter when it was really cold?


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## Constance (Nov 11, 2007)

BT, how interesting! I'll bet he had lots of good stories!

Uncle Bob, you are a lot of help! Now that you mention it, I think I remember my dad saying something about 40 bushels per acre being a good yield back then. 
I also appreciate the info about the turning plow.

Another question...would they have followed one root crop with another, or did they plant rye or something else to replenish the soil instead. I've got to get turnips and fall beets into the ground someplace.


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## Angie (Nov 11, 2007)

Constance said:


> Angie, that would be great! Grandpa's farm was near Bondurant, which, when I was a child was a wide spot in the road with a grain elevator, post office, general store and garage. Now it still only has a small population, but it is part of the greater Des Moines metro area.
> 
> One thing you might ask your grandma is about canning methods she used and what sorts of things they grew in their vegetable gardens. What did they eat in the summer, when there was no refrigeration to keep meat? Dad said other than chicken or meat their mother had canned the previous fall, they didn't eat meat in the summer. I've talked about fried green tomatoes, potato cakes, bean sandwiches, meat-spread from canned beef chunks, etc, but I'm running out of ideas.
> 
> ...


 
Sure thing!


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## Uncle Bob (Nov 11, 2007)

Constance said:


> BT, how interesting! I'll bet he had lots of good stories!
> 
> Uncle Bob, you are a lot of help! Now that you mention it, I think I remember my dad saying something about 40 bushels per acre being a good yield back then.
> I also appreciate the info about the turning plow.
> ...


 

Miss Connie,,,

I'm sure that Agronomist/Horticulturist of the day were suggesting Crop rotation practices much as they do today! To increase yields and to control some types of diseases. Whether or not this was done depended on each individual farmer. Cover crops of rye, or maybe hairy vetch, which both have good cold tolerance for that area may have been used to reduce erosion and provide a "green manure" when turned into the soil in spring. Planting the same crop on the same ground year after year will work, but sooner or later it will catch up with you with reduced yields and an increase of diseases. Sometimes however they had no choice. They were trying to make a living, and feed 6 children!


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## buckytom (Nov 11, 2007)

unka bob, hairy vetch is great stuff. it's so hardy it's even recommended in my zone, and a zone north of me.

it not only adds to the soil when turned in, but is a nitrogen fixing plant as it is growing.


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## sparrowgrass (Nov 12, 2007)

When my father-in-law talked about harvesting corn, he said all the kids would go out to pick, and there was a "bang board" on one side of the wagon.  If you tossed your corn up to hit that board, it bounced back into the wagon, instead of going over the wagon.

My mom talks about "stomping" hay--her brothers forked it up into the wagon, and she and her sisters tromped it down so the wagon would hold more.  There was a rope that went thru pulleys high in the barn, and a net attached to one end.  When they hauled the hay to the barn, they forked it onto the net, and a horse pulled it up into the loft.

Once my mother got her clothes caught on the hook that held the net, and she was almost dragged up into the barn.

Modern farming methods were just getting started in the thirties--farm programs to stop erosion, crop rotation, soil and water conservation districts, University Extension, even 4-H clubs so boys could learn good crop practices.


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## Constance (Nov 12, 2007)

That's great information, Sparrowgrass. Thank you very much. 

Do you happen to know what they used for straw?


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## jpmcgrew (Nov 12, 2007)

I know nothing about those days but I would venture all farms were run by the decendants of different countries so you might have Germans,Swiss,Italians,Russians etc that ran their farms as their parents taught them.Eventually their methods and recipes etc would meld together.Some had to be better milk producers and cheese makers as others would be great butchers,sausage makers etc and others were may be better wheat growers,bread makers and so on.So Im guessing alot of of them bartered alot.As they probably needed also needed iron smiths and a host of others,that had talents that were important to survival.Im thinking beer makers and so on.Im sure actual cash was slim so there had to be alot of trading going on.


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## Constance (Nov 12, 2007)

jpmcgrew said:


> I know nothing about those days but I would venture all farms were run by the decendants of different countries so you might have Germans,Swiss,Italians,Russians etc that ran their farms as their parents taught them.Eventually their methods and recipes etc would meld together.Some had to be better milk producers and cheese makers as others would be great butchers,sausage makers etc and others were may be better wheat growers,bread makers and so on.So Im guessing alot of of them bartered alot.As they probably needed also needed iron smiths and a host of others,that had talents that were important to survival.Im thinking beer makers and so on.Im sure actual cash was slim so there had to be alot of trading going on.



There was a lot of bartering going on. I think the old country doctor got more chickens, loaves of homemade bred, etc, than he knew what to do with.


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## Katie H (Nov 12, 2007)

Constance said:


> There was a lot of bartering going on. I think the old country doctor got more chickens, loaves of homemade bred, etc, than he knew what to do with.



Little off topic,  but a bit relevant.

I was a child in the late '40s and early '50s.  My daddy was a country doctor and we ate quite  well because he was frequently paid by "food."  It wasn't unusual for him to get  in his car at the end of office hours to find the back seat filled with sweet potatoes, white potatoes, etc.  He was paid in fresh eggs, homemade jams/preserves, fresh-killed  beef, hogs and chickens.  There were also country hams,  fresh corn, beans, peas, etc.  You name it, it was offered in payment for his services.

Man, oh man, we ate well!!!!


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## jpmcgrew (Nov 12, 2007)

Katie E said:


> Little off topic, but a bit relevant.
> 
> I was a child in the late '40s and early '50s. My daddy was a country doctor and we ate quite well because he was frequently paid by "food." It wasn't unusual for him to get in his car at the end of office hours to find the back seat filled with sweet potatoes, white potatoes, etc. He was paid in fresh eggs, homemade jams/preserves, fresh-killed beef, hogs and chickens. There were also country hams, fresh corn, beans, peas, etc. You name it, it was offered in payment for his services.
> 
> Man, oh man, we ate well!!!!


Im betting what he got was worth far more than his fee.I admire the folks that tried to pay in some way.


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## Katie H (Nov 12, 2007)

jpmcgrew said:


> Im betting what he got was worth far more than his fee.I admire the folks that tried to pay in some way.



You're absolutely right, Jackie.  Everyone seemed to love  "Doc" and it showed in how they made an effort to pay him.  This was/is a very rural, almost poor area.



Now...back to our regularly scheduled program.


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## jpmcgrew (Nov 12, 2007)

Katie E said:


> You're absolutely right, Jackie. Everyone seemed to love "Doc" and it showed in how they made an effort to pay him. This was/is a very rural, almost poor area.
> 
> 
> 
> Now...back to our regularly scheduled program.


I would love to read a book on country doctors Im sure they never got rich as doctors do today.I think they truly wanted to help in those days and sacrificed alot to do it.God bless them all.


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## Uncle Bob (Nov 12, 2007)

Miss Connie...

I thought you might find this interesting...Especially the price of Corn, pork, and beef.

Great Depression in Ames


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## Constance (Nov 13, 2007)

That's a very interesting article, Bob. Grandpa was able to hold on to his farm for a long time, but he did finally lose it. The family blamed it on his drinking.


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## Uncle Bob (Nov 13, 2007)

The Great Depression was extremely hard, especially on the small family farm. 
At 8 cents for a bushel of corn, 3 cents for Hogs, and 5 cents for beef, it is no wonder it tooks it's toll on so many people lives.

I know it was a common practice (at least here in the South) of neighbor helping neighbor. At hog killing time, (January or February, and the colder the better) Two, three or four familys would join together at one family house to kill two or three hogs. It was an all day process, butchering, rendering lard, cooking cracklings, preparing meat to cure, etc. The day usually ended with a big meal prepared by the women folk. Also everyone took home some fresh meat for the table. A week or so later they would be at someone else's house doing the same thing. It made it easier on each family to have the help of others. It was a social good time as well a productive time. I'm sure the men folk especially had a good time, going to the barn every so often to have a few "pulls' on the jug!


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## sparrowgrass (Nov 13, 2007)

Carolyn, straw comes from wheat or oats.

About canning--my grandma did hers outside, mostly.  Can you imagine how hot a kitchen would get with a woodstove and big kettles of boiling water, on a Missouri August afternoon?


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## Uncle Bob (Nov 13, 2007)

sparrowgrass said:


> Carolyn, straw comes from wheat or oats.
> 
> About canning--my grandma did hers outside, mostly. Can you imagine how hot a kitchen would get with a woodstove and big kettles of boiling water, on a Missouri August afternoon?


 
Ouch!! My mother related a story of canning in the first couple of years she was married. Small house, small kitchen, wood stove. Her back was to the stove while at the sink. She wound up blistering her back!! 

Isn't it odd/strange/funny how young people sometimes want to "go back to the good old days"..  I tell them, these are the good old days. Wait a few years and you will see.


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## bethzaring (Nov 13, 2007)

Connie, here is a link to the Nelson Pioneer Farm website, located just north of Oskaloosa Iowa.  One picture is of its summer kitchen and canning equipment..
Nelson Pioneer Farm Online Tour


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## Constance (Nov 15, 2007)

That's a great site, Beth. Thank you very much!

Grandma did her canning outside, too, Sparrowgrass. It gets just as hot in Iowa as it does in the south...the summers are just shorter. 

Bob, one thing writing this book is doing for me is making me appreciate being the modern conveniences we have. I'd already spent enough time loading coal and carrying clinkers when I had my first greenhouse to make me appreciate being able to flick a switch and turn on the heat or AC, But imagine having to build a fire in the cook stove to fix a cup of coffee! 

Neighbors helped neighbors up in Iowa, too.


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## sparrowgrass (Nov 15, 2007)

I musta been thinking about you when I hit the library yesterday--look for 
"Little Heathens" by Mildred Kalish.  It is the story of growing up on a farm during the depression, just full of all the things you are asking about.

Also, for a look at dust bowl/depression life, "The Worst Hard Time" by Timothy Egan.


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## GotGarlic (Nov 15, 2007)

jpmcgrew said:


> I would love to read a book on country doctors Im sure they never got rich as doctors do today.I think they truly wanted to help in those days and sacrificed alot to do it.God bless them all.



DH gave me this for Christmas last year: Amazon.com: An Irish Country Doctor: Books: Patrick Taylor 

I loved it.


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## GotGarlic (Nov 15, 2007)

Uncle Bob said:


> Ouch!! My mother related a story of canning in the first couple of years she was married. Small house, small kitchen, wood stove. Her back was to the stove while at the sink. She wound up blistering her back!!
> 
> Isn't it odd/strange/funny how young people sometimes want to "go back to the good old days"..  I tell them, these are the good old days. Wait a few years and you will see.



Another book I enjoyed: Amazon.com: The Good Old Days--They Were Terrible!: Books: Otto Bettmann


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## suziquzie (Nov 15, 2007)

Constance-
My Dad's family were all farmers in Southern Illinois. Where about are you?
He's from Chester, home of Popeye. 
I remember my Grandpa talking about making head cheese alot. From a pig head. Other than that they all spoke in German, something that bugged my Grandpa because he wanted his kids to learn English as thier 1st language, he thought it was about time being 3rd generation Americans. 
I'm not helping any, I'll go away now.


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## GrillingFool (Nov 15, 2007)

If you are comfortable with it, ebay could be a great source.
Search for some magazines like Country Gentleman, Capper's Farmer, Successful Farming and such.
You can probably get them fairly cheaply, and they will be packed with articles
that can shed a lot of light on life at the time! 

If you were looking for the 1910-1920 era, I could send you a pile of southern farming
interest magazines for the cost of postage. 

And if you want pure statistics, well, I have just about every Report of the Dept. of Agriculture
from around 1870 to 1950 or so. Want to know the bushel yield of oats? Livestock numbers? Hog cholera 
in depth? Wine grape farming? fascinating stuff indeed!


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## suziquzie (Nov 15, 2007)

Did they dry any beef or sausages? 
What kind of lady's magazines they may have gotten through the mail. 
Did your g'ma make her own starch for ironing, or did she buy it in a box? 
How did she hang her washing to dry in the winter when it was really cold?
__________________
My Grandma did not own a washing machine until 1982.... my Grandpa died and my Aunts didn't want her doing all that work alone. She did it the same as summer, hobbled out to the line and hung them. I don't see how they dried frozen though.


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## Walt Bulander (Nov 15, 2007)

The dustbowl really did intrude on SW Minnesota and, I'm sure, on Iowa, as well. The place where I hunt deer is a farm near my home, where I was curious why some of the fence lines were elevated by 3 or 4 feet over the surrounding fields. I asked the owner of the farm (born 1914) why and he told me that the reason was the fences in place then caused the dirt blowing to make dirt drifts. the current fences were rebuilt on top of the mounds. The crops in that year, or years, had to be totally dried up for this to happen.

My grandmother in Minneapolis told me that they wetted rags and put them on the window sills each day to keep the dust out of the house, as much as possible. It must have seemed like the end of the world.

Re: windmills and electric lights.  There were wind generators in the 30's, although expensive in those tough times. I've seen a few that still exist. There was the usual tower with a wind mill propellor attached to a generator that charged a bank of lead/acid batteries in a small building under the tower. As I remember, they were connected as 32 volts and probably only had enough power to run lights in the dairy barn and the house.
You might want to google Jacobs and Aeromotor for details of the history.  

(an aside In todays Marshall, MN paper there was an article about 9 wind generators being erected south of town that will be capable of powering the whole town of at least 12,000 people (but only when the wind blows). 

Typical corn cribs in MN and Iowa were two rectangular structures covered by a single connecting roof, with space between to drive a wagon  through it. The sides were spaced boards that allowed the wind to dry and keep dry the corn cobs.


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## Katie H (Nov 15, 2007)

Our  house was built in 1880 and the summer kitchen is still  standing, but used  now for storage.  There's still a cast-iron stove in it which,  I'm sure, was used for heating and/or cooking.

It  was miserably hot here this summer and I can't imagine how uncomfortable canning would've been.  The previous ladies of this house had more stamina than I have.


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## sparrowgrass (Nov 21, 2007)

My house was built in 1872, and the current kitchen used to be a separate building, connected to the house by a breezeway.

At some point, someone closed in the breezeway, and it is now a bathroom and a computer nook.


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## Claire (Nov 21, 2007)

I hate it when I try to look things up and get so many hits I cannot figure it out.  But outside of Des Moines is a living farm.  I'm sure they must have a web site.  It is very good; I think it is run from the U of IA.  They had several small farms, from Native Americans through the mid-20th-century.  When I chatted with some of the college kids who work there I learned a lot.  At the time (about 7 years ago) the young people actually read diaries and letters.  Hopefully you have more patience with the internet than I do.


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## Constance (Nov 21, 2007)

Claire, it's called Living History Farms, and I learned a lot from their website. It would be a cool place to take children. I didn't know it was close to Des Moines. Grandpa's farm was in that area, near Bondurant. 

GF, I may be calling on you! 

You all are wonderful! You have answered so many questions for me, as well given me mind pictures that will help with my writing.


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## Uncle Bob (Nov 21, 2007)

Sparrowgrass said:
			
		

> My house was built in 1872, and the current kitchen used to be a separate building, connected to the house by a breezeway.


 
This was a fairly common practice during this time, (and earlier) For two reasons. 1. Not to heat up the house during summer and 2. Often fires started in the kitchen, and the logic was it is better to lose the kitchen than the whole house.


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## Cajun Cook (Nov 21, 2007)

Hey Y'all, I am just jumping in here so this shows up on my threads to keep up on. Carry on......Love this stuff!

Jim


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## Claire (Nov 22, 2007)

Yes, it would absolutely be a cool place to take kids.  I was most impressed that when I asked questions, the people who were working there (as I said, college students) came up with many answers.  I'll never forget watching a woman work in a kitchen, and seeing her skirt hit the fireplace a few times.  When I asked about it she said that I was right, the second cause of death for women in that era WAS fire.  (The first cause was childbirth or secondary causes to childbirth).  She said that just that year she had her skirt catch fire.  Then she said that now they try to make the clothes out of more fire-proofed materials.  I like it that she actually was paying attention.  Go for it.  They do know what they are doing, and they are good at it.


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## Claire (Nov 22, 2007)

In the south, in particular, it was very common to have the kitchen in an out-building.  Many middle-class women had household help of some sort as well.  Where I live the kitchens were in the house, but I've lived in many other places where the kitchen would be in an out-building.  I've lived in many old houses, and most of them had kitchens outside of the house originally (this one had old coal/wood stoves and cooked in the house as far as I know).  

It also was done because of fire hazards.  In other words, if the kitchen catches fire, you won't burn the house down!  You'll just burn the kitchen shack down.  

I happen to have an un-air-conditioned kitchen.  There are only 6 weeks or so a year when it is a problem, but we have learned summer food and winter food, something we really didn't think about when we lived in central air.  Chili, stews, and long-cooking soups are NOT summer dishes.  While a part of me would like to retrofit the place and have central air, another part of me likes the back-to-nature part of this.  In the summer we cook out or do a lot of salads and quick foods (stir fries, etc).  We do have window A/C units in the back parlor, our bedroom, and our guest room.  BUt learning about seasonal cooking is really brought home.  

You'll have to let us know if you do go to the Des Moins place.  I might add that their market day and "Taste of ..."  are great.


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## expatgirl (Nov 24, 2007)

I just recently learned from my aunt who is 85 years young,that when she was growing up on a farm that she and her 5 brothers (one of whom was my dad, Billy)  all took baths once a week on Saturday.  Water was heated on top of the stove and each one took turns bathing right after the other. Waste not want not was the rule for many years. I also remember visiting Grandma's outhouse until I was 7 years old.  Spooky, scary place, let me tell you.  Especially when a centipede comes out of the other "aperture" to visit with you.  Believe you me you hustle your bustle.


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