The publication by Valerie Smith, 'Harcourt's Sons and Daughters', 2003, which is available from the library in Highland Grove, offers insights into how families survived in this area in its early days of development. This information would be great for teenagers to see how their grandparents, and great grandparents survived!
A few paragraphs when Valerie interviewed her mother Doreen (Townsend) Oakes are given below.
"Our meat consisted of chicken and pork as we had own chickens and pigs. There was of course venison and fresh fish, which Dad put on the table. We had a butcher that came around from which we could get beef. The butchers had insulated trucks in which there was a big supply of meat. We would usually purchase a quarter of a cow at a time, as we had no place to keep it frozen. In the fall when the venison was brought into the home Mom would preserve it. She did the same process as when she did down the berries. She would sterilize the jars on top of the wood stove in the canning pan. She would cut the venison up into small pieces, pack the venison into jars and season with salt and pepper. Most of the time the venison would make its own juice, however, if it did not come right up to the top she would put in a little bit of water. The jars were sealed and put in a boiling water bath on top of the stove and they remained there for about three hours boiling. She would take the jars off the stove, take them out of the boiling pan of water and tightened down the tops securely. The jars were cooled and then once again the had to be carried down the ladder to the fruit cellar below the house. The wood stove was kept stoked up during the caning process in order to keep the water boiling. Boiling water, hot jars and heat from the wood stove made for a very exhausting job when doing preserves.
At our local store, which was about a mile and half from our place in Harcourt, we would get sugar, cereal, flour, tea, coffee, salt, dried prunes, apples and raisons and all the things you would in a Christmas cake. The flour and sugar came in 100-pound bags and often Dad would buy cases of raisins and prunes. When Dad went to town he would also buy large pieces of bologna, peanut butter and margarine. All this he would carry home.
Our own butter we made. We had our own cows from which we had our milk. The milk was put through the separator, the cream came to the top. We took the cream and put into a church and churned it until the butter broke away from the milk. The remaining milk was known as buttermilk. The butter was scooped and you had to mix it until all the waer and everything was mixed out of it and put into pints which made a pound of butter.
Mom made our own soap. She would collect the tallow (fat) from the pigs and cows. She would render it out and then she would put lye wiith it. She would heat it up and she would put it into a square pan. Once this cooled she would proceed it cut it into bars. The soap that whe made was which we washed our clothes and use for our personal care as well. The smell was terrible."
There is much more good reading in this publication.
No comments:
Post a Comment