Authors:
Historic Era:
Historic Theme:
Subject:
June 1965 | Volume 16, Issue 4
Authors:
Historic Era:
Historic Theme:
Subject:
June 1965 | Volume 16, Issue 4
Great-grandmother was a farmer’s wife, a little woman of considerable spirit and stamina who raised eleven lively children to be a credit to CX the community of Aquebogue, on Long Island, New York. In the age of homemade soap and the scrub board, cleanliness was harder to come by than godliness, but Great-grandmother saw to it that her family measured up in both respects. When the Civil War broke out and Great-grandfather left home to help hold the Union together, it was Great-grandmother who by sheer courage, character, and hard work kept the family from falling to pieces.
Although Great-grandmother’s formal schooling was short and sketchy, it is quite likely that she made up for this deficiency by consulting her copy of The Farmer’s Everyday Book , a sturdy brown volume with well-worn covers which is now my prized possession. John Lauris Blake (1788–1857), an East Coast Episcopal clergyman, country gentleman, and part-time farmer, had compiled this book as part of a one-man crusade for better education for country people. Since five editions were published between 1850 and 1857, it seems safe to assume that it was a best seller. Its 600 pages, packed with facts and philosophy to help the farmer and his wife meet every emergency from cradle to grave, offer the modern reader a fresh and fascinating picture of the farmer’s wife of a century ago, and of the rural America in which she lived.
Browsing through Great-grandmother’s copy of The Farmer’s Everyday Book , I soon discover that its author considered the farmer’s wife a very important person. True, she had no vote; she generally lacked formal schooling; she lived in a time when men were the heads of their households and the administrators of all public affairs. Yet as mother and homemaker in a society still predominantly rural, the farmer’s wife had it in her power to determine the quality of life in her home and neighborhood, and thus held the key to the future of the young nation. What have I in common with this little farmer’s wife of more than a century ago and the hard-working countrywomen on the eastern end of Long Island who were her friends?
Scanning the fine print of Great-grandmother’s book, I find my answer. The physical care of a home and family, the bearing and training of children, the fostering of fellowship in home and community, the search for values to express and transmit—these are the concerns around which her days, like mine, revolve. Despite surface differences, there is a striking sameness in our tasks and our goals. Following the farmers’ wives of 1850 as they move busily through the pages of John Blake’s book, I find them not strangers but familiar friends.
Every farmer, says Mr. Blake in ringing tones, needs a good wife. He then proceeds to describe the life of the unmarried farmer in phrases of unmitigated gloom. Returning