Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)This is an example of a family history that is so well done that it speaks for hundreds of similar families and their communities all across rural America.
The details are interesting because the authors focus on the concrete day-to-day activities central to their lives, including interactions with family and friends, what it was like at school and church, what kind of work was done on the farm (particularly interesting to this city boy), the animals they husbanded, the crops they grew, and the games they played as children. Included are reminiscences of people who drifted in and out of their lives working in the fields and in the house.
The authors avoid controversy, seldom pass judgment and keep the gossip and censuring to a minimum. They don't glorify themselves, although it's clear that the McCalls were a fine upstanding bunch who helped others and worked hard. They give the facts of their experience without embellishment and without curlicues: who married whom, who died of what, who ran off with whom, who taught school and who preached on Sunday and how they were received. The hardships and the pleasures, the May baskets and the winter snows, the locusts and the dust are recalled with something close to nostalgia and sometimes even affection. That world of long ago is recalled without sentimentality in a matter-of-fact, laconic style that I found attractive.
The locale is near Red Cloud (home of Willa Cather) and the time is the period between the world wars, which of course included the depression years. One gets the sense that life on the farm was hard but fulfilling, and that there was a sense of community imposed on people because they had to help each other in times of crisis, a sense of community that I think is often missing in today's America. They lived close to the land and to our fellow creatures, close to the weather and the progression of the seasons.
Much of the text is in the form of anecdotes and stories, some wryly funny and some sad, and some in the form of something akin to a tall tale. The story of the woman who fed the chickens potato sprouts and upon finding that they couldn't digest the sprouts, cut the chickens open, removed the sprouts, and sewed the chickens back up, is perhaps an example. The authors comment dryly, "...the story is she saved 90% of them." (p. 83)
Then there is the story of the hired woman who didn't like babies. But "She hadn't been [at the McCall's farm] two weeks before the baby had made a slave of her." After "quite a long while...she left to be married...and became a very good mother...which just goes to show you that a baby's smile goes a long way." (p. 49)
I also liked the reminiscences about the telephone party line in which everybody listened in on everybody else's conversation, and how wheat chaff can irritate the skin, and how wounds were healed, and how animals and people were doctored. The authors end chapter 10 talking about the twenty cats they had around the farm and the dog that chased off an intruder with the observation that in those days no one "would spend money for veterinary care for these dogs and cats. If they got sick, they lived and died on their own. Wounds were treated with axle grease to keep the flies out of the wound."
There are 14 chapters describing everything from the The Town, The Family, The Hired Men, The Hired Girls, Health Conditions, Veterinary Medicine on the Farm, to The 1935 Republican River Flood, to Fun and Games and Food. There are a few black and white photos of people and buildings for atmosphere and very appropriately a photo of the flyer that advertised the auction on November 18, 1972 in which the machinery, household goods, tools and other items of the McCall farm and estate were sold off.
One of the benefits of the decentralization of the publishing industry and the rise of the Internet selling of books is it allows titles to reach the public that otherwise would perhaps never see the light of day, and even if they did would only achieve a limited distribution and readership. Nebraska Farm Life is such a book. It is unlikely that a commercial publisher would publish this excellent book because there is little chance that it would reach a large readership, and the university presses would probably turn it down because of its narrow focus and because the authors have limited academic credentials. But we are the better for its publication because of the light it sheds on a time and place that is nearly gone and forgotten.
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This is a book about a family growing up on the Republican River in south central Nebraska during the first half of the twentieth century. We all grew up doing farm work, and fishing and swimming in the Republican River were a major part of our entertainment. We all attended District 9 country school and then went to Red Cloud High School. This was a way of life that vanished soon after the youngest of us graduated. Younger people have seemed to be fascinated with the stories that we tell about this period, and we decided that some of it should be written down. From our various perspectives, the four surviving siblings discuss family life on the farm, the economics of the time, the medical and veterinary practices, country school education, and social life. Some of it is serious and some of it is more or less funny anecdotes. Our sister was a country schoolteacher and had many memories of country school. One of our brothers is a physician and was particularly interested in the medical practices of the day, as well as the state of veterinary medicine. The youngest of us transcribed tapes from the others and edited the results, with large amounts of assistance from the others.
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