Submitted by Leona Baker, Historical Society of Salisbury Township

As canning and freezing season moves into high gear, an excerpt of Faye Mummau's memoir recalls a girl's life on the farm in the late 1930s, early 1940s.

"It took a lot of food to feed our family. Mother planted a large garden in the spring. Along with the regular vegetables, she grew horseradish and turnips because Dad liked them.

"Breakfast in winter was often mush and puddings. The mush came from corn Dad took to the mill to be crushed. Puddings were made from the pigs Dad butchered. Most of the meat had been canned to preserve it because we did not have a freezer in the early days. We rented a freezer locker at the market in Gap to store what food had to be frozen. One year Dad promised Mother he would buy her a freezer if the steers brought a certain figure at market. The steers sold and Mother got her freezer.

"Mother was very organized. When it came time to harvest peas, she picked the peas and made piles for each of us to shell according to our age. We had to finish our pile before we could swim in the creek. One day I hurried and finished first, jumped into my suit and hurried to the creek. But it was boring being there by myself. Another lesson learned: it was a lot more fun if we helped each other and then swam as a group.

"When cherry picking time came, Dad helped pick and seed. I have a picture of Dad falling asleep while he was seeding cherries. Mother canned both sour cherries for pies and sweet cherries as well as about 100 quarts of peaches and 300 quarts of applesauce. We also canned pears when there was a good harvest. Fruit was our main dessert at mealtime.

"One of my chores was peeling a large crock of potatoes for supper the next day before I went to bed. Another job was packing the school lunches, (which consisted of) rows of bread slices slathered with butter, (with) homemade bologna added before they were closed and packed. Into each bag also went an apple and some cookies. With four brothers each taking two sandwiches plus what we girls ate, I soon tired of packing lunches. I remember complaining of 'having to work all day.' Mother told me I could have the whole day off, she would do my chores. I was to come indoors only for meals. I knew Mother had a bad heart and worried all day that she was doing too much and something would happen to her. That cured me of complaining of too much work.

"Household chores were also designated: cleaning, lawn mowing, weeding the garden, food preparation for the girls and barn chores for the boys. Mealtime chores rotated. One cleared the table, another washed the dishes, the third dried them, the fourth swept the floor. In the summer, we liked to play baseball and sometimes we went out to play while the dishes were still on the table. Mother had a rule about that, too. If that night's dish washer was ready to wash dishes before the table was cleared, they only had to wash the ones used to prepare the food. The person who cleared the table had to do the rest."