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Little Heathens
Little Heathens is an enchanting but thoroughly unsentimental look at rural life in the Great Depression.
Hardcover
First published January 1, 2007
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About the author
Mildred Armstrong Kalish
1 book33 followersI was born on St. Patrick’s Day in 1922, on a farm near Garrison, Iowa, in Benton County.
My growing-up was influenced by the Great Depression and by the self-reliance and work ethic of my mother’s parents — themselves descendants of pioneers who never quite made it into the 20th Century. Little Heathens details the remarkable challenges and the inestimable rewards of living a rural life where children were expected to accept responsibilities beyond the ordinary.
From early on, I was eager to be self-supporting and independent. The summer I turned thirteen I became the companion, cook and caretaker of a retired missionary. Later I worked as a hired girl on two local farms. After my high school graduation, I earned an Elementary Teacher’s Certificate from Iowa State Teacher’s College at Cedar Falls. However, instead of accepting a teaching position in Iowa, I jumped at an opportunity to move to New York as a governess in Yonkers.
In 1942, I joined the United States Coast Guard Women’s Reserve. I was sent for radio training to Miami University at Oxford, Ohio and on graduation I served at the headquarters of the 5th Naval District in Norfolk, Virginia. This is where I met and married fellow radio operator Harry Kalish.
Thanks to the G. I. Bill, we both furthered our education at and graduated from the State University of Iowa (photo). We have two sons, two daughters-in-law (par excellence), four grandchildren and one great-granddaughter. I am a Professor Emeritus of English retired from Suffolk County Community College on Long Island. I have taught at the State University of Iowa at Iowa City, the State University of Missouri at Columbia, and at Adelphi University in Garden City, NY.
I live in a retirement community in Cupertino, California.
My growing-up was influenced by the Great Depression and by the self-reliance and work ethic of my mother’s parents — themselves descendants of pioneers who never quite made it into the 20th Century. Little Heathens details the remarkable challenges and the inestimable rewards of living a rural life where children were expected to accept responsibilities beyond the ordinary.
From early on, I was eager to be self-supporting and independent. The summer I turned thirteen I became the companion, cook and caretaker of a retired missionary. Later I worked as a hired girl on two local farms. After my high school graduation, I earned an Elementary Teacher’s Certificate from Iowa State Teacher’s College at Cedar Falls. However, instead of accepting a teaching position in Iowa, I jumped at an opportunity to move to New York as a governess in Yonkers.
In 1942, I joined the United States Coast Guard Women’s Reserve. I was sent for radio training to Miami University at Oxford, Ohio and on graduation I served at the headquarters of the 5th Naval District in Norfolk, Virginia. This is where I met and married fellow radio operator Harry Kalish.
Thanks to the G. I. Bill, we both furthered our education at and graduated from the State University of Iowa (photo). We have two sons, two daughters-in-law (par excellence), four grandchildren and one great-granddaughter. I am a Professor Emeritus of English retired from Suffolk County Community College on Long Island. I have taught at the State University of Iowa at Iowa City, the State University of Missouri at Columbia, and at Adelphi University in Garden City, NY.
I live in a retirement community in Cupertino, California.
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March 24, 2025
Life during the Dirty Thirties was tough, but it had its moments!
"The Victrola (gramophone player) was a special beauty; over four feet high, its mahogany-red cabinet was polished to a soft, glowing patina.
“There were no fingerprints on it and there were never going to be any fingerprints on it, either; no one but Aunt Belle was allowed to touch or wind it.
“We listened, enchanted, to such selections as 'Hello, Central, Give me Heaven', 'There's a Vacant Chair at Home Sweet Home,' 'Tell Mother I'll be There,' and 'Life is Like a Mountain Railroad'....
“(And finally,) after a long Saturday night… we would leave Aunt Belle's warm kitchen to exit into the bitter cold and trudge the three blocks up the icy sidewalks to Grandpa's house, singing with spirit:
“‘LIFE IS LIKE A MOUNTAIN RAILROAD
WITH AN ENGINEER SO BRAVE -
WE MUST MAKE THIS RUN SUCCESSFUL
FROM THE CRADLE TO THE GRAVE!'"
Now, isn’t THAT kinda like the stuff our OWN most precious memories are made of?
I remember a trip home after night skiing in the Gatineau hills one frosty winter‘s night. We were dropping off family friends under a subzero starry sky, full of laughter and the endless string of inside jokes that come so easily to childhood forever friends.
The family car was all toasty and cozy, and our frozen toes had tingled back to life in our tight ski boots.
As we crested the snowy hill that Sunday night, above our old, familiar neighbourhood of City View, where welcoming houselights twinkled in the cold night air, the radio was playing a plaintive melody.
The snowbanks sparkled - as a high soprano voice soared over the first notes of a song from the first Spaghetti Western, “Un jour, tu reviendras....’
And in our youthful foolishness we thought - so foolishly! - that we too could always return again to such moments of pure joy, till the ends of our lives...
But just remember the line “Carpe diem,” kids.
NEVER be so sure about your tomorrows!
Youth is pretty sure of itself, and can’t believe there are ever going to be tough times ahead - and it’s just so like these little heathens in the book, and me and my young ski buddies, to laugh uproariously into the Leaden Face of Fate!
But we’ve all got to crack open the brightly colored eggshells that make our youth such a wonderful place to live in - sooner or later.
And though after that hard times may abound thereafter throughout our lives, if we just hang onto our dreams we’ll make it safely to the end, just like the kids in this book.
Their parents had to rise to the grim challenge that was the Depression, but even then THEY hung on to their most sacred dreams - AND the core values of faith, love and family that kept alive their dreams, and so gave their kids Safe Refuge from the bitter reality of the 1930’s.
For to these kids in this book back in those gruelling years, and to the kids we were after that wonderful long-ago ski trip, these “quiet-voiced elders” had fastened Diamonds to the Soles of their and our Shoes!
Real Diamonds - patiently cut by Love.
And with love like that, we all knew we’d get through it all safely.
Do we have a choice? Maybe not - for however hard life is:
WE MUST MAKE THIS RUN SUCCESSFUL
FROM THE CRADLE TO THE GRAVE!
Hang on to your dreams, kids, however distant and difficult to see they may be -
And they will give you back your Life in the end!
"The Victrola (gramophone player) was a special beauty; over four feet high, its mahogany-red cabinet was polished to a soft, glowing patina.
“There were no fingerprints on it and there were never going to be any fingerprints on it, either; no one but Aunt Belle was allowed to touch or wind it.
“We listened, enchanted, to such selections as 'Hello, Central, Give me Heaven', 'There's a Vacant Chair at Home Sweet Home,' 'Tell Mother I'll be There,' and 'Life is Like a Mountain Railroad'....
“(And finally,) after a long Saturday night… we would leave Aunt Belle's warm kitchen to exit into the bitter cold and trudge the three blocks up the icy sidewalks to Grandpa's house, singing with spirit:
“‘LIFE IS LIKE A MOUNTAIN RAILROAD
WITH AN ENGINEER SO BRAVE -
WE MUST MAKE THIS RUN SUCCESSFUL
FROM THE CRADLE TO THE GRAVE!'"
Now, isn’t THAT kinda like the stuff our OWN most precious memories are made of?
I remember a trip home after night skiing in the Gatineau hills one frosty winter‘s night. We were dropping off family friends under a subzero starry sky, full of laughter and the endless string of inside jokes that come so easily to childhood forever friends.
The family car was all toasty and cozy, and our frozen toes had tingled back to life in our tight ski boots.
As we crested the snowy hill that Sunday night, above our old, familiar neighbourhood of City View, where welcoming houselights twinkled in the cold night air, the radio was playing a plaintive melody.
The snowbanks sparkled - as a high soprano voice soared over the first notes of a song from the first Spaghetti Western, “Un jour, tu reviendras....’
And in our youthful foolishness we thought - so foolishly! - that we too could always return again to such moments of pure joy, till the ends of our lives...
But just remember the line “Carpe diem,” kids.
NEVER be so sure about your tomorrows!
Youth is pretty sure of itself, and can’t believe there are ever going to be tough times ahead - and it’s just so like these little heathens in the book, and me and my young ski buddies, to laugh uproariously into the Leaden Face of Fate!
But we’ve all got to crack open the brightly colored eggshells that make our youth such a wonderful place to live in - sooner or later.
And though after that hard times may abound thereafter throughout our lives, if we just hang onto our dreams we’ll make it safely to the end, just like the kids in this book.
Their parents had to rise to the grim challenge that was the Depression, but even then THEY hung on to their most sacred dreams - AND the core values of faith, love and family that kept alive their dreams, and so gave their kids Safe Refuge from the bitter reality of the 1930’s.
For to these kids in this book back in those gruelling years, and to the kids we were after that wonderful long-ago ski trip, these “quiet-voiced elders” had fastened Diamonds to the Soles of their and our Shoes!
Real Diamonds - patiently cut by Love.
And with love like that, we all knew we’d get through it all safely.
Do we have a choice? Maybe not - for however hard life is:
WE MUST MAKE THIS RUN SUCCESSFUL
FROM THE CRADLE TO THE GRAVE!
Hang on to your dreams, kids, however distant and difficult to see they may be -
And they will give you back your Life in the end!
May 30, 2024
I find it hard to believe that the New York Times Book Review named this book as one of the top ten best books of 2007. It is nice that an author in her mid 80s could be published for the first time with this book, but best of 2007? Maybe it was a bad year for books.
Kalish wrote this book about her family who had settled in rural Iowa in the mid-nineteenth century. In approximately 1930 her parents split and dad was no longer in the picture except for some whispers of bootlegging and jail time. Mom brought her 4 small children home to Garrison, Iowa, population several hundred people for winter and school and summer on a farm belonging to her parents. I get the impression that the author’s grandparents didn’t relish having 4 youngsters around again but what to do? Grandma especially comes off as harsh, harsh, harsh. “Strict and stern” doesn’t really cover it. She calls the kids “little heathens” thus the book title. It gets worse “spawn”. “They’d think you’d been peed on a stump and hatched by the sun.” The author is not moping, just stating plain fact. “Emotional austerity” hardly covers it for me. “Childhood and early adolescence was looked on as a kind of affliction, somewhat like a huge goiter—-on Great Aunt Maggie.” It all made me kind of ill although the author seemed to have taken it in stride and maintained the belief it prepared her for later life. Maybe it was more normal then. No doubt times were tough, but…. .
There are some amusing stories some things you may have heard from your parents or grandparents, but there wasn’t much I warmed to. Good for a view of small town and farm Iowa in the 1930s.
Kalish wrote this book about her family who had settled in rural Iowa in the mid-nineteenth century. In approximately 1930 her parents split and dad was no longer in the picture except for some whispers of bootlegging and jail time. Mom brought her 4 small children home to Garrison, Iowa, population several hundred people for winter and school and summer on a farm belonging to her parents. I get the impression that the author’s grandparents didn’t relish having 4 youngsters around again but what to do? Grandma especially comes off as harsh, harsh, harsh. “Strict and stern” doesn’t really cover it. She calls the kids “little heathens” thus the book title. It gets worse “spawn”. “They’d think you’d been peed on a stump and hatched by the sun.” The author is not moping, just stating plain fact. “Emotional austerity” hardly covers it for me. “Childhood and early adolescence was looked on as a kind of affliction, somewhat like a huge goiter—-on Great Aunt Maggie.” It all made me kind of ill although the author seemed to have taken it in stride and maintained the belief it prepared her for later life. Maybe it was more normal then. No doubt times were tough, but…. .
There are some amusing stories some things you may have heard from your parents or grandparents, but there wasn’t much I warmed to. Good for a view of small town and farm Iowa in the 1930s.
July 13, 2024
4.5 stars
"Not until many years after I left Benton County did I become aware of what a rich store of knowledge about birds, plants, trees, flowers, and animals had been bestowed on us by life on that simple farm. We were saturated with information that is now hard to come by. I know of no comparable body of knowledge that young people today possess . . . Observing the abundance of life around us was just so naturally a part of our days on the farm that it became a habit." -- on page 246
Reminiscent somewhat of the way the recent Patterson/Eversmann series of books - glimpses into the daily lives of police officers, combat soldiers, and/or librarians and booksellers via various first-hand accounts - provide readers with an intimate view of work life comes the earlier memoir Little Heathens. Author Kalish - who passed away last year at age 101 - recounts her time between two family farms in pastoral Iowa during the 1920's and Depression-era 30's in this informative and occasionally charming (but not sugar-coated) autobiography. She was raised by extended family on her mother's side - her father was not in the picture - so grandparents, great aunts and uncles, and even an elementary school teacher and a high school principal were the people who offered her important if sometimes rough-hewn education, guidance, or encouragement during her formative years. Some of my favorite sections were the chapter on spinster great aunt Belle - who noticeably received more page time than the author's mother, doubtless because she filled an important role as a knowledgable and loving maternal figure - and respected high school principal Mr. Woehlk, who in a direct moment urged the author to consider a career beyond farm work. Kalish does an excellent job of detailing the daily and yearly responsibilities of working on self-sufficient family homesteads - where everyone had some sort of responsibility, right down to even the youngest child - amidst a place and time when they commonly grew their own food, raised their own animals, and made / mended their own clothing and linens. Or, to put it in another point of reference, the houses did not have electricity or indoor plumbing, certain items were rarely store bought, early (and sometimes the only) organized education was via four grades in a one-room schoolhouse, and folks did not often travel more than five miles from their hometown. I like Kalish's clear-eyed but not nostalgic take on her childhood and adolescent experiences, which provided her a certain fortitude, and helped set her on the path to becoming a WWII veteran, schoolteacher, college professor as well a wife and mother. Much thanks to Booktrader of Hamilton, NJ for this unexpected but interesting book.
"Not until many years after I left Benton County did I become aware of what a rich store of knowledge about birds, plants, trees, flowers, and animals had been bestowed on us by life on that simple farm. We were saturated with information that is now hard to come by. I know of no comparable body of knowledge that young people today possess . . . Observing the abundance of life around us was just so naturally a part of our days on the farm that it became a habit." -- on page 246
Reminiscent somewhat of the way the recent Patterson/Eversmann series of books - glimpses into the daily lives of police officers, combat soldiers, and/or librarians and booksellers via various first-hand accounts - provide readers with an intimate view of work life comes the earlier memoir Little Heathens. Author Kalish - who passed away last year at age 101 - recounts her time between two family farms in pastoral Iowa during the 1920's and Depression-era 30's in this informative and occasionally charming (but not sugar-coated) autobiography. She was raised by extended family on her mother's side - her father was not in the picture - so grandparents, great aunts and uncles, and even an elementary school teacher and a high school principal were the people who offered her important if sometimes rough-hewn education, guidance, or encouragement during her formative years. Some of my favorite sections were the chapter on spinster great aunt Belle - who noticeably received more page time than the author's mother, doubtless because she filled an important role as a knowledgable and loving maternal figure - and respected high school principal Mr. Woehlk, who in a direct moment urged the author to consider a career beyond farm work. Kalish does an excellent job of detailing the daily and yearly responsibilities of working on self-sufficient family homesteads - where everyone had some sort of responsibility, right down to even the youngest child - amidst a place and time when they commonly grew their own food, raised their own animals, and made / mended their own clothing and linens. Or, to put it in another point of reference, the houses did not have electricity or indoor plumbing, certain items were rarely store bought, early (and sometimes the only) organized education was via four grades in a one-room schoolhouse, and folks did not often travel more than five miles from their hometown. I like Kalish's clear-eyed but not nostalgic take on her childhood and adolescent experiences, which provided her a certain fortitude, and helped set her on the path to becoming a WWII veteran, schoolteacher, college professor as well a wife and mother. Much thanks to Booktrader of Hamilton, NJ for this unexpected but interesting book.
October 4, 2008
This IS like listening to your grandma (or that old lady in the Titanic movie) telling in a gentle, slow-cadenced voice, about the old days. Some topics covered are thrift, medicine, chores, farm food, gathering wood, and wash day. The book starts off entertaining, but like Grandma (or Grandpa) it gets long-winded; and you start to feel bored and restless and wonder how much more you are willing to sit through before you make the move for your coat. You might decide that next time she repeats "waste not, want not," you'll head for the door. But if you stick with this book through the dragging middle, you get to the best parts, the chapters called "animal tales," "raccoons and other critters," and "Me." She tells how they (the kids in her family) tamed raccoons; the raccoons slept in bed with them! The middle drags partly because she describes such obsolete practices and circumstances that it's hard to picture what she's talking about. Like their oat shocking procedure, the mechanics of their laundy routine, and the parts of a windmill. Parts of these sections read like how-to manuals, including how to prepare various meals. Her chapter called "Me" is the best, as it has the most human interest, telling about her place in the family and community and how she eventually left, had a job in New York City, went to college, jointed the coast guard and got married, etc. What is ridiculous is that she puts this chapter as an epilogue! Like, she's so modest that she can't have a place in the body of the book, it has to be tagged at the end? Like, Here's a tiny bit about little ol' me if you care to know...Yeah, thanks, that's why I picked up this book!
February 10, 2016
Growing up on a farm was a tough thing to do, but while people had it rough — they made it work, and they were generally happy to do so. This high-spirited account of life during the depression was enjoyable in the beginning but slowly lost steam and, while during the depression, was not hard living compared with dust-bowl literature. They were frugal and did not have much but that was the way of life for a large family on a farm — depression or no depression. They were extremely self sufficient and there are many stories one could relate to if they grew up on a farm, but that wasn’t me. My mother grew up on a farm and I’m sure this book would bring many memories back into her head even though she is about twenty years younger than Mildred.
December 20, 2022
Would you rather shovel horse manure or look under a microscope at a lab? Shovel manure, I would say. Such are the tests at college, interest. tests. At the end of the test, it was suggested that I would like to be a housewife. Or a farmer. I continued my years at college, taking any course that looked good to me. Then I went back to my hometown and married a carpenter/plumber and moved out on to a small farm. Well, it was the other way around.
We had a wood stove for heat. I loved it. Once a year the cows from a nearby ranch would come in to eat the oats. I loved it. We had chickens. We had a garden. And a lot of acreage to walk around on. The rancher even brought his two old horses over, and because I didn't remember their names I called them Skippy and Kal Kan. My husband didn't think that that was funny. He changed their names, to what I do not remember. Neither does he.
This book was written by a lovely woman that lived on a farm when she was growing up in the 1930s. H. chapter takes up another subject, The 1 on baking day gives you recipes. She also talked about her wood stove that contained an oven and how you had to learn to use it. It had a Thermostat fixed in the door so when it got too hot and the oven you poured water into a pocket on the top of the stove and it would cool it off. If it got too cold you addded a Couple of corn cobs to the fire. I would have loved to have learned how to use it.
She had a chapter on putting up food and how it was done, 1 on canning, and 1 on hunting which I tried to skip. And there was 1 on gardening and bucking hay. There were so many more fun chapters, but I couldn't remember them, and when I went to check the book again to see what they were, I found myself reading it so I gave up.
Then I gave my husband the interest test. I asked him if he would rather shovel manure or look under a microscope at the lab, and he said, shovel manure. I married the right man.
We had a wood stove for heat. I loved it. Once a year the cows from a nearby ranch would come in to eat the oats. I loved it. We had chickens. We had a garden. And a lot of acreage to walk around on. The rancher even brought his two old horses over, and because I didn't remember their names I called them Skippy and Kal Kan. My husband didn't think that that was funny. He changed their names, to what I do not remember. Neither does he.
This book was written by a lovely woman that lived on a farm when she was growing up in the 1930s. H. chapter takes up another subject, The 1 on baking day gives you recipes. She also talked about her wood stove that contained an oven and how you had to learn to use it. It had a Thermostat fixed in the door so when it got too hot and the oven you poured water into a pocket on the top of the stove and it would cool it off. If it got too cold you addded a Couple of corn cobs to the fire. I would have loved to have learned how to use it.
She had a chapter on putting up food and how it was done, 1 on canning, and 1 on hunting which I tried to skip. And there was 1 on gardening and bucking hay. There were so many more fun chapters, but I couldn't remember them, and when I went to check the book again to see what they were, I found myself reading it so I gave up.
Then I gave my husband the interest test. I asked him if he would rather shovel manure or look under a microscope at the lab, and he said, shovel manure. I married the right man.
October 9, 2025
This was my bedtime reading during the last week or so. It was a well written and chatty memoir about her childhood in Iowa on a farm and with her extended family. She was of my mother's generation and helped me understand why my mother always said "I've had a hard life." It had the added benefit of making me fall asleep every night thankful that I grew up in the modern world.
October 31, 2018
An outstanding memoir for a rural Iowa childhood in the 1930's.
"One thing we children all understood: The adults were the ones who made the decisions and the generation gap was not to be breached. Childhood and early adolescence were looked on as a kind of unmentionable affliction, somewhat like the huge goiter that tilted Great-Aunt Maggie's chin way up in the air; it was there for all to see, but no one ever commented on it. The desired condition was to be an adult. We also understood that we couldn't do or have anything that cost money. Nor could we ever suggest to the old folks that we were bored or didn't have anything to occupy ourselves, for in no time they would have had us restacking the woodpile, scrubbing the porches, or picking up fallen apples. Even before the saying was coined, we knew that adults were in some ways the natural enemies of kids.
We were, therefore, remarkably creative- especially on the farm."
This is a short section of page 215. And it's an after thought "oversight" to her wonderful and structured tale of the years when she was one of the "little kids" ("BIG kids" had other jobs, tasks, group rules and staggered allowances or permissions for fun) and also when bridging the "Big kid" jobs in both the dual 1/2 year lifestyle of either the "farm" or the "more in town" homestead of abode from just after Christmas to May. They lived from Jan. to May in one and from May to Dec. in the farmstead "out".
Loving and depth of telling in this memoir! Both are superb of every minutia and detailing. For her ancestry, her siblings, her cousins, her aunts and uncles and in some ways- so poignant for her own self-identity and knowledge- all the hierarchy, the work and the morality structure.
You need to have and hold the patience for reading immense detail in tasking and procedures on the farm and in the village. For living without electricity and with continual water retrieval and outhouse normalcy constant occupations. Chores were parts of living and took up hours and hours of every day's time. Kids all had chores for each part of every day. Not to mention that the cows milking and separation of milk (the milk separator's wash of removals/ reassembly / scalding being done every single day was a "minor" kids' chore), 3 meals from scratch garden produce (picking and cleaning in carried water before they got to the "house" was an everyday kids' chore) all the rest of the chickens'/livestock's feeding and care- needed to be done every single day. Holiday or not. Chores still occupied their hours. And their hours. And on the "special days" too. Like the day to clean the cemetery and do the nut gathering and cleaning. Or the day to pick beans. Or the other day to pick beans. (Can you tell I spent too many days in the last few decades picking beans.) Or the day to gather dead wood and fell 50 footers that were on their way out anyway for winter's heating woodpile and splitting pile supply. And the games contrived within the tasks of each physical task! And the "rules" broken with the critters or just because of a dare. I loved, loved, loved the Ted colt story. And the one where they rode the creek down in a flash flood and were cut nearly to death by saw grass. It was all great fun!
Work was life. And often joyful. Everybody worked all the time. Even if ailing or peaked. Unless you have a red line running up your leg and are on the dire medical condition "soak" chair /platform in the kitchen. Doctors? Hospitals? Only rarely, rarely and at death's door. My childhood was exactly the same as this. I can remember "Quincy" throat wraps.
All the hundreds and hundreds of practical applications the kids learned. Not only for treating the body but for every house, field or natural world observation. Like the poor terrier or the canary that landed on the wood burning stove top. Quick reaction.
Although I was 20 years later and not rural, I so remember nearly all that Millie does. It was very similar where I was and in the same amounts of family or "home" members. No personal exemptions or special cases. Everyone worked, and constantly. A great gift for me was any TIME TO READ. That was a tremendous and earned privilege. Often rare to grasp.
Millie self-identity is so solidified in this memoir. Her innocence and her good will and her knowledge of "where she fit". Millie did not and never had to "find herself". And the WISDOM for challenges- the pain, the sickness, the lacks met. They are incredible by the age of 10. And she sure wasn't alone in her joy of them either.
You need to like and treasure minutia of detail to like this book to a 5 star as I did. Recipes, how to clean and scrub a pig's head with a small scrub brush (done at 8 or 9 years old and without any ewwwww! connotations even allowed or tangent considered), all the uses of fried onions and poultices, potato planting instructions, how to get that nasty outside hull off of the black walnuts, how to work the windmill slot levers, how to raid a bumblebee (NOT honeybee) nest for its clear drops of heaven, how to split wood and use wedges, how to use Bon Ami for 100 different reasons, how to wrap tomato seeds in newspaper, how to choose the "blue corn" seeds for next year, what to do if you had accident to use the "inside" chamber pot when caught unawares, and 1000's of other gently and not so gently described minutia of base food ingredients and how they were prepared and combined. If you like birds, or goats, or pigs- you will hear a lot about them too. And also what a teacher's contract added up to in Benton County 1930's Iowa.
All the chores and endless waiting on "customers"- my childhood was quite similar. And believe me, we certainly were not used, nor were we "gypped".
"One thing we children all understood: The adults were the ones who made the decisions and the generation gap was not to be breached. Childhood and early adolescence were looked on as a kind of unmentionable affliction, somewhat like the huge goiter that tilted Great-Aunt Maggie's chin way up in the air; it was there for all to see, but no one ever commented on it. The desired condition was to be an adult. We also understood that we couldn't do or have anything that cost money. Nor could we ever suggest to the old folks that we were bored or didn't have anything to occupy ourselves, for in no time they would have had us restacking the woodpile, scrubbing the porches, or picking up fallen apples. Even before the saying was coined, we knew that adults were in some ways the natural enemies of kids.
We were, therefore, remarkably creative- especially on the farm."
This is a short section of page 215. And it's an after thought "oversight" to her wonderful and structured tale of the years when she was one of the "little kids" ("BIG kids" had other jobs, tasks, group rules and staggered allowances or permissions for fun) and also when bridging the "Big kid" jobs in both the dual 1/2 year lifestyle of either the "farm" or the "more in town" homestead of abode from just after Christmas to May. They lived from Jan. to May in one and from May to Dec. in the farmstead "out".
Loving and depth of telling in this memoir! Both are superb of every minutia and detailing. For her ancestry, her siblings, her cousins, her aunts and uncles and in some ways- so poignant for her own self-identity and knowledge- all the hierarchy, the work and the morality structure.
You need to have and hold the patience for reading immense detail in tasking and procedures on the farm and in the village. For living without electricity and with continual water retrieval and outhouse normalcy constant occupations. Chores were parts of living and took up hours and hours of every day's time. Kids all had chores for each part of every day. Not to mention that the cows milking and separation of milk (the milk separator's wash of removals/ reassembly / scalding being done every single day was a "minor" kids' chore), 3 meals from scratch garden produce (picking and cleaning in carried water before they got to the "house" was an everyday kids' chore) all the rest of the chickens'/livestock's feeding and care- needed to be done every single day. Holiday or not. Chores still occupied their hours. And their hours. And on the "special days" too. Like the day to clean the cemetery and do the nut gathering and cleaning. Or the day to pick beans. Or the other day to pick beans. (Can you tell I spent too many days in the last few decades picking beans.) Or the day to gather dead wood and fell 50 footers that were on their way out anyway for winter's heating woodpile and splitting pile supply. And the games contrived within the tasks of each physical task! And the "rules" broken with the critters or just because of a dare. I loved, loved, loved the Ted colt story. And the one where they rode the creek down in a flash flood and were cut nearly to death by saw grass. It was all great fun!
Work was life. And often joyful. Everybody worked all the time. Even if ailing or peaked. Unless you have a red line running up your leg and are on the dire medical condition "soak" chair /platform in the kitchen. Doctors? Hospitals? Only rarely, rarely and at death's door. My childhood was exactly the same as this. I can remember "Quincy" throat wraps.
All the hundreds and hundreds of practical applications the kids learned. Not only for treating the body but for every house, field or natural world observation. Like the poor terrier or the canary that landed on the wood burning stove top. Quick reaction.
Although I was 20 years later and not rural, I so remember nearly all that Millie does. It was very similar where I was and in the same amounts of family or "home" members. No personal exemptions or special cases. Everyone worked, and constantly. A great gift for me was any TIME TO READ. That was a tremendous and earned privilege. Often rare to grasp.
Millie self-identity is so solidified in this memoir. Her innocence and her good will and her knowledge of "where she fit". Millie did not and never had to "find herself". And the WISDOM for challenges- the pain, the sickness, the lacks met. They are incredible by the age of 10. And she sure wasn't alone in her joy of them either.
You need to like and treasure minutia of detail to like this book to a 5 star as I did. Recipes, how to clean and scrub a pig's head with a small scrub brush (done at 8 or 9 years old and without any ewwwww! connotations even allowed or tangent considered), all the uses of fried onions and poultices, potato planting instructions, how to get that nasty outside hull off of the black walnuts, how to work the windmill slot levers, how to raid a bumblebee (NOT honeybee) nest for its clear drops of heaven, how to split wood and use wedges, how to use Bon Ami for 100 different reasons, how to wrap tomato seeds in newspaper, how to choose the "blue corn" seeds for next year, what to do if you had accident to use the "inside" chamber pot when caught unawares, and 1000's of other gently and not so gently described minutia of base food ingredients and how they were prepared and combined. If you like birds, or goats, or pigs- you will hear a lot about them too. And also what a teacher's contract added up to in Benton County 1930's Iowa.
All the chores and endless waiting on "customers"- my childhood was quite similar. And believe me, we certainly were not used, nor were we "gypped".
December 19, 2007
Mildred Kalish's memoir of life on a farm during the Depression is packed with fascinating experiences and observations. I loved the content, but was not crazy about her writing style, which often sounded to me like a transcription of an oral history. But Kalish, a former English professor, does, in fact, know how to tell a story (and share a recipe and give instructions on cleaning a sink). She's friendly and chatty, and intersperses her observations with lots of (very definite) opinions and a sprinkling of sophisticated literary references. And she absolutely won me over in the end with her chapter on raccoons, which just charmed me to pieces.
I would have loved a few more stories about the adults in her family. In particular, her grandfather sounded wonderful and I wanted to know more about him. I also found the subtitle of this book to be somewhat misleading, as I kept waiting to hear about the "hard times" the family suffered. Certainly, there were few luxuries and the daily chores were pretty daunting. But the farm was close to self-sufficient and I wonder if life would have been much different had there been no Depression. The family never wanted for food and Mildred and her sister had a new pair of patent leather Mary Janes every year!
In the end, however, I would not have missed this book for the world. It evokes images and experiences of a very special time and place where families (including small children) worked together to ensure their livelihood, people lived in close and respectful relationship with nature, and thrift was a creative, responsible and matter-of-fact way of life.
I would have loved a few more stories about the adults in her family. In particular, her grandfather sounded wonderful and I wanted to know more about him. I also found the subtitle of this book to be somewhat misleading, as I kept waiting to hear about the "hard times" the family suffered. Certainly, there were few luxuries and the daily chores were pretty daunting. But the farm was close to self-sufficient and I wonder if life would have been much different had there been no Depression. The family never wanted for food and Mildred and her sister had a new pair of patent leather Mary Janes every year!
In the end, however, I would not have missed this book for the world. It evokes images and experiences of a very special time and place where families (including small children) worked together to ensure their livelihood, people lived in close and respectful relationship with nature, and thrift was a creative, responsible and matter-of-fact way of life.
December 31, 2007
I loved this book, and I hope all the people I gave it to as a Christmas present love it, too!
Reading through some of the reviews here, I notice that some people are irked by the folksy, chatty style of the author. I found it charming--maybe it sounds like you're sitting around talking to grandma. So what? Perhaps because I never got to sit around and talk to grandma about the good ol' days myself (and if I had, my grandmothers' "good ol'days" would have sounded nothing like this), I have a high nostalgia tolerance. Bring it on!
If you don't see the appeal of it, you're never going to, and that's fine. To each his/her own. Myself, I'm grateful to the New York Times for ranking this among their top 10 books of the year, because I never would have picked it up otherwise.
Reading through some of the reviews here, I notice that some people are irked by the folksy, chatty style of the author. I found it charming--maybe it sounds like you're sitting around talking to grandma. So what? Perhaps because I never got to sit around and talk to grandma about the good ol' days myself (and if I had, my grandmothers' "good ol'days" would have sounded nothing like this), I have a high nostalgia tolerance. Bring it on!
If you don't see the appeal of it, you're never going to, and that's fine. To each his/her own. Myself, I'm grateful to the New York Times for ranking this among their top 10 books of the year, because I never would have picked it up otherwise.
April 7, 2010
Admittedly, I may be a bit biased in my feelings of this book being that I grew up in Iowa, but I think this was certainly very interesting and educational non-fiction regardless. Reading this book reminded me of my Great Great Aunt Ruth who was born in 1896 and lived to the ripe age of 99 in small town Fredericksburg, Iowa. I used to love sitting with her and asking questions about life at the beginning of the 1900s. I heard stories of carriages, party-phones, death of children from disease, one-room schoolhouses, etc. Ruth never married, worked as both a teacher and secretary, owned/lived in a house through the end of her life, and had her own teeth until she died. This author was younger than Ruth, but the sentiment of small town life and rural Iowa was similar.
Things that stood out to me (yes, I intend to natter on for a while – so be warned!):
1) From lack of fresh vegetables from January through beginning of Spring, I thought it was so interesting that the author’s family would rush out to collect Dandelion greens when the weed first showed its face in the Spring so they could eat fresh greens in lieu of winter canned vegetables. When I was a camp counselor, I remember we tried to make a dandelion green soup from dandelions that we dug up/cleaned and it was *sooooo* bitter. Can you imagine harvesting dandelions to eat in the present era? Probably doesn’t happen very often with most people paying money to have pesticides sprayed on their lawns to keep them weed-free and green.
2) The medicines and poultices used during the era were fascinating to hear about, as well as the concept of using your own home-grown remedies in place of going to the doctor. Growing up in the 1930s, the author’s frugal family would almost never see the doctor, preferring home remedies for things such as toothaches. Interestingly, some of the remedies I remember using growing up were mentioned. When I got stings/insect bites, I used to mix baking soda with water and use it as a little poultice on my area to ease the pain/itch. I had learned this from my Mum (who actually is a physician). When I first shared this home remedy with my husband, he thought I was a little off in the head as he had never heard of such a thing. hehehehe
3) Waste not, want not - anyone who lived through the depression is a natural recycler. Mold on top of the author’s canned jelly? They simply scraped off the top and ate the rest. The author talked about recycling of everything naturally to make full use of it.
4) The ubiquitous presence of guns in the lives of Iowans during this era. Both men and women learned to use guns, and families would typically have at least several loaded guns in their houses - quite a different sentiment than present life. Of course hunting and killing animals was a way of life, and even the children would know how to skin a rabbit or slaughter and prepare a chicken.
5) I had no idea that you could make marshmallows, but the author explained how you could make your own. She must have made it in a more modern era as the recipe she shared used an electric mixer. After hearing this recipe, I can’t imagine going through the effort to make marshmallows. EEK! My only minor complaint about listening to the audiobook was the few bits where the author would go into a recipe for something. It’s hard to listen to a recipe in audiobook form. However, even if I didn’t really want to know how to make something like homemade headcheese, the recipe would be pertinent to the telling of the author’s life and didn’t dock anything from my star rating for this.
6) I found the chapter dedicated to washing clothes to be very interesting. Due to the major undertaking of laundry, it meant that you put on clean clothes on Monday and were expected to wear them through the end of the week. Can you imagine doing that now? *laugh* Sure, I sometimes will re-wear a pair of pants or something before washing it, but I can’t imagine wearing the same thing for that many days. Collected rain water was used because it was soft and could make suds for the laundry from freshly shredded soap. Early in the author’s life, the family had a washing machine contraption, but it required pushing/pulling a lever that they took turns with. Then, the clothes went through the hand-rolling ringer, were rinsed, and sent through the ringer again. I laughed at the idea that there were people that hung their skivvies inside of pillowcases on the clothesline so as not to show their personal undergarments to lascivious neighbors. hehehehe
7) The outhouse was a necessity in the 1930s in rural Iowa. I have a personal relationship with latrines myself, living in the woods for so many summers during my youth. I was a little shocked that they used old crumpled pages of the Sears catalog as toilet paper. Now, that is recycling! They kept a chamber pot in the house in case they didn’t want to go outside in the middle of the night, and it was to be used only in emergencies.
8) In the book, there was an entire chapter dedicated to making may-baskets for neighbors, and as a child, I engaged in this tradition 50 years after the author. We would make may-baskets and leave them on the neighbors porches on May 1st, ringing the doorbell and then running away quickly. I’m guessing that most people will not know about the may-basket tradition. The author believes the custom has gone away, and I am inclined to agree with her. I haven’t heard of anyone exchanging may-baskets since my childhood.
9) Perhaps it was just me reminiscing, but all the discussion of the outdoor elements reminded me of my own Iowa childhood and time spent outdoors. Enjoying the flowering crabapple trees, gardening, cracking open black walnuts, shucking corn on the back porch, hanging clothes on the clothesline, avoiding nettles and poison ivy, finding the blue/green robin’s eggs, sledding down the hills in the winter snow, water fights in the summer, etc. I spent a lot of time outside when I was a kid in the 70s and 80s, and looked upon the author’s stories with a lot of fondness. Yes, I played a lot of videogames growing up with Atari and Nintendo, but I still spent a lot of time outside climbing trees and catching fireflies. Those were the days!
10) The discussion of animals by the author was both humorous and heartbreaking. The author talked about raccoons playing fisticuffs with a possum that was playing dead while hanging upside in the tree. Lots of crazy stories about playing with, hand-feeding, and even sleeping with raccoons without rabies shots. RUSSIAN ROULETTE!!!! I was moved to a few tears when the author told the story of her pet and injury from a farming accident. *sniff* *sniff* It was hard to hear that section of the story. I was back to smiling again listening to the tale of the author’s jealous “queen of the farm” cat named Old Puss who would arrange and display her kittens and purr irresistibly when she needed attention from the family.
11) Finally, the epilogue contained some interesting stories about sexuality and women’s development for the author growing up. There are humorous stories of “tumbles in the hay”, the time the author thought she was pregnant because she didn’t understand menses, the possible origin of the phrase “on the rag”, etc.
I’ve lived lots of places over my lifetime outside of Iowa (New York, Arizona, Florida, Philadelphia, West Virginia, and even Sweden). However, reading this novel reminded me how much I love Iowa and reminds of the reasons I moved back. Even 80 years after the Great Depression, certain aspects of Iowa life remain the same. The author did a good job of capturing life in Iowa in years past. I appreciate that :)
Completely unrelated to the book, if you ever happen to be near Des Moines, Iowa – I highly recommend visiting Living History Farms if you are interested in experiencing history. There is a small town constructed there reminiscent of Walnut Grove from the Little House on the Prairie series, a one-room schoolhouse, a pioneer era farm, a 1900-era farm, etc. I love having people act out living in other times in those living history sights found in the United States. I visited a civil war era fort when I lived in Florida that had a man dressed as a civil war soldier showing how medicine was practiced at the fort. Good stuff like extracting bullets and amputating legs. I *love* that type of stuff. Alright, this review has nattered on long enough!
Things that stood out to me (yes, I intend to natter on for a while – so be warned!):
1) From lack of fresh vegetables from January through beginning of Spring, I thought it was so interesting that the author’s family would rush out to collect Dandelion greens when the weed first showed its face in the Spring so they could eat fresh greens in lieu of winter canned vegetables. When I was a camp counselor, I remember we tried to make a dandelion green soup from dandelions that we dug up/cleaned and it was *sooooo* bitter. Can you imagine harvesting dandelions to eat in the present era? Probably doesn’t happen very often with most people paying money to have pesticides sprayed on their lawns to keep them weed-free and green.
2) The medicines and poultices used during the era were fascinating to hear about, as well as the concept of using your own home-grown remedies in place of going to the doctor. Growing up in the 1930s, the author’s frugal family would almost never see the doctor, preferring home remedies for things such as toothaches. Interestingly, some of the remedies I remember using growing up were mentioned. When I got stings/insect bites, I used to mix baking soda with water and use it as a little poultice on my area to ease the pain/itch. I had learned this from my Mum (who actually is a physician). When I first shared this home remedy with my husband, he thought I was a little off in the head as he had never heard of such a thing. hehehehe
3) Waste not, want not - anyone who lived through the depression is a natural recycler. Mold on top of the author’s canned jelly? They simply scraped off the top and ate the rest. The author talked about recycling of everything naturally to make full use of it.
4) The ubiquitous presence of guns in the lives of Iowans during this era. Both men and women learned to use guns, and families would typically have at least several loaded guns in their houses - quite a different sentiment than present life. Of course hunting and killing animals was a way of life, and even the children would know how to skin a rabbit or slaughter and prepare a chicken.
5) I had no idea that you could make marshmallows, but the author explained how you could make your own. She must have made it in a more modern era as the recipe she shared used an electric mixer. After hearing this recipe, I can’t imagine going through the effort to make marshmallows. EEK! My only minor complaint about listening to the audiobook was the few bits where the author would go into a recipe for something. It’s hard to listen to a recipe in audiobook form. However, even if I didn’t really want to know how to make something like homemade headcheese, the recipe would be pertinent to the telling of the author’s life and didn’t dock anything from my star rating for this.
6) I found the chapter dedicated to washing clothes to be very interesting. Due to the major undertaking of laundry, it meant that you put on clean clothes on Monday and were expected to wear them through the end of the week. Can you imagine doing that now? *laugh* Sure, I sometimes will re-wear a pair of pants or something before washing it, but I can’t imagine wearing the same thing for that many days. Collected rain water was used because it was soft and could make suds for the laundry from freshly shredded soap. Early in the author’s life, the family had a washing machine contraption, but it required pushing/pulling a lever that they took turns with. Then, the clothes went through the hand-rolling ringer, were rinsed, and sent through the ringer again. I laughed at the idea that there were people that hung their skivvies inside of pillowcases on the clothesline so as not to show their personal undergarments to lascivious neighbors. hehehehe
7) The outhouse was a necessity in the 1930s in rural Iowa. I have a personal relationship with latrines myself, living in the woods for so many summers during my youth. I was a little shocked that they used old crumpled pages of the Sears catalog as toilet paper. Now, that is recycling! They kept a chamber pot in the house in case they didn’t want to go outside in the middle of the night, and it was to be used only in emergencies.
8) In the book, there was an entire chapter dedicated to making may-baskets for neighbors, and as a child, I engaged in this tradition 50 years after the author. We would make may-baskets and leave them on the neighbors porches on May 1st, ringing the doorbell and then running away quickly. I’m guessing that most people will not know about the may-basket tradition. The author believes the custom has gone away, and I am inclined to agree with her. I haven’t heard of anyone exchanging may-baskets since my childhood.
9) Perhaps it was just me reminiscing, but all the discussion of the outdoor elements reminded me of my own Iowa childhood and time spent outdoors. Enjoying the flowering crabapple trees, gardening, cracking open black walnuts, shucking corn on the back porch, hanging clothes on the clothesline, avoiding nettles and poison ivy, finding the blue/green robin’s eggs, sledding down the hills in the winter snow, water fights in the summer, etc. I spent a lot of time outside when I was a kid in the 70s and 80s, and looked upon the author’s stories with a lot of fondness. Yes, I played a lot of videogames growing up with Atari and Nintendo, but I still spent a lot of time outside climbing trees and catching fireflies. Those were the days!
10) The discussion of animals by the author was both humorous and heartbreaking. The author talked about raccoons playing fisticuffs with a possum that was playing dead while hanging upside in the tree. Lots of crazy stories about playing with, hand-feeding, and even sleeping with raccoons without rabies shots. RUSSIAN ROULETTE!!!! I was moved to a few tears when the author told the story of her pet and injury from a farming accident. *sniff* *sniff* It was hard to hear that section of the story. I was back to smiling again listening to the tale of the author’s jealous “queen of the farm” cat named Old Puss who would arrange and display her kittens and purr irresistibly when she needed attention from the family.
11) Finally, the epilogue contained some interesting stories about sexuality and women’s development for the author growing up. There are humorous stories of “tumbles in the hay”, the time the author thought she was pregnant because she didn’t understand menses, the possible origin of the phrase “on the rag”, etc.
I’ve lived lots of places over my lifetime outside of Iowa (New York, Arizona, Florida, Philadelphia, West Virginia, and even Sweden). However, reading this novel reminded me how much I love Iowa and reminds of the reasons I moved back. Even 80 years after the Great Depression, certain aspects of Iowa life remain the same. The author did a good job of capturing life in Iowa in years past. I appreciate that :)
Completely unrelated to the book, if you ever happen to be near Des Moines, Iowa – I highly recommend visiting Living History Farms if you are interested in experiencing history. There is a small town constructed there reminiscent of Walnut Grove from the Little House on the Prairie series, a one-room schoolhouse, a pioneer era farm, a 1900-era farm, etc. I love having people act out living in other times in those living history sights found in the United States. I visited a civil war era fort when I lived in Florida that had a man dressed as a civil war soldier showing how medicine was practiced at the fort. Good stuff like extracting bullets and amputating legs. I *love* that type of stuff. Alright, this review has nattered on long enough!
October 17, 2008
The man at the cool little SF bookstore where I bought this book highly recommended it, so I was pretty excited about reading it. I liked it at the beginning, but as it went on I disliked it more and more by the page. The old woman who wrote the book had a serious age-based superiority complex, and gets heavier and heavier on phrases like "these days, people don't know about..." or "today's Xs don't even compare to what we had back then..." or "young people today don't understand hard work" etc etc. Come on! I mean it's nice to hear how things were different but sickeningly annoying to hear over and over how I just COULDN'T understand. Ugh. I did on the other hand like learning about how they solved various problems on the farm (although I think I could have gotten this info from my own family), and how to make things like head cheese- weird.
January 20, 2009
This sounds like a dreadful idea . . . retired English teacher writes her first book, an account of her rural childhood. The only reason I picked it up was the rave review in the New York Times. What a fabulous memoir. Her writing is utterly clear, and the events, both everyday and extraordinary, are fascinating.
In a nutshell: May baskets, outhouses, taming wild horses, treating puncture wounds (don't go up the house to tell the adults, because they won't care--just go to the barn and put some cobwebs on it), singing hymns with two maiden aunts, getting lost in a blizzard, a mean missionary, gravestones, a one-room schoolhouse, logging (Do YOU know the difference between a widowmaker and a foolkiller? Mildred does!), a skunk-fur collar, "I yelled because I thought I had shot you!", nut-gathering, an accidental pipe bomb, recipes, and a stolen walnut tree.
Check out the excerpt.
I listened to the audiobook, but that version does not seem to be widely available.
In a nutshell: May baskets, outhouses, taming wild horses, treating puncture wounds (don't go up the house to tell the adults, because they won't care--just go to the barn and put some cobwebs on it), singing hymns with two maiden aunts, getting lost in a blizzard, a mean missionary, gravestones, a one-room schoolhouse, logging (Do YOU know the difference between a widowmaker and a foolkiller? Mildred does!), a skunk-fur collar, "I yelled because I thought I had shot you!", nut-gathering, an accidental pipe bomb, recipes, and a stolen walnut tree.
Check out the excerpt.
I listened to the audiobook, but that version does not seem to be widely available.
February 17, 2008
If I were looking at this from a literary perspective, I'd probably knock it down another star. The writing isn't great; the back-in-my-day tone in particular gets irritating. Most of the narrative focuses on farm chores, but the epilogue alludes to a far more interesting story about the author's experiences during the war. Maybe another book is forthcoming?
I think it is useful as a historical book, though. It's strange to think how much life has changed in just two generations, and this book does a thorough job of chronicling some major differences. Our current attitudes towards health seem downright neurotic compared against those the author grew up with, for example.
It's not a bad read, and you'll have plenty to discuss with anyone else who has read it. But wait until it's available at the library.
I think it is useful as a historical book, though. It's strange to think how much life has changed in just two generations, and this book does a thorough job of chronicling some major differences. Our current attitudes towards health seem downright neurotic compared against those the author grew up with, for example.
It's not a bad read, and you'll have plenty to discuss with anyone else who has read it. But wait until it's available at the library.
February 7, 2008
I was surprised to see this book on the New York Times' list of Best Books of 2007: it's Midwestern AND it's by a woman. Glory be.
Anyway, this is a cross between reading an updated _Little House on the Prairie_ and sitting at my grandparents' respective tables listening to their stories about growing up. There's a lot of wonderful description of nature and school and how to do things on the farm. There's a little less than I would like of the author's introspection or reflection on relationships and experiences. That lack might reflect an ingrained MIdwestern ethos of stoicism and reticence about emotion. There's also a big dose of nostalgic teacherly tone (this is how life *should* be) and of Depression-era "In my day we walked to school uphill both ways in the snow and were grateful to get an education." If you're fortunate to have had relatives from this time and this place, you can't help but roll your eyes, even while respecting the people and the experience.
Anyway, this is a cross between reading an updated _Little House on the Prairie_ and sitting at my grandparents' respective tables listening to their stories about growing up. There's a lot of wonderful description of nature and school and how to do things on the farm. There's a little less than I would like of the author's introspection or reflection on relationships and experiences. That lack might reflect an ingrained MIdwestern ethos of stoicism and reticence about emotion. There's also a big dose of nostalgic teacherly tone (this is how life *should* be) and of Depression-era "In my day we walked to school uphill both ways in the snow and were grateful to get an education." If you're fortunate to have had relatives from this time and this place, you can't help but roll your eyes, even while respecting the people and the experience.
January 14, 2009
Who says you can't go home again. There it all was. I was born ten years after the time of this book, and my mother was graduating from Iowa State University and starting a teaching career in 1935, but I really enjoyed reading about life then. I grew up in Western Iowa, had farming relatives, knew the old retired farmers who had "moved into town" and separated milk, used the wringer washer, shelled corn, etc. at my grandparents farm in the summers. So I thoroughly enjoyed the stories and also Kalish's wit and bon mots at the end of the chapers.
I grew up in a family with big kids and little kids and the distinctive priviledges of each group and remember how much we enjoyed it when the big kids played baseball with us or went sledding with us. Those big kids are in their late sixties and seventies now and they are still the "big cousins" although some of them aren't 5 feet tall.
I grew up in a family with big kids and little kids and the distinctive priviledges of each group and remember how much we enjoyed it when the big kids played baseball with us or went sledding with us. Those big kids are in their late sixties and seventies now and they are still the "big cousins" although some of them aren't 5 feet tall.
May 21, 2014
Although, I didn't always enjoy Mildred's writing style, I loved what she said! This is a history of Mildred's life, growing up in the 1930's.
This should be required reading for all middle / high school students. Today's kids (n general) have no idea how easy they have it!
When I was in Jr. Hi., Mr. McNickel, my science teacher, used to say his family had 3 rooms and a path (in the olden days) instead of 3 rooms and a bath! LOL! I thought of this "tale" throughout the book!
I loved the recipes!
Use it up; wear it out; make it do; do without
'nuf said
This should be required reading for all middle / high school students. Today's kids (n general) have no idea how easy they have it!
When I was in Jr. Hi., Mr. McNickel, my science teacher, used to say his family had 3 rooms and a path (in the olden days) instead of 3 rooms and a bath! LOL! I thought of this "tale" throughout the book!
I loved the recipes!
Use it up; wear it out; make it do; do without
'nuf said
August 12, 2017
An important reminder that the land I'm living on was a very different experience just a few generations back. And I really like this author's voice -- more critical, less saccharine, than I expected. She taught English at the UI at one point in her career.
June 21, 2021
This was a wonderful fun read, neither dry nor tedious. Full of wit, humor, tales of childhood with recipes thrown in, made for a delight. For anyone looking for nonfiction seen through a child's innocent eyes, this is a wonderful choice.
Read
March 31, 2021My daughter Eliza recommended this book to me after she was assigned it for her college class. Wonderful.
November 19, 2010
This is a happy memoir. It’s sort of a latter day “Little House on the Prairie,” but intended for adults. There are no sour grapes (or grapes of wrath) dredged up here. And contrary to the subtitle, the childhood remembered here was well insulated from the hard times of the depression. The rural life depicted here was on a mortgage free farm owned by her grandfather. Though land rich, they were cash poor. So they needed to be self sufficient to the extent possible. But frugality was second nature to these folks, so I doubt the Depression made much difference on their lives. There is reference to her Grandpa’s brother and sister losing their farm, but this is as close as the financial woes of the 1930s depression era came to this family. Also Garrison Iowa, the location of this story, is quite distant from the “dust bowl” part of the country, so they were spared that experience as well.
I found it to be an enjoyable book with many stories that I could relate to. I also grew up on a farm, and I have many of my own memoires and opinions of farm life that are similar to those contained in this book. Even though I’m about two decades younger than the author, and certainly technology changed many things by the time I came along, I ended up being exposed to similar stories while growing up that were told by my parents and their contemporaries.
As a matter of fact, I could respond to many of these stories with my own tall tales. Probably one of the things I appreciate most about this book is that it reminded me of many little details about farm life that I would never have recalled on my own. One detail I share with this author is that we both attended a rural one-room grade school where our mothers had previously taught. Of course we’re talking different schools in different States, but for some reason that is a recollection I’ve come to appreciate as of late.
The book elaborates much on work in the kitchen since that’s where the women folk spent much of their time, and the author being a girl learned her cooking skills well. The book contains a number of recipes from which even I learned a few things. I was impressed with the author’s technique for avoiding soggy pie crust bottoms and her clever way of completely covering an ear of sweet corn with butter in less than a second using one hand.
This may be a happy memoir, but for the reader looking for unfairness and hurtful incidences, there are some of those in this book too. It is apparent that the author not only has a good memory, but she has a naturally happy disposition that tends to see the bright side of things.
It occurs to me that some people may wonder about the title of the book that can be perceived as a negative term. “Little Heathens” is the term that her prudish grandmother used to describe the rambunctious and free spirited mischievousness of her grandchildren. In that context, it was an affectionate expression.
One extraordinary detail she has included in this book is the exact wording of an employment contract for a rural teaching job that she was offered. The contract had extraordinary work requirements if measured against today's standards. It was almost a virtual description of slavery. She ended up not signing it for reasons that had nothing to do with the contract terms. But what I'm truly amazed about is that she apparently kept a copy of the contract all these years. Either that or she was able to find it through research work. She doesn't indicate which.
I hope when I'm the author's age that I will be able to remember distant memories as clearly as she does and that I will be as happy with my life's experiences as she is. I don't know what the author's plans are, but it appears that she could write a couple more memoirs if she was so inclined.
I found it to be an enjoyable book with many stories that I could relate to. I also grew up on a farm, and I have many of my own memoires and opinions of farm life that are similar to those contained in this book. Even though I’m about two decades younger than the author, and certainly technology changed many things by the time I came along, I ended up being exposed to similar stories while growing up that were told by my parents and their contemporaries.
As a matter of fact, I could respond to many of these stories with my own tall tales. Probably one of the things I appreciate most about this book is that it reminded me of many little details about farm life that I would never have recalled on my own. One detail I share with this author is that we both attended a rural one-room grade school where our mothers had previously taught. Of course we’re talking different schools in different States, but for some reason that is a recollection I’ve come to appreciate as of late.
The book elaborates much on work in the kitchen since that’s where the women folk spent much of their time, and the author being a girl learned her cooking skills well. The book contains a number of recipes from which even I learned a few things. I was impressed with the author’s technique for avoiding soggy pie crust bottoms and her clever way of completely covering an ear of sweet corn with butter in less than a second using one hand.
This may be a happy memoir, but for the reader looking for unfairness and hurtful incidences, there are some of those in this book too. It is apparent that the author not only has a good memory, but she has a naturally happy disposition that tends to see the bright side of things.
It occurs to me that some people may wonder about the title of the book that can be perceived as a negative term. “Little Heathens” is the term that her prudish grandmother used to describe the rambunctious and free spirited mischievousness of her grandchildren. In that context, it was an affectionate expression.
One extraordinary detail she has included in this book is the exact wording of an employment contract for a rural teaching job that she was offered. The contract had extraordinary work requirements if measured against today's standards. It was almost a virtual description of slavery. She ended up not signing it for reasons that had nothing to do with the contract terms. But what I'm truly amazed about is that she apparently kept a copy of the contract all these years. Either that or she was able to find it through research work. She doesn't indicate which.
I hope when I'm the author's age that I will be able to remember distant memories as clearly as she does and that I will be as happy with my life's experiences as she is. I don't know what the author's plans are, but it appears that she could write a couple more memoirs if she was so inclined.
December 10, 2011
YES!!! I FOUND IT!
This is yet another book I read years ago and then forgot the title of. For some reason, I got a bee in my bonnet today to find it. The library website was no help, but as I thought about searchable plot points of this book, I realized that a snippet of a sentence from this book was imprinted in my brain. With slight trepidation and a few giggles, I typed the fragment into google. To my great astonishment, my remembered snippet was word perfect! Want to know what is was? Well, I shall give the censored version, but it was this:
"...f***ing himself out of a place at the table."
I wanted to laugh so hard when the correct google book result came up!
(By the way, that "lovely" sentence was in reference to a man about to add yet another child to his already abundant family. If I remember correctly, that whole chapter contained a lot of reminisces about bad language vs. little pitchers with big ears.)
Since I read this book as research for a paper, I was relieved that neither of my parents asked to read it. Ha!
I may re-read it, but I haven't decided yet. Incidentally, the only other anecdote that stuck in my memory from this book was the children breaking off pieces of the cows' salt lick to eat with tomatoes. Apparently, I only remember crude and gross things. Wonderful.
This is yet another book I read years ago and then forgot the title of. For some reason, I got a bee in my bonnet today to find it. The library website was no help, but as I thought about searchable plot points of this book, I realized that a snippet of a sentence from this book was imprinted in my brain. With slight trepidation and a few giggles, I typed the fragment into google. To my great astonishment, my remembered snippet was word perfect! Want to know what is was? Well, I shall give the censored version, but it was this:
"...f***ing himself out of a place at the table."
I wanted to laugh so hard when the correct google book result came up!
(By the way, that "lovely" sentence was in reference to a man about to add yet another child to his already abundant family. If I remember correctly, that whole chapter contained a lot of reminisces about bad language vs. little pitchers with big ears.)
Since I read this book as research for a paper, I was relieved that neither of my parents asked to read it. Ha!
I may re-read it, but I haven't decided yet. Incidentally, the only other anecdote that stuck in my memory from this book was the children breaking off pieces of the cows' salt lick to eat with tomatoes. Apparently, I only remember crude and gross things. Wonderful.
July 24, 2019
i realize this may not be everyone's cup of tea but I really enjoyed the writing style and mood of the period - if you can enjoy books detailing the lives of an extended family on Iowa farms during the Great Depression. I am still savoring the memory of a book by annie barrows that I read last year or two ago - the truth according to us, - which takes place toward the end of the depression years, pre WWII. hungering after another similar period piece with as much ambience as The Truth According to Us, i fell upon this memoir by Mildred Armstrong Kalish taking place prior to and during the Great Depression. whereas Annie Barrow's beautiful work is woven into fiction this book by Kalish describes in detail how her grandparents came to settle in Iowa in the late 1800's, and how their self-sufficiency and austerity contributed to the family's ability to be weather the lean years ahead. one cannot help but admire the resilience and fortitude described fondly in what appears to be a faithful treatise of one family's day to day minutiae during the years of the depression.
May 27, 2016
I simply adored this book. It's a memoir about growing up on an Iowa farm during the Depression. My grandparents were farming in Iowa at that time, so I was curious to read more about it.
Despite being "land poor" -- the family owned land but had very little money -- the author said she enjoyed her childhood. She loved being outdoors and living in a small town where everybody knows everything about everyone, and she always felt safe.
The book is smartly divided into chapters of differing topics, rather than plodding along chronologically. Topics include chores, literature, church, animals and one delightful chapter was filled almost entirely with recipes.
I sent a copy of this book to my grandmother, who read it cover to cover as soon as she got it. She said, "It was my life. It was hard, but I'd do it all over again."
Despite being "land poor" -- the family owned land but had very little money -- the author said she enjoyed her childhood. She loved being outdoors and living in a small town where everybody knows everything about everyone, and she always felt safe.
The book is smartly divided into chapters of differing topics, rather than plodding along chronologically. Topics include chores, literature, church, animals and one delightful chapter was filled almost entirely with recipes.
I sent a copy of this book to my grandmother, who read it cover to cover as soon as she got it. She said, "It was my life. It was hard, but I'd do it all over again."
October 25, 2007
i am really torn about how to review this book partially because the 85 year old author's photo on the back flap is so damn cute. plus she's old and i really think the book was mainly written for her family and to get a bunch of memories down on paper. however: the writing was kind of painful and contained a lot of cliched, old person sayings. had some interesting info on farm life during the 1930s, but not as much as i was hoping, and too many family remembrances without fully flushed out characters.
so, eh. not horrid, but not great. and i still feel guilty writing this 2-star review.
so, eh. not horrid, but not great. and i still feel guilty writing this 2-star review.
September 20, 2016
I found the author's tone condescending and the subject matter less than interesting. The narrator's voice grated on my nerves. I found myself trying to tune it out. Overall, it was a book about chores and it proved an even bigger chore to read. I gave up after completing 3 of 8 discs.
February 15, 2023
I wish I'd read this book when my father was alive, which surely would have prompted stories of growing up in the 1920s and 30s on a farm in Ohio. From what I do know, I think "Little Heathens" would have been like a walk down Memory Lane for him.
This is a snapshot of life in - not a simpler time; there was nothing easy about it. But a less complex time, perhaps. Days were spent in the business of living: growing, preparing, and storing food; making clothes; mending fences; chopping the wood that would keep your family alive through the winter. People knew their neighbors, and were close to extended family (I was always in awe of my dad's conversations with his sisters about all their cousins and school friends that they were still in touch with decades later). There was a sense of community and belonging.
This is life before TV, before the internet, before malls, and the highway system. It's a life that my grandchildren will find hard to imagine, which is why it's so wonderful that Kalish took the time to put it all down on paper. What an amazing resource! And it reads like we're sitting on the front porch of that Iowa farmhouse, shelling peas while listening to a dear old aunt reminisce. Some of the realities are hard (especially to vegans - warning!), many memories will bring laughter. But it's all history, the stories of our collective past, and we can't appreciate our lives today nearly so well unless we know how we got here.
This is a snapshot of life in - not a simpler time; there was nothing easy about it. But a less complex time, perhaps. Days were spent in the business of living: growing, preparing, and storing food; making clothes; mending fences; chopping the wood that would keep your family alive through the winter. People knew their neighbors, and were close to extended family (I was always in awe of my dad's conversations with his sisters about all their cousins and school friends that they were still in touch with decades later). There was a sense of community and belonging.
This is life before TV, before the internet, before malls, and the highway system. It's a life that my grandchildren will find hard to imagine, which is why it's so wonderful that Kalish took the time to put it all down on paper. What an amazing resource! And it reads like we're sitting on the front porch of that Iowa farmhouse, shelling peas while listening to a dear old aunt reminisce. Some of the realities are hard (especially to vegans - warning!), many memories will bring laughter. But it's all history, the stories of our collective past, and we can't appreciate our lives today nearly so well unless we know how we got here.
August 28, 2007
I delved into this book with great anticipation. The author is only a few years younger than my mother and the area she writes about in rural Iowa is just 50 miles east of where my grandfather was born.
There were many things to like in this book that combines anecdotes from the 1930s with recipes and how to do things the old way. I enjoyed the anecdotes and would have enjoyed the book if it had been sprinkled with less of the recipes and more of the stories from the 1930s--stories which ranged from poignant to laugh-out-loud funny. Her stories range from such events as box socials (and giving a complete explanation of what one is for those who may not know) to how to gather honey from bees (and what happens if you do it the wrong way). She tells of how hard work it was it was back in the day, but does recall there was time for a bit of leisure as well.
At once a memoir, a how-to book, and a cookbook, Kalish tells her story with enthusiasm but with a bit of pompousness that was a bit unnecessary. She acts as if she was the only person ever to know how to do some of these things described and that her way was the only way. Heck, I am 25 years younger than she is and I can remember doing many of the same things at my grandparents' farm in North Dakota two decades later, and even do some of these same things today. Although the subtitle mentions "hard times" it is clear that due to help from her grandparents and a self-sufficient farm, Kalish and her siblings never really went without anything on her farm during the depression so anyone who is reading this book and expects it to be a true hardship tale best look elsewhere. It is a great look down memory lane for those from Kalish's generation who I am sure will enjoy reading and reminiscing about another time and place. It seems though that most of the time the author is writing for an audience who hasn't lived through any of these events, remembers none of these times (stoking an old wood fire, splitting wood,making head cheese, butchering a chicken, making May Day baskets). That said, it is quick interesting read but recommended with reservations as although a memoir, how-to book and cookbook, it doesn't completely succeed at any of these.
November 1, 2008
I really enjoyed reading about how my family lived in this era. Even though my family lived in Indiana lives were the same in county-living.
The recipes were a nice add to the book. Again, same recipes were used here in Indiana by my family.
Too bad there weren't any pictures to go along with the book.
I enjoyed the story telling of Mrs. Kalish. It wasn't fancy just plain good reading.
Not everyone will like this book. I have recommended it for our December bookclub meeting.
The recipes were a nice add to the book. Again, same recipes were used here in Indiana by my family.
Too bad there weren't any pictures to go along with the book.
I enjoyed the story telling of Mrs. Kalish. It wasn't fancy just plain good reading.
Not everyone will like this book. I have recommended it for our December bookclub meeting.
September 5, 2014
Loved this book! I'm from Iowa, and my parents are about the same age as the author, so I could definitely relate to most of her experiences. Even though I've never lived on a farm, my hometown was small enough to allow me similar experiences. I'm giving this to my mom and brother to read! Thank you, Carla, for the book! :)
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