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Maude (1883-1993):She Grew Up with the country
This new edition of Maude (1883-1993) has been updated by Mardo Williams’ daughters, adding historical details their dad wished to make, twice as many photos, and nine appendices not present in the 1996 hardcover (which won an Ohioana Library Award for its author).
During her 110-year lifetime, Maude went from a 400-lb. wood-burning stove to a microwave oven, from an outdoor privy to indoor plumbing. She got the vote in 1920 and voted in the next 18 Presidential elections.
With poetry and human dramas (two murders and a suicide), written by a master journalist, the book shows the impact of the changing times on shy, unassuming Maude, her fun-loving husband Lee, and their four active children. They farmed 100 acres on the banks of Rush Creek in Logan County (Ohio).
A favorite with book discussion groups, Maude has been adopted by several colleges for use as a supplemental American history text.
During her 110-year lifetime, Maude went from a 400-lb. wood-burning stove to a microwave oven, from an outdoor privy to indoor plumbing. She got the vote in 1920 and voted in the next 18 Presidential elections.
With poetry and human dramas (two murders and a suicide), written by a master journalist, the book shows the impact of the changing times on shy, unassuming Maude, her fun-loving husband Lee, and their four active children. They farmed 100 acres on the banks of Rush Creek in Logan County (Ohio).
A favorite with book discussion groups, Maude has been adopted by several colleges for use as a supplemental American history text.
- GenresBiography
414 pages, Paperback
First published April 15, 1996
6 people are currently reading
318 people want to read
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July 10, 2016
Although I did get lost in all the family names a few times, I did enjoy reading this book about the author's mother who lived 110 years. My own great-grandfather was also born in 1883; he died at 103 when I was 25 years old, so I remember him well. So much of what I read applied to his life also. So much changed during Maude's lifetime; she didn't have many of the things that we take for granted today. I think this book will gain interest as we get farther and farther away from those days and people will want to know what it was like to live a simpler life.
***I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review through librarything.com's Early Reviewers program.***
***I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review through librarything.com's Early Reviewers program.***
December 17, 2016
Review of: Maude (1883-1993): She Grew Up with the Country, by Mardo Williams
by Stan Prager (12-16-16)
Towards the end of his mother’s very long life, retired journalist and octogenarian Mardo Williams began collecting her reminisces of a long bygone time in antique rural America. The result, three years after the death of Maude Williams at 110 years old, was a biography and memoir of sorts, Maude (1883-1993): She Grew Up with the Country, published in 1996 when Mardo himself was 91, and with encouragement from a writer’s group expanded by nearly 300 pages in the two years that followed. Mardo passed away in 2001, but a revised second edition of Maude was released in 2016, which I received through an early reviewer’s program.
In 1903, a pregnant nineteen-year-old Maude Allen wed Lee Williams and moved into a family homestead already more than a half-century old on farmland in remote rural Ohio. There was no electricity, telephone or indoor plumbing. Their second child, Mardo, was born in 1905; altogether there would be a total of four children born in every-other-year intervals. A mix perhaps of Little House on the Prairie and The Waltons, Maude revisits a much simpler time in America when close-knit families worked and played together through hardship and celebration. As a kind of primary source, the book is almost instantly fascinating as the narrative reveals in colorful detail how the Williams family went about their day to day lives – preparing food, keeping warm, washing clothes, doing farmyard chores, and the like – in a kind of primitive isolation. There is a pronounced charm to it, along with a certain heartwarming glow, especially in its survey of the more innocent America of Mardo’s childhood, replete with amusing anecdotes of Maude’s proverb-laced mothering, and Lee’s homespun practical jokes, as well as tales of long buggy rides to town or the occasional country fair, and winter sleigh rides to visit extended family and friends.
Yet, perhaps more fascinating is what is missing; that which remains unsaid. Primitive isolation: there is no doubt that sums up the farm where Maude and her family resided. But why? In 1903, Maude was living much like her grandparents would have lived. It was indeed remarkably similar to Little House on the Prairie, but yet it was early twentieth century America, on a farm in Ohio no less, hardly a desolate wilderness on the edge of the western frontier or a forgotten pocket of poverty in the deep south. And it hardly changed in the years to come. One day a telephone was installed, and the isolation was reduced, but not by much. Maude had a cistern to collect rainwater for washing, but she did not get an indoor pitcher pump for it until the 1920s [p235]. Around that time, she finally went from a washboard to a “hand-propelled washing machine.” Lee got a car in 1920, and there are later stories of the children hanging out in the in the evenings, listening to the radio. Incredibly, there was no radio in the house until the late 1940s, just as the era of television dawned for the rest of the country [p12-13]. Maude thought it something of a miracle when the house was finally wired for electricity – in 1947 – when she and Lee were in their sixties! For twenty-first century Americans, there is perhaps a quaint rustic charm to the description of their privy, located a full one hundred feet from the back door, “. . . a two-holer equipped with a sack of lime . . . and a fly swatter,” and neatly accented with a Sears Roebuck catalog hanging from the wall – the pages of the catalog doubled as a “wish list” and as toilet paper [p34]. Of course, it is dubious that such charm extended to those who had to relieve themselves outdoors with no lights or plumbing day after day in every manner of weather. In 1960, three years after Lee’s death, and with the property in deep disrepair, Maude moved away. She was seventy-seven years old and had used an outhouse for the entire fifty-seven years that she lived there.
The careful anthropologist as reader cannot help but ask: why did conditions remain so primitive for Maude and Lee for some six decades? It certainly did not start off that way. Lee’s family was apparently somewhat well-off, even sending Lee off to college. When he opted to drop out in favor of farming, Lee brought his new bride to a sprawling ten room house where his grandfather had lived, on land that included a barn, granary, windmill and more. His parents donated odd pieces of furniture to them. Three years later, Lee’s father paid to have the house repaired and renovated. This was a promising start for the young couple, and hardly abject poverty, yet by all accounts Lee and Maude lived a hardscrabble and weirdly anachronistic existence ever after. It appears that life was markedly different for others in their shared geography, who enjoyed at least some of the more modern conveniences conspicuous in their absence on the Williams farm. Long before he had his own car, Lee hiked through the mud to bum a ride to town in his neighbor’s vehicle, a town firmly anchored in the twentieth century, not trapped in the faded nineteenth where Lee and his family seemed helplessly glued. But again: why? The narrative neither reveals the answer nor openly begs the question. Was Lee an incompetent farmer? There are vague hints that he may have been an alcoholic, but this is never fleshed out. Was he unlucky? Was he simply lazy? Or was the primitive state of things a kind of “hair shirt” Lee liked to wear? It is never made clear. Vast changes occurred in American life in the twentieth century, but life on the Williams farm essentially stood still. The subtitle of the book, She Grew Up with the Country, is starkly misleading; the country grew up, but Maude was somehow left behind.
There is a telling photo on the cover of this edition of Maude. Maude was only twenty-six, Lee twenty-seven; each look at least forty. Perhaps it was the times. Or maybe it was that hard life on that farm where every day was more like 1858 than 1908. For all of Mardo’s abundant nostalgia, it seems that in fact it was a life that none of the children really cherished, at least once they were old enough to juxtapose their world with the world outside. The book contains vague references to their teenage years, but then the story fast forwards as all four children have married and moved away – for good. Hard times and primitive isolation seems to have held very little appeal. It is never explained why neither Maude nor Lee attended any of their weddings.
Despite encouragement from the writer’s group, the second half of the book should never have been written. It is less about Maude than about the extended family, including tales of murders, madness and alienation that have little to do with the themes of Americana resident in the first part of the narrative. Until the last years of her life, her children seem to have been markedly disengaged from her. But Maude lived on and, at least at first, thrived in a whole new universe replete with such marvels as indoor plumbing, and color television, and jet travel to visit relatives on the other side of the country! She does not seem to miss her days as a kind of cave-dweller. Still, she remained a simple soul, for better or for worse. Maude proudly voted for fellow Ohioan Warren G. Harding in 1920, the first national election after women had won the franchise. When President Bill Clinton sent her congratulations on reaching her 110th year, she did not hesitate to tell anyone who would listen that she had voted against him. The Williams’ hosted a stubborn conservatism that opposed even that which benefited them, as when Lee, barely scraping by, complained against the “hand-outs” of FDR-era WPA programs that partially subsidized his ever-struggling ventures. Mardo, reveling in celebratory nostalgia for a life he clearly fled from on fleet foot as soon as he was able, clearly echoes these sentiments with not-so-subtle underscores.
Maude’s slow, tragic physical decline in the latter stages of old age is painfully chronicled in the final chapters. Much of what is revealed would better have been withheld. Despite the challenges of physical frailty, however, it seems like the best favor anyone ever did for Maude was to whisk her away from that farm and resettle her in a warm suite of rooms with a flush toilet and a refrigerator and lamps that switched on and off. Those who are entranced with romantic notions of a traditional pre-modern America never lived it. Camping in the wilderness is indeed inspiring and comes highly recommended, but – for most of us – hardly recommended for each and every day. Maude spent much of her long life more or less camping, with four walls around her, while the rest of the world moved on. Perhaps it was charming. Probably, it mostly was not, as evidenced by the flight of her children at their first opportunities to flee. Overall, this is hardly a great book, and Mardo – while a competent writer – was not an impressive author. But there are indeed parts of Maude, especially the first half, that are worth the read. If nothing else, it is a reminder that it was not that long ago that there were people who lived very different lives than we can easily imagine today. Nor, I should add, lives that we should, in our starry-eyed musings, miss too much.
My review of: "Maude (1883-1993): She Grew Up with the Country," by Mardo Williams, is live on my book blog https://regarp.com/2016/12/16/review-...
by Stan Prager (12-16-16)
Towards the end of his mother’s very long life, retired journalist and octogenarian Mardo Williams began collecting her reminisces of a long bygone time in antique rural America. The result, three years after the death of Maude Williams at 110 years old, was a biography and memoir of sorts, Maude (1883-1993): She Grew Up with the Country, published in 1996 when Mardo himself was 91, and with encouragement from a writer’s group expanded by nearly 300 pages in the two years that followed. Mardo passed away in 2001, but a revised second edition of Maude was released in 2016, which I received through an early reviewer’s program.
In 1903, a pregnant nineteen-year-old Maude Allen wed Lee Williams and moved into a family homestead already more than a half-century old on farmland in remote rural Ohio. There was no electricity, telephone or indoor plumbing. Their second child, Mardo, was born in 1905; altogether there would be a total of four children born in every-other-year intervals. A mix perhaps of Little House on the Prairie and The Waltons, Maude revisits a much simpler time in America when close-knit families worked and played together through hardship and celebration. As a kind of primary source, the book is almost instantly fascinating as the narrative reveals in colorful detail how the Williams family went about their day to day lives – preparing food, keeping warm, washing clothes, doing farmyard chores, and the like – in a kind of primitive isolation. There is a pronounced charm to it, along with a certain heartwarming glow, especially in its survey of the more innocent America of Mardo’s childhood, replete with amusing anecdotes of Maude’s proverb-laced mothering, and Lee’s homespun practical jokes, as well as tales of long buggy rides to town or the occasional country fair, and winter sleigh rides to visit extended family and friends.
Yet, perhaps more fascinating is what is missing; that which remains unsaid. Primitive isolation: there is no doubt that sums up the farm where Maude and her family resided. But why? In 1903, Maude was living much like her grandparents would have lived. It was indeed remarkably similar to Little House on the Prairie, but yet it was early twentieth century America, on a farm in Ohio no less, hardly a desolate wilderness on the edge of the western frontier or a forgotten pocket of poverty in the deep south. And it hardly changed in the years to come. One day a telephone was installed, and the isolation was reduced, but not by much. Maude had a cistern to collect rainwater for washing, but she did not get an indoor pitcher pump for it until the 1920s [p235]. Around that time, she finally went from a washboard to a “hand-propelled washing machine.” Lee got a car in 1920, and there are later stories of the children hanging out in the in the evenings, listening to the radio. Incredibly, there was no radio in the house until the late 1940s, just as the era of television dawned for the rest of the country [p12-13]. Maude thought it something of a miracle when the house was finally wired for electricity – in 1947 – when she and Lee were in their sixties! For twenty-first century Americans, there is perhaps a quaint rustic charm to the description of their privy, located a full one hundred feet from the back door, “. . . a two-holer equipped with a sack of lime . . . and a fly swatter,” and neatly accented with a Sears Roebuck catalog hanging from the wall – the pages of the catalog doubled as a “wish list” and as toilet paper [p34]. Of course, it is dubious that such charm extended to those who had to relieve themselves outdoors with no lights or plumbing day after day in every manner of weather. In 1960, three years after Lee’s death, and with the property in deep disrepair, Maude moved away. She was seventy-seven years old and had used an outhouse for the entire fifty-seven years that she lived there.
The careful anthropologist as reader cannot help but ask: why did conditions remain so primitive for Maude and Lee for some six decades? It certainly did not start off that way. Lee’s family was apparently somewhat well-off, even sending Lee off to college. When he opted to drop out in favor of farming, Lee brought his new bride to a sprawling ten room house where his grandfather had lived, on land that included a barn, granary, windmill and more. His parents donated odd pieces of furniture to them. Three years later, Lee’s father paid to have the house repaired and renovated. This was a promising start for the young couple, and hardly abject poverty, yet by all accounts Lee and Maude lived a hardscrabble and weirdly anachronistic existence ever after. It appears that life was markedly different for others in their shared geography, who enjoyed at least some of the more modern conveniences conspicuous in their absence on the Williams farm. Long before he had his own car, Lee hiked through the mud to bum a ride to town in his neighbor’s vehicle, a town firmly anchored in the twentieth century, not trapped in the faded nineteenth where Lee and his family seemed helplessly glued. But again: why? The narrative neither reveals the answer nor openly begs the question. Was Lee an incompetent farmer? There are vague hints that he may have been an alcoholic, but this is never fleshed out. Was he unlucky? Was he simply lazy? Or was the primitive state of things a kind of “hair shirt” Lee liked to wear? It is never made clear. Vast changes occurred in American life in the twentieth century, but life on the Williams farm essentially stood still. The subtitle of the book, She Grew Up with the Country, is starkly misleading; the country grew up, but Maude was somehow left behind.
There is a telling photo on the cover of this edition of Maude. Maude was only twenty-six, Lee twenty-seven; each look at least forty. Perhaps it was the times. Or maybe it was that hard life on that farm where every day was more like 1858 than 1908. For all of Mardo’s abundant nostalgia, it seems that in fact it was a life that none of the children really cherished, at least once they were old enough to juxtapose their world with the world outside. The book contains vague references to their teenage years, but then the story fast forwards as all four children have married and moved away – for good. Hard times and primitive isolation seems to have held very little appeal. It is never explained why neither Maude nor Lee attended any of their weddings.
Despite encouragement from the writer’s group, the second half of the book should never have been written. It is less about Maude than about the extended family, including tales of murders, madness and alienation that have little to do with the themes of Americana resident in the first part of the narrative. Until the last years of her life, her children seem to have been markedly disengaged from her. But Maude lived on and, at least at first, thrived in a whole new universe replete with such marvels as indoor plumbing, and color television, and jet travel to visit relatives on the other side of the country! She does not seem to miss her days as a kind of cave-dweller. Still, she remained a simple soul, for better or for worse. Maude proudly voted for fellow Ohioan Warren G. Harding in 1920, the first national election after women had won the franchise. When President Bill Clinton sent her congratulations on reaching her 110th year, she did not hesitate to tell anyone who would listen that she had voted against him. The Williams’ hosted a stubborn conservatism that opposed even that which benefited them, as when Lee, barely scraping by, complained against the “hand-outs” of FDR-era WPA programs that partially subsidized his ever-struggling ventures. Mardo, reveling in celebratory nostalgia for a life he clearly fled from on fleet foot as soon as he was able, clearly echoes these sentiments with not-so-subtle underscores.
Maude’s slow, tragic physical decline in the latter stages of old age is painfully chronicled in the final chapters. Much of what is revealed would better have been withheld. Despite the challenges of physical frailty, however, it seems like the best favor anyone ever did for Maude was to whisk her away from that farm and resettle her in a warm suite of rooms with a flush toilet and a refrigerator and lamps that switched on and off. Those who are entranced with romantic notions of a traditional pre-modern America never lived it. Camping in the wilderness is indeed inspiring and comes highly recommended, but – for most of us – hardly recommended for each and every day. Maude spent much of her long life more or less camping, with four walls around her, while the rest of the world moved on. Perhaps it was charming. Probably, it mostly was not, as evidenced by the flight of her children at their first opportunities to flee. Overall, this is hardly a great book, and Mardo – while a competent writer – was not an impressive author. But there are indeed parts of Maude, especially the first half, that are worth the read. If nothing else, it is a reminder that it was not that long ago that there were people who lived very different lives than we can easily imagine today. Nor, I should add, lives that we should, in our starry-eyed musings, miss too much.
My review of: "Maude (1883-1993): She Grew Up with the Country," by Mardo Williams, is live on my book blog https://regarp.com/2016/12/16/review-...
June 8, 2022
I stumbled upon this book about 10 years ago in a local Goodwill. It caught my eye because it was an Ohio author, so I brought it home. As I read I connected more and more with Maude and the life I imagine my Gr. Grandmother lived. (She was born in 1900 in a neighboring county) I quickly found myself lost in a beautiful story that at times brought me to tears and in the next moment had me laughing with new tears. What an adventure. I love this book, and pull it off my shelf every few years just to read it again.
January 3, 2026
Since I often believe that I should have been born in the 19th century, I often pick up books such as this one. What a fascinating life Maude had, and yet in many ways just ordinary for her times and Midwest location. I also live in Ohio and have been fortunate to "meet" some of my grandmother's relatives in records and photos. I can certainly understand why Williams's history of his family won an Ohioana Award.
June 24, 2016
Reviewed by Kristine Hall for Reader Views (06/16)
Article first published as Book Review: ‘Maude (1883-1993)’ by Mardo Williams on Blogcritics.
In "Maude (1883-1993)," author Mardo Williams, son of the subject of the book, provides a richly detailed account into not just one woman's life, but into an entire family's journey through the years. From farm life before electricity and running water all the way into modern times, Williams shares stories branching out from the family matriarch, Maude Allen Williams. Readers will be amazed by what the "simple life" of the early 1900s entailed, as pregnant, nineteen-year-old Maude gets married and becomes a farmer's wife. Maude's philosophy throughout her life was "If you can't change it, don't worry about it," and it served her and her family well.
For much of the story, Maude is not so much the main character, but the ever-present constant around whom everything else happened. Equally important to the equation was Maude's husband, Lee, and the life that they built around a marriage based on love, respect, and consideration -- quite the anomaly for the times. Stories about Lee added levity and fun that elicited a few snorts and a giggle from this reader, but they also underscored the real difficulties of "simpler times." As the couple added four children to their family, one after another, the stories of patience, kindness, and humor and taking life as it comes were endearing.
That those children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and even great-great-grandchildren continued to actively show love and support for Maude even as she passed her hundredth year is a real testimony to the base that was established by Lee and Maude in the early 1900s. This extended group of people always put family first, and in doing so not only survived but thrived through some of the country's hardest times. They were always rich with what they had, and it was interesting that as farmers, they were largely unaffected by the nation's shortages or surpluses.
Mardo Williams's detailed accounts of his immediate and extended family's lives, as well as the inclusion of facts and statistics of the times were amazing. Coupled with the numerous photographs -- also amazing to have so many -- it made an impact, connecting readers to this very-real family. Readers will learn a lot, and if they are like me, will wish for a similar record of their own family histories, and are likely to even find some parallels.
The writing is well done and easy to read with just a handful of errors. This is a second edition with added information, but it was often repetitive and tedious when going into too many distant branches of the family tree and straying too far from Maude's life. Readers may be disappointed that the book really isn't about Maude. Though she is the cornerstone, readers really don't ever get to truly know her.
Despite the title of the book setting up certain expectations (like a real reaction from Maude when she got electricity, a television, or saw a man go to the moon), Mardo Williams's book "Maude (1883 - 1993)" is reading time well spent. Young and old, and everyone in between will benefit from a reminder of how life used to be in the not-so-long-ago past, and Maude's example of patience and perseverance over her one hundred and ten years is one for the ages.
Article first published as Book Review: ‘Maude (1883-1993)’ by Mardo Williams on Blogcritics.
In "Maude (1883-1993)," author Mardo Williams, son of the subject of the book, provides a richly detailed account into not just one woman's life, but into an entire family's journey through the years. From farm life before electricity and running water all the way into modern times, Williams shares stories branching out from the family matriarch, Maude Allen Williams. Readers will be amazed by what the "simple life" of the early 1900s entailed, as pregnant, nineteen-year-old Maude gets married and becomes a farmer's wife. Maude's philosophy throughout her life was "If you can't change it, don't worry about it," and it served her and her family well.
For much of the story, Maude is not so much the main character, but the ever-present constant around whom everything else happened. Equally important to the equation was Maude's husband, Lee, and the life that they built around a marriage based on love, respect, and consideration -- quite the anomaly for the times. Stories about Lee added levity and fun that elicited a few snorts and a giggle from this reader, but they also underscored the real difficulties of "simpler times." As the couple added four children to their family, one after another, the stories of patience, kindness, and humor and taking life as it comes were endearing.
That those children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and even great-great-grandchildren continued to actively show love and support for Maude even as she passed her hundredth year is a real testimony to the base that was established by Lee and Maude in the early 1900s. This extended group of people always put family first, and in doing so not only survived but thrived through some of the country's hardest times. They were always rich with what they had, and it was interesting that as farmers, they were largely unaffected by the nation's shortages or surpluses.
Mardo Williams's detailed accounts of his immediate and extended family's lives, as well as the inclusion of facts and statistics of the times were amazing. Coupled with the numerous photographs -- also amazing to have so many -- it made an impact, connecting readers to this very-real family. Readers will learn a lot, and if they are like me, will wish for a similar record of their own family histories, and are likely to even find some parallels.
The writing is well done and easy to read with just a handful of errors. This is a second edition with added information, but it was often repetitive and tedious when going into too many distant branches of the family tree and straying too far from Maude's life. Readers may be disappointed that the book really isn't about Maude. Though she is the cornerstone, readers really don't ever get to truly know her.
Despite the title of the book setting up certain expectations (like a real reaction from Maude when she got electricity, a television, or saw a man go to the moon), Mardo Williams's book "Maude (1883 - 1993)" is reading time well spent. Young and old, and everyone in between will benefit from a reminder of how life used to be in the not-so-long-ago past, and Maude's example of patience and perseverance over her one hundred and ten years is one for the ages.
Currently reading
May 4, 2010In researching my new book, a partially fictionalized historical biography, I asked the reference desk at the local library for authors of memoirs or biographies about day-to-day life--especially from a woman's perspective--from the late 19th to the early 20th century, specifically in eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania. The library ordered the books for me,and Maud was in the first four to arrive.
I've read parts of the first four, but this one is the most fun to read. Mr. Williams has included many personal stories and lots of detail that make me very happy that I didn't grow up on a farm in Ohio 100+ years ago!
In the short prologue, the author provides information about Maud's birth and early life. Most interesting, perhaps, is the enumeration of all the changes that took place during her 110-year lifetime. Somewhat less enjoyable: acknowledging that many of the changes took place during my own lifetime!
Maud's story really begins with her marriage, including the wedding itself and the "dreaded belling" that followed it. Many of her memories, as told to her son, make it clear that she was a spirited woman not lacking in a sense of humor. It's personal, and that's what makes it a fun read for those interested in learning about life in the past, and being entertained in the process.
It doesn't, however, answer all my questions. The main characters in my book lived in what we would now call a 'bedroom' community of a large city and probably had very different daily lives (and 'modern' amenities) than this farm family did. But one member of my family did have a farm, and I'll by my own copy of Maud so I can add notes and use it for reference: the farm in my family plays a rather small but very important 'role' in my book, so I want to get the details right.
I wouldn't hesitate to recommend reading about Maud's life to anyone, female or male, who enjoys memoirs, real-life stories, and history.
I've read parts of the first four, but this one is the most fun to read. Mr. Williams has included many personal stories and lots of detail that make me very happy that I didn't grow up on a farm in Ohio 100+ years ago!
In the short prologue, the author provides information about Maud's birth and early life. Most interesting, perhaps, is the enumeration of all the changes that took place during her 110-year lifetime. Somewhat less enjoyable: acknowledging that many of the changes took place during my own lifetime!
Maud's story really begins with her marriage, including the wedding itself and the "dreaded belling" that followed it. Many of her memories, as told to her son, make it clear that she was a spirited woman not lacking in a sense of humor. It's personal, and that's what makes it a fun read for those interested in learning about life in the past, and being entertained in the process.
It doesn't, however, answer all my questions. The main characters in my book lived in what we would now call a 'bedroom' community of a large city and probably had very different daily lives (and 'modern' amenities) than this farm family did. But one member of my family did have a farm, and I'll by my own copy of Maud so I can add notes and use it for reference: the farm in my family plays a rather small but very important 'role' in my book, so I want to get the details right.
I wouldn't hesitate to recommend reading about Maud's life to anyone, female or male, who enjoys memoirs, real-life stories, and history.
August 1, 2016
I am slowly but surely getting through this book. The author was an exceptional man to have written this book at his advanced age. He reminds me of my own father, who is now 84, and in fact, I will be passing the book on to him to read when I have finished as I think he will identify with it and be reminded of his own years growing up. It is a very interesting factual book about the way life used to be in this country and the changes over the years. I have learned a lot about my ancestors' and the way they lived. While I find it fascinating, it is not a page turner that is hard to put down, and I am reading it at the same time as a couple of fictional novels that are a little more riveting, so it is taking me a while but I will finish it and provide an updated review at that time. I feel honored to have won this book as a giveaway on GoodReads!
Finally finished this entire book. Although it was full of interesting descriptions of the ways of life over the past 100+ years, as a story I found it to be a tedious read. If you are a member of the author's immediate family or quite extended family tree, you would, no doubt, find the book to be more relevant. It was hard to keep all of the in-laws, in-laws' siblings, names of neighbors and former neighbors straight, and I had to keep referring to earlier sections of the book to attempt to keep them straight, even though the author did try to explain their connections to Maude and Lee.
Even though I am not able to say I loved the book that is not to say that I do not recognize its value in learning more about how the past way of life of our ancestors and appreciating just how many changes civilization has made in a relatively short span of time. Those who are curious about what life was like before computers, cell phones, even household electricity and indoor bathrooms, will definitely find that information within the pages of this book.
Finally finished this entire book. Although it was full of interesting descriptions of the ways of life over the past 100+ years, as a story I found it to be a tedious read. If you are a member of the author's immediate family or quite extended family tree, you would, no doubt, find the book to be more relevant. It was hard to keep all of the in-laws, in-laws' siblings, names of neighbors and former neighbors straight, and I had to keep referring to earlier sections of the book to attempt to keep them straight, even though the author did try to explain their connections to Maude and Lee.
Even though I am not able to say I loved the book that is not to say that I do not recognize its value in learning more about how the past way of life of our ancestors and appreciating just how many changes civilization has made in a relatively short span of time. Those who are curious about what life was like before computers, cell phones, even household electricity and indoor bathrooms, will definitely find that information within the pages of this book.
January 7, 2012
boring. More about the husband Lee, and the rest of the family than Maude. Writing more reportorial than novel or good memoir. Research was obviously done to give prices of items and income of the early 20th century. Perhaps I did not find the descriptions of life in the early 1900's very fascinating because my grandparents were living that sort of life when I spent time on their rather isolated farm during the summers in the early 1940's. Sort of a "so what?" was my response to the book.
June 2, 2016
I received this book from Good Reads.
I was born and grew up in Western Pennsylvania, so the location of the farm in Ohio were relevant to me. I found it a fascinating read, although the author, being a former newspaper man, didn't develop and color the characters (his relatives) as vividly as I would have liked.
Many changes over the 110 years of this woman's life. I think the next 100 for us now will be even more changing and futuristic.
I was born and grew up in Western Pennsylvania, so the location of the farm in Ohio were relevant to me. I found it a fascinating read, although the author, being a former newspaper man, didn't develop and color the characters (his relatives) as vividly as I would have liked.
Many changes over the 110 years of this woman's life. I think the next 100 for us now will be even more changing and futuristic.
Read
August 26, 2015Maude was a courageous woman who endured more than most in her 110 years. The book reminded me of lessons in life I tried to teach my own children and I did not face near the challenges she did.
I really enjoyed this read. Her son told the story well.
I really enjoyed this read. Her son told the story well.
Want to read
June 1, 2016Just received this book from the Giveaway section and I can't wait to start reading this, as I enjoy reading non-fiction books about someone who has lived long ago. and experienced life over the course of a decade.
September 18, 2016
I really loved the historical significance of this book! Reading not just how Maude lived during her 110 year lifespan but also her children, extended family and friends. This is a great book chronicling over a decade of amazing experiences and happenings.
January 7, 2011
Imagine the things she must have seen, living from 1883 to 1993. Just missed the age of the Internet, though. Dang!
June 27, 2016
I reviewed this book for Reader Views. You can read my full review on Reader Views page at http://bit.ly/28Zk8Mj or coming soon on Hall Ways Blog http://kristinehallways.blogspot.com
April 15, 2016
This new edition is a fascinating read and puts a human face on history,
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