Indiana One - Text
Recorded by Christia Ward, 5.20.04, and edited by Paul Meier, 6.03.04. Running time: 00:03.32.
TRANSCRIPTION
(Uh) I have a family of seven sisters and one brother. We lived on a farm, was very similar to the Amish people. We milked (uh) 14 head of (uh) cows every morning, (uh) we got up at five o’clock. We had to (uh) milk, and (uh) we had one old cow that wore kickers, because she kicked so bad. An’ we had (uh) to clean the strainer, and the separator and everything before we could get on a schoolbus, then go to school. Now schoolbus usually came around seven o’clock.
Well, I’d go to school all day. Then I’d come home. First thing I had to do was go in the house, change my clothes, then go out to the barn and start (uh) bringing the cows in for the milking time. And we fed the chickens and slopped the hogs, and then we might be out in the barn till ‘bout six o’clock, ‘cause we always had to scrape the bottom and put lime on the floor.
And we never wore shoes ‘cause we didn’t have ‘em. We were a poor family; we didn’t have shoes to wear. And a lot times they’d wear out, and we-- my mother would put cardboard in the bottom, the soles of our shoes. But we were always clean. Mother made our—our unders out of (uh) feedsacks, that she buy the feed in for the chickens. They were prints, and (uh) she would sew us—We had buttons on… our panties, and (uh) we was raised verly, verly [sic] poorly.
We canned. We put up a big garden every year and we canned, and (uh) butchered. And (uh) my job when we butchered was to stir the lard. And (um) one year we were butcherin’ and a cow had a calf, way back in the back field. And (uh) we had to go back in the field and get that calf, and the snow was real deep. And we went back and (uh) got that calf before it freeze to death, and (uh) it was a hard job.
But you know, I wouldn’t want to be raised any other way, because (uh) all of the girls has turned out to be real good girls. I have two sisters dead, and one brother. My mother and dad passed away ’74 and ’76, and (uh) as far as coming out of a big family, I wouldn’t want it any other way, and (uh) us girls has turned out to be terrific girls.