Life on our 10 Acre Farm

By Lorraine RODEEN Rawlings

The moderately meandering Palouse River that divided our ten acres could become a raging torrent during spring rains and snow melts.  Our house was high above the river and we could stand in the window and see all of the debris that washed down the river.  A sturdy bridge spanned the river.  All of the buildings were located across the river from the railroad tracks and county road.  The house sat on a narrow piece of land with an attached building where the milk was separated.  There was not very much space for the front yard but it was wider in the back of the house. The outside path that lead to the back yard was very narrow and along a high bank.  Below this bank there was a road for horses and wagon and then the land continued on to the riverbank.

  There was a big barn, chicken house, back house, pen for pigs and a wash room that my dad (Elmer T. Rodeen) built near the water that came from high up in the hills and flowed continually.  All water used in the house had to be carried from the spring.  There was a stove in the wash house to heat the water for washing clothes.  I do not remember my mom (Margaret Nida Lingg Rodeen) ever washing clothes on a wash board.  My memories are of the gasoline powered washer. 

There was a combination kitchen and dining area, a living room, big bedroom where dad and mom slept and a much smaller room.  I am not sure where we children slept but we did not sleep in the upstairs.  In those days the baby slept with the parents for some time.  There was no indoor plumbing or electricity.

There was a swing on the front porch and I can remember the Jack Lingg cousins swinging in it.  They always came to see us when their parents visited grandma  (Mary Susan Doty Lingg). 

Our 10 acres were between the Walter and Della Glaspey’s dairy farm and grandma’s in the Armstrong District, near Pullman, Washington.  If necessary we would drive through the Glaspey land to get to the county road and through grandma’s and the Wilson farm but most of the time we crossed the bridge and went over the railroad tracks to the county road.   

Armstrong consisted of a depot and a big warehouse on the other side of the tracks.  Dad worked in the warehouse during harvest when the farmers brought their crops to be stored for selling later.  They must have unloaded the sacks by hand and stacked them in piles.  Dad must have kept the records.  I do not know who owned the warehouse.  There was a vehicle called “The Bug” that you could catch at the depot and ride to town.  It ran on the railroad tracks.

My mom always helped with the outside chores for Dad worked in town-probably carpentry work.  She was a good wife and mother.  She cooked good nourishing meals, canned fruits and vegetables and kept our clothing washed and ironed.  When she had her long hair cut it caused quite a stir in the extended family.  Then the other women had their hair “bobbed” too.  I remember her Yellow and pink cotton stockings.  Being from a large family in which the girls were needed to help with the work, my mom only got to go to the 3rd grade before she was needed at home. 

I wish I knew where or how my mom and dad met for they lived quite a distance from each other.  I know mom picked apples in a neighbor’s apple orchard during the harvesting season.  Dad rode a horse when he pursued a higher education.  For years there were postcards dad sent mom around for us to read but I do not know what became of them.  And I wonder where they lived after they were first married and when dad built the house where I was born. 

Before I went to school my mom would kill a chicken and scald it and sit me on the porch to pluck off the feathers.  In those days chicken was saved for the Sunday dinner and we ate the big steaks during the week.  I learned to milk the cows before I went to school and continued helping with the milking as long as I lived at home.

When I went to Enterprise School, first through third grade, I wore high top boots and an apron over my dress.  In the winter I had to wear long johns, which I detested, for they always made a big bulge at the bottom where they had to be folded to fit under my stockings.  Mom always made me a good lunch that I carried to school in lard pail.

Sometimes I walked with Fanny Jones’ daughter, Mildred.  She sort took me under her wing.  Her brother France attended the school too.  I do not remember him except that he was the minister for my Tom Thumb wedding to Maurice Glaspey.  Mildred was my bride’s maid or matron of honor. 

Ted Matthews was a good teacher and he always let us start practicing for the Christmas program right after Thanksgiving.  He gave us extended time during the noon hour for sledding and ice-skating.  There was no indoor plumbing and water had to be carried.  I don’t know who chopped the wood for the wood stove.

 Maurice Glaspey and I were the only ones in our grade after the Reif girls left soon after school started.  After Maurice and I finished our lessons we were dismissed to go out and play.  I was afraid of the two big boys who were in school but one died and I don’t think the other was in school very long.

I have always loved the outdoors and spent lots of time roaming the big hill behind our farm.  There were buttercups, blue bells, yellow bells, lamb’s tongue, birdie bills and other flowers whose names I no longer remember.  The wild syringa bushes had such a delightful odor.  I think they must be related to the mock orange bushes that we cultivate.   I brought plants from the hills to plant beside the house but do not remember how or if they grew. 

The birds I remember were the killdeers that laid their eggs on the ground.  The pesky woodpeckers that made holes in the trees looking for insects, the morning doves and meadowlarks.  On sunny afternoons the big mud turtles would sun themselves on the riverbank.

 With only kerosene lamps for light we went to bed early and rose early for there were cows to be milked and other animals that needed to be fed.  There were ground squirrels to be trapped and occasionally there was a skunk around.  The odor lingered for a long time.

I don’t remember where there was a woodshed or where dad got the wood.  We must have had a garden spot.  There was a long row of winter banana apple trees which none of us liked.  The green gage plums were good eating and mom canned them too.

When hobos came to the door my mom would not let them eat in the house.  She would build a fire in the kitchen stove and make a meal for them to eat outdoors.

One time during the winter I thought I would be smart and ride the sled down the narrow path that led to the barn without guiding it. I lay on my back on the sled and thought it would stay on the path.   The sled left the path and went under the wire fence and tore a big cut in my little right hand finger.  The scar is barely visible now.

I never cared much for dolls.  I wanted to have something live in my doll’s bed.  I threw rocks at mom’s pullet (chicken) and killed it and put it in the doll’s bed.  You can imagine what happened to me when I finally went to the house.  I had stayed away as long as possible.  I was a tomboy and liked being out with my dad.  What he did was more interesting than what mom did in the house.  My brother, Ray, liked being in the house.

We had one of those hand cranked phones that you called “central” on and gave her the number you wanted.  You could learn a lot about the neighbor by listening in on the party line. 

Dances were held in the homes in the area.  I have a very faint memory of the folks going to a neighbor’s house for a party and sleeping with the coats until time to go home.

We moved to the 160-acre (“big”) farm in 1926. All I remember about the move is that the moving was done by wagon and horses.    Continued

  1997

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