Happy Mother’s Day!

This coming Sunday many people all over the nation will celebrate their mothers.  While each family has a unique way of honoring mom, there is no denying that Mother’s Day is a day when “Mother knows best!”

I wondered if 19th century Iowa farm mothers were honored on Mother’s Day the way that our mothers are today.  My first thought was to consult Sarah Gillespie Huftalen’s Diary.  Sarah and her mother shared a very close relationship as is evident in both Sarah’s and Emily’s (Hawley-Gillespie) diaries.  Throughout the diary you can read of the different experiences that mother and daughter shared.  They do everything from berrying (August 3, 1884) to painting the buggy (April 30, 1886). Both of them seemed to have a very strained relationship with James Gillespie (Emily’s husband and Sarah’s father), which led to a closeness in part perhaps due to the isolation of the farm.  Throughout the journal there is no special mention of mother’s day, just different things that Sarah did to help her mother.  This includes admonishments about the way James treats her mother.  At one point in May 1882 (Sarah is 16) she writes in her diary, “Ma’s head has ached all day, and she grows old too fast if she can only live through it and see a score or two of bright sunny years of life I may thank the good Lord with all my heart.(p.59)”  At several points, Emily even writes in Sarah’s diary for her when she is ill.  The diaries of these two Iowa women attest to the strength of them and Iowa farm women.  Sarah’s diary spans from 1873-1952 and Emily’s from 1858-1888.

The editor notes in the introduction a bit about Sarah’s love for her mother.  In the pages of Sarah’s diary, tucked away was a newspaper clipping of a poem.  Entitled “Mother’s Love” and written in the nineteenth century style, it is attributed only to D.W.  As the editor shared it with her readers,  I would like to share it with you.  It can be found on pages 13-14 of “All Will Yet Be Well.”

“Mother’s Love” by D.W.

No love like the love of a mother,

When trials are gathering fast -

Though fond is the care of a brother,

Sometimes it will fail at the last.

Should you turn from the pathway of duty,

A sister’s affections may fade;

But mother-love shows its best beauty,

When her child to sin is betrayed.

A father may speak stern and coldly,

If his son has wandered astray;

But mother will stand forward boldly

And help him regain the lost way.

And speak to him kindly, in warning,

With just as tender a tone

As she did in childhood’s pure morning,

Ere sorrow and crime he had known.

Ah, no! There’s no love like a mother’s,

So noble forgiving and true;

We may trust it to many another’s

And value it, that it is new,

To find, when life’s sun is shrouded,

And our pathway enters the gloom,

Their love for us, too, will be clouded,

While hers follows us to the tomb.

You can tell by the fact that Sarah took the time to cut this poem out, and by the grief in her own words at the death of her mother, that Sarah loved her mother very much, and she didn’t need a special day to demonstrate that love.

We will celebrate Mother’s Day on Saturday, May 12 with a Victorian Garden Party at the Flynn house at 11:00 am.  For a complete list of Mother’s Day activities click here.

In the mean time, be thankful that you and your mom don’t have to paint the buggy, and try not to give her too many headaches.  Happy Mother’s Day to all!

Peas (in different ways)

Planting the garden always holds great promise for the upcoming season.

We’ve been enjoying some nice days at the 1900 farm.  We are wrapping up the school enrichment programs and preparing for the 1000+ school children that will visit us during the month of May.  In the middle of all of that we have also managed to get some of our garden planted.  Seven rows of potatoes are already in the ground.  In addition we have two rows of lettuce, one of radish, and two rows of onions.  I was kind of excited because we also managed to get the first of two rows of peas in the the ground, and peas are my favorite.  In my opinion the best way to eat peas is straight off the vine (standing in the garden if need be).  There are, however, many fine ways to prepare peas.  I wanted to share a couple of the farm recipes with you.

 Fannie Farmer’s recipe reads like this:

Creamed Peas

Drain Boiled Peas, and to two cups pea add three-fourths cup White Sauce II. Canned peas are often drained, rinsed, and reheated in this way.

- The Boston Cooking School Cookbook, 1896

We’ve adapted this one for more modern kitchens:

Creamed Peas

7 cups frozen peas

¼ c butter

1 ½ T flour

1 ½ c half and half

½ T sugar

Boil and drain peas.  Melt butter, add flour, stir over heat until it bubbles, add cream and sugar.  Simmer until thick.

Adapted from The Boston Cooking-School Cookbook,1896.

If creamed vegetables aren’t your thing here is another recipe to try:

Green Peas a la Francaise

2 lbs. Peas

½ medium Onion, sliced

½ cup Butter                  1 Tbls.. Flour

1 Tbls. Parsley               1 Tbls. Sugar

Cook peas in 2 inches of water.  Drain and keep warm.  In separate pan, melt butter and sauté onion.  Add flour, sugar and parsley. Add warm peas, mix and serve.

–Adapted from Beeton’s Book of Household Management, 1861.

I am a little bit sad; peas could have been planted so much earlier and we could be eating them already.  Those of you who are enjoying early peas, try a couple of new recipes.  If you are like me and just now getting them sown in the garden enjoy the warmth of the sun and look forward to the harvest.

We look forward to welcoming everyone back to the farm.  Living History Farms opens for the touring season on May 1st.  Visit lhf.org if you are interested in coming to see the 1900 farm!

Painting the 1900 House

This past Spring we have been hard at work refreshing some of the interior paint at the 1900 house.  It is difficult to find time to do small projects like this as the 1900 house is in use year round.  Still, we’ve managed (with the help of some good volunteers) to paint the trim in both the dining room and the parlor and have plans to complete the rest of the trim and the ceilings on the main level.  Freshening up paint could have been done in 1900 as well, with ready made oil paint purchased from the Sears and Roebuck Catalog.

 

The ceiling of the dining room is now bright and shiny!

 

I did a little research about house paint at the turn of the century and came across a helpful book entitled House Paints, 1900-1960 by Dr. Harriet A.L. Standeven and published by the Getty Foundation.  In the first chapter of her book Dr. Standeven describes the transition of paints and how they became more accessible for the home.  In 2012 many of us will take on home paint projects ourselves with paint that is highly accessible in hundreds of different colors at your local hardware store.  Dr. Standheven suggests that two things made paint inexpensive to purchase and easy in application; the introduction of ready-made paints in the 19th century and synthetic resins in the 20th century.  The information about early paints in the following two paragraphs can also be found in her book.

The earliest incantations of paint were mixes of different naturally occurring ingredients such as tallow, which could be mixed with paint to make it more waterproof.  These paints would be mixed shortly before application by professional painters.  Then the Industrial Revolution came, new trains, buildings, and bridges demanded protection and decoration that paint could provide.  This led to specialists in the fields of paint and varnish and mass production of paints from highly guarded recipes.

First Fruit of the Season: Baking with Rhubarb

As I plant the kitchen garden it is hard to miss bounty that the garden is already providing.  The rhubarb plants have blossomed and I had a request for some ideas of things to do with rhubarb.  If you have a problem with an over abundance of rhubarb (which isn’t a problem in my opinion) I have pulled a couple of recipes for you.  Don’t forget to cut the leaves off and use only the stalk of the rhubarb.

Rhubarb Pie 

Wash rhubarb, cut in half-inch pieces, put in deep pie plate having narrow strip of (puff) paste around the edge, sprinkle with sugar mixed with flour, allowing 1/2 cupful of sugar and 2 tablespoons flour to every cupful of rhubarb.  Cover with (puff) paste, and bake like apple pie.  All juicy fruit pies should be made in the same way.

-Mrs. Curtis’s Cookbook, 1903, pg. 213

(note: puff paste and pie crust are used somewhat interchangeably as the base pastry for a pie.  Use whatever works best for you!)

Seasons Change

The first day of Spring has officially come and gone. It passed with little fanfare this year because it has felt like spring for quite some time now. The strange weather has been newsworthy in 2012 thus far as we have blown by record temperatures. I don’t know about you, but this has thrown our seasons off here at the 1900 farm.

Not in a bad way, I assure you, but in a way that has us all waiting for that time when Mother Nature will look back and say, “Hey I fooled you!” as she delivers an early April snow or a spring frost that would take the buds off the orchard trees.  Today I looked up and saw that the trees were blossoming already.  An early Spring frost would mean no new pears, cherries, or apples this year, and perhaps fewer pies on the farm. In Iowa, we are used to the changing seasons, we rely on them, as unpredictable as they may be.  There wasn’t a post last week because we have been busy taking advantage of some nice days on the farm. The gardens are prepared and potatoes will go in this week, as will peas and lettuce.  This puts us behind last year by about a week, but it seems like more as some Iowa gardeners already have potato plants and lettuce ready to cut because of the early spring.

I was able to start cabbage plants in the greenhouse like I said and I have lots of mini cabbages sprouting.  This is a bit exciting when you think of what these small sprouts will become.

I wonder how early the apples and cherries will be this year with the trees already in full bloom.

The gardens hold the promise that Spring brings, I am anxious to get into them.

We have asparagus up already!  I’ve seen it all around.  You can pick it up at a local store as well and if you need a recipe try out this one: forced asparagus, that I talked about last year.

Can you see the young asparagus stalks?

The hollyhocks that I started new last year are coming up nicely, the same can be said for the herbs, and our bleeding heart is in full bloom!

Let’s hope our last frost is over (which almanacs say can happen as late as the end of April here in Iowa). Enjoy the signs of Spring on the farm, and if you want to help us celebrate here at Living History Farms, come and join us in town for the Family Easter Party this Saturday morning 9am – 12pm.  Town buildings will be open, the baby chicks have arrived and will be ready to meet everyone, and the horses are ready to stretch their legs pulling wagons.