A Homestead Woman's View

Inez Clendenen "Preserving Eggs"

Thelma Gordon "Carrying Water"

Tepa Rogers "Wash Day"

Audio Stories

Gathered together in 2003 to reminisce, homestead women and their daughters swapped stories at a mother-daughter tea. Their stories of practicality and endurance are embedded in the most ordinary of things - a crock of eggs, a wooden box, a washboard.

With no electricity for refrigeration, they preserved eggs in water glass gel. Mention Blazo boxes, and the women who still remember their usefulness light up. The prized, recycled wooden kerosene crates doubled as cabinets, chairs, tool boxes, tables, bassinets, and horse packs. Carrying buckets of spring water, women spent whole days devoted to their wash.

I had to get married to get running water.
-Tepa Rogers

So much depends upon the woman who pushes the wheelbarrow. With husbands often away at work, or off hunting and fishing, homestead women forged through rugged work and loneliness to carve out a life for their families.