Sarah had many meals to cook for her
family of growing children, especially her many sons. It was common for farmers to eat a meal
before milking, a meal at midmorning, one at noon, called “dinner”, one at
mid-afternoon and finally “supper” in the evening. One of Sarah’s regular chores was to make
bread. Surely, the smell of fresh baked
bread beckoned the boys to the family meal. Besides venison, wild turkeys and prairie
hens, Sarah regularly fed the family pork since that is what they raised: swine
were easier to raise and butcher than larger animals and easy to preserve
through smoking or salting. Corn and
potatoes were also staples of the family’s diet most likely smothered in their
fresh homemade butter. In 1850 the
family’s five “milch cows” produced 300 lbs of butter, the sale of which gave
her cash or barter for family necessities.
As the family became established, Sarah probably had a vegetable garden.
The family planted fruit trees and; by 1880,
the land, now worked by son Henry, had five fruit bearing apple trees.
Henry recalled the excitement in the
neighborhood when his father purchased a modern cook stove for his mother to
replace the primitive fireplace she had been using to make the family
meals. This stove was the first of its
kind to arrive in the area. Word spread
fast; “the day after its purchase neighbors from far and near came to see the
wonderful invention.” [1]
Sarah used this stove continuously until giving it away to Henry at the time of
his marriage.
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