Socializing, Traditions and Chores for Rural Farm Families in the 1940s

The 1940s brought a lot of change to rural Midwest farm families. Electrification, indoor plumbing, transportation and media technologies altered work and culture.

Neil Harl: "Almost everyone would go to town on Saturday night. They had nothing else to do; this was before television.  They would go to town, some to the movies. There was a movie theater in most communities. They'd walk around the square and talk. It was a very interesting time. I thought that was the normal way of doing things. Of course, as I grew older, even when I was in high school that had begun to change. Today there's not much left of that."

Leila Carlo: "On Saturday we would do our baking and plan what we were going to have for Sunday dinner.  Sunday afternoons we visited a lot with my mother's brothers' and sisters' families or my dad's side. We'd go there for the afternoon or they would come to our place."

While Sundays were for churchgoing and socializing, the rest of the week was all about work.  Days started early and were filled with chores. Mothers and fathers must have felt overwhelmed at times with all they needed to accomplish in a day.

Inez Hult: "I think that the women had much to do because, after all, they were the ones raising the chickens and the eggs and the gardens and all and canned all of that fruit and vegetables and so forth. So they were busy all the time. They used to call it the good 'ole days,  but there was no electricity at all so everything had to be done by hand."

Laverne Hult: "Most of our winter months, I know dad and I went lots of times. We had a timber about 4 miles west of here, and we'd start out with the team of horses in the morning and walk all the way out there and then cut timber and come back maybe that evening. One morning we went out there, we didn't realize till we got home  it was zero that morning we walked all the way out there."