Vera as a Baby with Jessie Carrell, age 22

I guess these things will seem like the dark ages to the younger generation now. But when we were small, there was no running water, no bathroom, and no electricity. Mama washed on a rub board and ironed with a sad iron, which I still have. I guess they were rightly called sad irons. They had to be heated on the cook stove, used until cool, and then you had to get another one.

Mama churned butter in a churn with a wooden crosspiece on a piece of wood. The milk left after the butter was churned was pretty good. I never liked sweet milk to drink anyway. Mama was always doing something. She always had a garden, canned our vegetables, and even made the best cheese you ever ate. She used a press, and it came out looking like bought cheese, but better.


Antique irons
Butter Molds

Wilma, Thelma and I Living at Joshua