When Women's History and Quilting Coincide

Something fun happens in March:  it's both National Women's History Month and National Quilting Month.  I haven't done anything for either this year but decided to combine them with this post. 

The information in this post is primarily for descendants of farmers and farmers' wives (with less emphasis on the quilters they may have been) and involves how some farm wives felt about living on farms in the 1920s.  I was introduced to a magazine called The Farmer's Wife a few years ago when I came upon two books, The Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt:  Letters from 1920s Farm Wives... and The Farmer's Wife 1930s Sampler Quilt:  Inspiring Letters from farm women of the Great Depression..., both by Laurie Aaron Hurd.



For family historians, the letters that accompany the quilt blocks are the highlight of these books.  They were written by farmers' wives of the 1920s and 1930s in response to a question posed by the magazine editors.  You will get a glimpse of what farm life was like during those years.  You probably won't find an ancestor's letter, though you may, and your ancestor may not have felt exactly as the writers of the published letters felt, but you'll get a sense of what it may have been like to be a woman living on a farm.  (Yes, it's possible that the letter writers idealized their situations or focused on the positive aspects of farm life while avoiding the negative.)

In the January, 1922, issue the magazine posed a question and offered prizes for the 68 best responses.  The question was this.

Do You Want Your Daughter To Marry A Farmer?
If you had a daughter of marriageable age, would you, in the light of
your experience on the farm, want her to marry a farmer and make
her future life on a farm?  If so, why?  If not, why not?

The editors of The Farm Wife encouraged the women of 1922 to carefully consider their responses, review various aspects of farm life vs. living elsewhere, and to discuss their responses with other family members.  The responses were due by noon on March 1 and the prizewinners were to be published in the June issue. 

Just in case anyone missed the announcement in the January issue, the question and competition were announced again in the February issue. 

The June issue published responses on pages 8 and 9.  The editors said they'd received over 7,000 responses, 94% in the affirmative.  Some letters were fairly long.  I was unable to find whether all the winners' letters were published or not.  I did not able to discover them in subsequent issues.  I admire Laurie Aaron Hurd's ability to find them!  

Here are two responses (possibly excerpts from longer letters) that Hurd included in her first book (on pages 64 and 99).  There are 111 blocks in the 1920s book and each has an excerpt from a letter in the book.  Lots to read.

Mrs. R. C. W. of Jasper County, Mo., wrote,

The average farmer’s wife who plans her work can find a number of hours for reading, writing and social pleasures and in this day of autos and good roads, has time and opportunity for movies, concerts and lectures.  The woman who is a drudge on a farm will be a drudge wherever you put her.  It is lack of management, lack of order and lack of backbone and brains that make drudgery.

Mrs. M. M. C. of Allegheny County, Pa., wrote,

The work of the farmer’s wife is often burdensome.  This can be helped by the spirit in which it is done and by the putting some of the element of play into it.  If some task is to be done, attempt it, believing it to be a recreation and notice the difference in your outlook.  Since we are only children grown up, and a child is taught to love work by doing it as play, cannot grownups try this a little?  Too often we forget that work is a blessing God has given us; that He meant each of us to be a producer–not to be content with doing less than our share.  Life is what we make it and the busy person is always a happy one.

My farm wife ancestors include my grandmother, Beulah (Gerner) Doyle; her mother, Elvira (Bartley) Gerner, and my great-grandmother, Tressa (Froman) Doyle.  It's possible and likely that Elizabeth (Armitage) Meinzen was a farm wife, or at least a gardener's wife, but I don't believe she was able to read.  I wish I knew whether they subscribed to this magazine and how they felt about being farm wives.

You can learn more about The Farmer's Wife at this previous post,  The Farmer's Wife Magazine.

-–Nancy.

Copyright © 2021 Nancy Messier.  All Rights Reserved. 
Do not copy or use any content from this blog without written permission from the owner. 
.