The Frost is on The Pumpkins or at Least on The Squash

"Wed, Sept 29, 1926: Everything froze Sunday morning. It was a very hard frost that made ice in the bottom of pails. It seemed too bad that the squash vines were frozen and all the squash were partly froze. All, but Dad, went to church in the morning. He wouldn’t shave! After church we went up to Aunt Lizzie Dittmar's in the afternoon. Len went to his folks. Tresidders came up this evening to visit with us.

On Monday, Len & Ruby went down to Len Atz’s near Elizabeth, Illinois and got a sheep buck. Meanwhile, Mother and I put up 8 qts of pickles. Tuesday we washed as we do almost every Tuesday.

Today is Ruby & Len's sixth wedding anniversary. Len & Ruby spent it digging potatoes this afternoon. Len had gone to town with feed to grind this forenoon. Aunt Till [Dittmar] came down today. She and I went up on the Weis' hill to look for hickory nuts but didn’t find many. Aunt Till is going to stay with us over night.>"

Living in Michigan, I can, for the first time, relate to the temperatures in Lillian's Diaries. This year has had very unusual weather. Today the temperature had a high of 51 degrees and tonight, we are cutting down from three to one window open in our bedroom. When I was transcribing Lillian's Diaries the weather was so different from what we experience today. Global warming????

Note the lack of fanfare over Len and Ruby's anniversary.....no cards, no gifts, no romantic candlelit dinner. Throughout her diaries you will find that Christmas and big anniversaries - 30-40-50th were the only times that the day was marked with cards and/or gifts. Occasionally, Lillian will write that she has received a birthday card from a cousin or aunt, but as she gets older they appear less and less.

Fall Harvest Continues

"Wed, Sept 22, 1926: On Mon we made apple sauce plus cooked 2 kettles of plum preserve or 4 ½ qts. and made a batch of catsup. That was besides digging some potatoes, gathering in plums,crab apples,tomatoes and pop corn.I went looking for hickory nuts but didn’t find many yet at our place. Meanwhile,Dad gathered nuts all day on the Weis’ hill. Tue we made 4 qts plum preserve and made crab apple pickles and baked bread, fired two stoves and nearly baked ourselves. Len & Ruby went to town in the afternoon and brought home a box of peaches. Today it is cloudy & gloomy most all the time but cooler. We put up 9 qts peaches, churned, and made apple sauce. Uncle Edd & the Aunts came down this evening brought 4 mush* & a watermelon.

* mush - yes you guessed it - is muskmelon. Although I have heard people pronounce it mushmelon as well as muskmelon. Either way, I am allergic to it and don't even remember what it taste like anymore.

Although this entry is not that exciting, it is an ideal example to illustrate how hard our ancestors worked just to keep going. During the September and October entries each year in "Lillian's Diaries: Whispers of Galena's Past" most of the information is about harvesting, preparing and canning the food that they would live on over the winter months and until spring when the process begins again - this time with all the berries. And all without air conditioning, food processors, electric stoves and all the other appliances and cooking aides that today we consider to be essential!

Once a year I get into my "Lillian" mode and for a few weeks spend all my free time preparing Wolf River Apples....this year we added Michigan peaches so the tiny freezer of our side-by-side is overflowing with unbaked French apple pies, peach cobbler, applesauce, peach freezer jam, peach/blueberry freezer jam and apple crisp! I have about a half bushel left to go and I am exhausted and we are going to buy a small freezer chest to suppliment the one we have! How did they ever do all this work and still manage to go into town?

Today, I also included the picture at the top of the post. This is a piece of farm equipment that Lillian's father, Charles Trudgian, designed and patented. It is currently at the Galena Historical Museum with some other items from the "old Trudgian house". Can anyone guess what this machine does?