Ninety-seven years ago today, on 27 March 1927, a Sunday, nineteen-year-old Maria Buller put pencil to paper and wrote her older sister Sara a letter. Where was Sara, you may wonder, that Maria had to send her Easter greetings via a letter? Sara had taken a job in Beatrice, Nebraska, at the Mennonite Deaconess Home and Hospital. We do not yet know when she began working there or when she left, but we have ample evidence that at least during 1927 she was employed at that hospital.
Maria’s letter does not contain any surprising information or shocking revelations. Still, it does give us insight into some aspects of life on the farm. Grandpa Chris had married Grandma Malinda several months earlier (on 20 January), so I assume they no longer lived with Peter P and Margaretha. Maria and the three children younger than her—Peter E, Anna, and Henry (sixteen, fourteen, and twelve, respectively)—were still at home, of course, and Peter and Anna are mentioned in the letter below.
With that brief background, we are ready to ready Maria’s nearly century-old letter to her older sister Sara.
March 27, 1927
Lushton, Nebr.
Good Evening Dear Sister:
At first, I wish you a Happy Easter. We are all well and hope you the same. The weather has been very nice for sometime, really spring must be here again. Only the wheat fields are very slow and are not looking very nice yet. But hope they will turn out nicer soon.
Well what are you doing all the time? Have you been very busy the last weeks? I was looking for a letter already but have not received any yet. Did you receive my letter which I had written about 2 weeks ago? Have you started house cleaning already?
I cleaned the back porch and the out-door basement hall Monday and soaked the wash and Tuesday we wanted to do our washing once more but when I tried to build a fire Monday night, it was impossible and as we could not have any fire in the furnace since a few weeks, and had not had any fire under the butchering kettle—well then I could not start any fire here either so Tuesday morning I pulled down the stove pipes to see what was the matter. To my surprise the chimney holes were full of soot, the soot had fallen down the chimney and filled up the stove pipe holes. Well, I carried out about 3 dish pans full of soot out doors and Anna cleaned the pipes and then we were ready to go on with our washing. Well, we finished our rubbing just before dinner and were going to start right after dinner. The water was boiling and I fixed the first tub while Pete should start the machine engine but he worked on it for about an hour and could not get it started. Well the water was hot and the clothes were soaked and the first thing we knew we had to do it by hand because Pete wanted to plow and the wash machine engine needed an over haul. So we started to do the wash once more by hand and then threw the wash in the boiling water and boiled it till the next bunch was ready which took us only about 15 to 20 minutes and then they were boiled. We had 6 bunches and were done just as early as the other times, only a little more tired and had everything dry.
I did the ironing today and folded the rest. Anna and Mother were busy outdoors making a little early garden and replanting some flowers. Pete is plowing and father is rolling the wheat fields. Have 16 hens setting and mother is going to set 4 more tomorrow so that will make 20.
Folks took the cream to town today and took 12 hens along which weighed 7½ lbs each and brought $17.80. We butchered one Monday which weighed 8 or was it even 8½ lbs. I do not know exactly but it was very large and looked as if we were butchering a goose as we opened it. The hen plus 3 doves gave 2 meals and some left. Had soup Monday supper.
Have my black dress finished and if I will get my pin which I ordered last Sat., tomorrow I’m going to put in on Friday.
Well the rest are all sleeping already and I will have to be soon. Am tired and have written in such a hurry that you will be glad the end has come. So Good Night. Wishing a Happy Easter.
Your S. Maria
I confess that I have only a tenuous grasp of all that was involved in washing clothes in 1927, but as I understand it the washing process began with soaking the clothes in cold water for an extended period of time (Monday night above), to loosen the dirt. Maria refers to rubbing as the next step: clothes were rubbed on a washboard, with soap and brushes used to scrub out any dirt and stains.
This is the point at which Maria’s anecdote about the engine that would not start comes into play. In the early 1920s Maytag developed a wringer washer that achieved immediate popularity, since it was powered by both an electric motor and a small gas engine (for those not yet on the electric grid). The motor/engine operated the washing mechanism in the tub and the wringer mounted on top. We cannot say for certain that this is the type of machine that Maria and Anna were using, but the reference to the engine is a good hint that it was. (For more on early Maytag wringer washers, including a video of one in action, see here.)
Since Pete could not get the engine to start, the girls had no choice but to wash clothes the old-fashioned way, by boiling them in a kettle containing soapy water for 15–20 minutes, then wringing them out by hand, which probably involved twisting each piece of clothing one way and then the other until as much water as possible had been squeezed out. If this is what Maria and Anna went through for this week’s laundry, it is no wonder that they were “a little more tired” than usual.
Other tidbits of interest from Maria’s letter include the note that the family sold cream and twelve hens in town, earning $17.80 in the process. Or was that amount just for the hens? Either way, that seems a tidy sum for 1927, since it is equivalent to roughly $308 today. Maria also notes that Pete was plowing, that is, preparing the soil for planting crops. Peter P, on the other had, was rolling the wheat fields. I read elsewhere that it is good practice to roll winter wheat in the spring, so that the soil is compacted and thus retains moisture more effectively and the roots are pushed firmly into the ground (for an interesting video explaining the process, see here).
There is no doubt much more that we could explore here. What else catches your eye in Maria’s letter?
* Thanks to Carolyn Stucky for transcribing and sending the text of this letter.
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