Personal Narrative-Martha Ruth Smith
MY MOTHER NEVER WORKED
“Social Security Office.” (The voice answering the telephone sounds very self-assured.)
“I’m calling about … I … my mother just died … I was told to call you and see about a … death benefit check, I think they call it …”
“I see. Was your mother on Social Security? How old was she?”
“Yes … she was seventy eight …”
“Do you know her number?”
“No … I, ah … don’t you have a record?”
“Certainly. I’ll look it up. Her name?”
“Smith. Martha Smith. Or maybe she used Martha Ruth Smith.
… Sometimes she used her maiden name … Martha Jerabek Smith.”
“If you’d care to hold on, I’ll check our records – it’ll be a few minutes.”
“Yes …”
Her love letters – to and from Daddy – were in an old box, tied with ribbons and stiff, …show more content…
Their first baby, a daughter, was born in January 1922, when my mother was 26 years old. The second baby, a son, was born in March 1923. They were renting farms; my father, besides working his own fields, also was a hired man for two other farmers. They had no capital initially, and had to gain it slowly, working from dawn until midnight every day. My town-bred mother learned to set hens and raise chickens, feed pigs, milk cows, plant and harvest a garden, and can every fruit and vegetable she could scrounge. She carried water nearly a quarter of a mile from the well to fill her wash boilers in order to do her laundry on a scrub board. She learned to shuck grain, feed threshers, shuck and husk corn, feed corn pickers. In September 1925, the third baby came, and in June 1927, the fourth child – both daughters. In 1930, my parents had enough money to buy their own farm, and that March they moved all their livestock and belongings themselves, 55 miles over rutted, muddy …show more content…
My mother and father trudged from the well to the chickens, the well to the calf pasture, the well to the barn, and from the well to the garden. The sun came out hot and bright, endlessly, day after day. The crops shrivelled and died. They harvested half the corn, and ground the other half, stalks and all, and fed it to the cattle as fodder. With the price at four cents a bushel for the harvested crop, they couldn’t afford to haul it into town. They burned it in the furnace for fuel that winter.
In 1934, in February, when the dust was still so thick in the Minnesota air that my parents couldn’t always see from the house to the barn, their fifth child – a fourth daughter – was born. My father hunted rabbits daily, and my mother stewed them, fried them, canned them, and wished out loud that she could taste hamburger once more. In the fall the shotgun brought prairie chickens, ducks, pheasant, and grouse. My mother plucked each bird, carefully reserving the breast feathers for
“Social Security Office.” (The voice answering the telephone sounds very self-assured.)
“I’m calling about … I … my mother just died … I was told to call you and see about a … death benefit check, I think they call it …”
“I see. Was your mother on Social Security? How old was she?”
“Yes … she was seventy eight …”
“Do you know her number?”
“No … I, ah … don’t you have a record?”
“Certainly. I’ll look it up. Her name?”
“Smith. Martha Smith. Or maybe she used Martha Ruth Smith.
… Sometimes she used her maiden name … Martha Jerabek Smith.”
“If you’d care to hold on, I’ll check our records – it’ll be a few minutes.”
“Yes …”
Her love letters – to and from Daddy – were in an old box, tied with ribbons and stiff, …show more content…
Their first baby, a daughter, was born in January 1922, when my mother was 26 years old. The second baby, a son, was born in March 1923. They were renting farms; my father, besides working his own fields, also was a hired man for two other farmers. They had no capital initially, and had to gain it slowly, working from dawn until midnight every day. My town-bred mother learned to set hens and raise chickens, feed pigs, milk cows, plant and harvest a garden, and can every fruit and vegetable she could scrounge. She carried water nearly a quarter of a mile from the well to fill her wash boilers in order to do her laundry on a scrub board. She learned to shuck grain, feed threshers, shuck and husk corn, feed corn pickers. In September 1925, the third baby came, and in June 1927, the fourth child – both daughters. In 1930, my parents had enough money to buy their own farm, and that March they moved all their livestock and belongings themselves, 55 miles over rutted, muddy …show more content…
My mother and father trudged from the well to the chickens, the well to the calf pasture, the well to the barn, and from the well to the garden. The sun came out hot and bright, endlessly, day after day. The crops shrivelled and died. They harvested half the corn, and ground the other half, stalks and all, and fed it to the cattle as fodder. With the price at four cents a bushel for the harvested crop, they couldn’t afford to haul it into town. They burned it in the furnace for fuel that winter.
In 1934, in February, when the dust was still so thick in the Minnesota air that my parents couldn’t always see from the house to the barn, their fifth child – a fourth daughter – was born. My father hunted rabbits daily, and my mother stewed them, fried them, canned them, and wished out loud that she could taste hamburger once more. In the fall the shotgun brought prairie chickens, ducks, pheasant, and grouse. My mother plucked each bird, carefully reserving the breast feathers for