Life was hard then. Winters came just after Halloween and stayed until almost Easter. Summertime there was more work than ten men could do, but winters were filled with nothing but empty hours. The men could get away to the woodshed where they kept their whiskey, but a woman was just plain stuck. Nothing to eat but root vegetables and salt meat, children always on your nerves.
It’s no wonder she went crazy, you ask me. They came and locked her up in the county farm for the rest of her life. After the funerals, they tore the house down.
Evocative writing
It’s no wonder. Nicely done.
Probably a pretty accurate portrait of how it was. Greta voice.
Such a grim summing up of so many lives – brief, impossibly hard, painful. This has a real atmosphere and sad soul to it. Lovely words
I agree with Lynn Love. Your writing captured the hardships of the time.
How I miss those county farms. Today, they just had crazies an automatic weapon and point them in the general direction of a school or gay bar.
Wow! This reminds me of the pioneer women in Wyoming (probably in many places) that went crazy when the wind blew sand, the crops didn’t produce and there was just one too many child – and they killed the entire family. Love this story.
A grim story. Very evocative images and characters.
Very grim!