American Agriculturist, August 25,192: 
A Day In a Farm Home 
How One Woman Budgeted Her Work, Restand Social Service—A Radio Talk 
G OOD evening, Radio friends! 
During these long, hot summer 
days many of you women who are 
listening to me this evening through 
the courtesy of the American Agriculturist 
and WEAF have probably thought of the 
farm woman with envy and wished that you, 
too, could have one long vacation in the 
country. Haven’t you thought of her as be¬ 
ing far from the heat and the rush of the 
city, sitting on a shady porch, enjoying a 
cool breeze? Of all the fresh fruit and veg¬ 
etables, eggs and milk ana cream that she 
has to serve on her table without thought of 
the endless bills at the end of the month? 
She does have the good fresh food to eat and 
the cool, clean air, to breathe, but she has a 
very busy life as well, and her summer is 
far from one long holiday. 
Let me tell you what one farm woman 
really did in just one day. It- 
was a Monday in last March 
that Mrs. Brown got up at . 
6:30, washed, brushed her 
hair and got dressed. She 
also washed and dressed her 
two small girls. She superin¬ 
tended the serving of break¬ 
fast to her family of nine— 
an older daughter had pre¬ 
pared the breakfast. They 
had oatmeal with cream, • 
graham and rye bread, jam, 
milk and apples. After break¬ 
fast she attended to the kitch¬ 
en fire, started a fire in the 
living room, put away the, 
Sunday clothes and took care 
of the Sunday School collec¬ 
tion money. She sent off the 
four children to school and 
then it was 8:45. 
In the next hour and twenty 
minutes she swept up in. the 
living room, dining room, 
kitchen and the two porches. 
She gathered the wash from upstairs, washed 
the breakfast dishes for nine, also the milk 
pails and strainer cloths, put on beans to 
cook, looked after the two little ones left 
at home, read the next week’s Sunday School 
lesson to them and ate apples. 
At 10:05 she filled the stove with wood, 
brought materials for dinner out of the cel¬ 
lar on her way from tending the heater. 
Then she brought into the kitchen the two 
tubs and a wash bench and got the water 
ready to wash. At 10:25 she started to 
wash with an electric washer a two weeks’ 
accumulation of clothes as she had not been 
able to wash the week before. Unfortunately, 
only a very small percentage of farm women 
have such a modern convenience as an 
electric washer. Few can boast even of 
running water in the house. 
While the washing was being done she 
prepared the dinner, having it ready at 
twelve o’clock—fried oatmeal, sweet pota¬ 
toes, graham bread, jam, hot sage milk, 
canned peaches and apples. Three of-the 
children came home from school to eat their 
dinner. At one o’clock she had the table 
cleared and was all through wmshing and 
rinsing the clothes in time to hang them out 
at 1:25. 
Before doing this, however, she looked 
over the mail that came at noon and rested 
until 2 :15. After her rest she put the beans 
in the oven to bake, made starch, starched 
the clothes, looked after all the fires, hung 
out the wash; fed and watered the chickens 
and cleaned off the chicken roosts before 
coming into the house; emptied the tubs, 
cleaned the washing machine and washed the 
dinner dishes. Then it was 4:20. 
And still her day’s work wasn’t finished 
By MRS. F. W. STILLMAN 
President oj the Home Bureau ef New 
Jersey 
* 
because she must next cook mush to fry for 
breakfast and put potatoes in the oven for 
supper. She got a bed which was downstairs 
ready to be taken back upstairs. The chil¬ 
dren, including the high-school boy, who had 
returned from school by that time, took the 
bed upstairs and she swept and dusted the 
room thoroughly and put it to rights 
again. 
Then it was six b’clock and she served 
.supper to her family of nine—baked lima 
beans, baked sweet potatoes, graham and rye 
bread, jam, milk and canned strawberries. 
While the two girls washed the supper dishes 
she looked over the paper, -made the bed 
that had been taken upstairs, also a crib; 
A group of farm women studying the greatest of all professions—that of 
raising babies 
undressed and got the two little girls • 
ready ’for bed—had them tucked away by 
8:05. 
With most of her work over for the day 
she washed, brushed her hair and dressed, 
because there was to be a committee meeting 
at her home that evening. 
The meeting was over at 10:40. She 
started the electric pump, another rare con¬ 
venience in the average-farm home, to pump 
water, looked after the heater and other fires 
for the night. Then the smallest girl fell 
out of bed and had to be comforted. She 
came downstairs again, straightened up the 
two rooms, wrote this report from notes and 
was ready for bed at 11:10. 
A full day’s work you will agree with me. 
Although this report was kept in March, Mrs. 
Brown’s day would have been just as full 
in August. Indeed it might have been fuller 
if possible, for there is always canning and 
jelly making in summer in order that 
winter’s meals may be complete with good 
fruits and vegetables. Do you wonder how 
she was able to do it all? It is quite a 
miracle to me, for as I read over her report, 
as it went into her home demonstration 
agent’s office, I could find no word there of 
selfpity; I could see that though her day was 
full of needful work she still had time for 
outside interests, to be treasurer of her Sun¬ 
day School and to be on community com¬ 
mittees, and in face of all that was to be 
done she calmly took a real time for a rest 
in the afternoon. 
Don’t you still wonder how she was able 
to do it all? I think I can answer your ques¬ 
tion in part. Through her home demonstra¬ 
tion agent and the specialists from the State 
extension service she has learned to budget 
her time and do away with useless frills and 
notions. 
To broaden her community life she has 
joined her county home bureau. What is 
this home bureau? It is an organization of 
rural women for service. It was organized 
in April, 1921 with the purpose of keeping 
its members to have first, a more satisfying 
home, through the installation of labor sav¬ 
ing equipment; through the knowledge of 
food, so that well prepared meals are suited 
to the family needs; and through the knowl¬ 
edge of how each member of the family can 
be well dressed at a minimum cost; secondly, 
a better uniformed home through the de¬ 
velopment of better schools, of better 
churches and of better community centers, 
which have a great influence in developingthe 
life of the horn e and the community; third and 
last, Federal and State laws for the advance¬ 
ment of home interests. The 
enforcement of laws affecting 
food supplies, the family 
health and the cost of living 
" and to secure farther legisla¬ 
tion when necessary toward 
that end. 
I shall not tell you anything 
about the definite organiza¬ 
tion of our home bureau—the 
time is too short—but I want 
you all to hear our home 
bureau creed. It is a beauti¬ 
ful thought with which to 
close. 
“To be cheerful; to be 
neighborly; to love little chil¬ 
dren and cherish their right 
to’ be well-born, well-fed and 
well-bred: to make our houses, 
homes whose influence for 
life’s test shall radiate 
throughout our community: 
“To be cordial to strangers, 
generous to our friends and 
helpful to every human life we 
touch; in short, to love our neighbor a little 
better than ourselves: 
“To be ready always to pass along what 
we have learned, whether of home-making or 
home-keeping and quietly to teach those 
about us by word and action, that fine spirit 
of cooperation which springs from unselfish 
enthusiasm in our one common ideal-right 
living.” 
This is the philosophy that, like a golden 
thread, runs through our home bureau work, 
making the simplest task a link in the chain 
that writes our home into finer communities. 
Says Duties Are World-Wide 
I READ your editorial “Our Obligations of 
a New Day” wTh hearty approval of 
every word. Our national duties have out¬ 
grown America and are world-wide. 
Had America taken a leading part in set¬ 
tling the “Near-East Problem” at the close 
of the World War, there would not have been 
any of the “horrors” there that have made 
the whole world shudder, and Asia Minor 
would have been a prosperous land.—L. J. 
Dodge, Chenango Co., N. Y. 
Dear Editor: Ever since you came to the 
editorial chair of the Agriculturist I have 
intended sending my personal congratula¬ 
tions and now that we have enjoyed the paper 
for some time under' your guidance, just 
want to know that we think the paper is 
much better and that your policy of service 
to agriculture will make of it a factor in 
helping to solve some of the farmer’s present 
problems.— Mrs. E. J. C., Seneca County, 
N. Y. 
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