Chapter 5 Abraham Schmidt's Daily Life 1850-1872

What sort of chores did Abraham do?
One chore that Abraham loved was taking care of the horses. They were used for transportation and also for plowing. For seeding, four horses pulled a three-share plow. A man or large boy rode one of the horses and guided the other horses and the plow. When a part of the acreage was "kept black" or fallow every year by plowing it two or three times during the summer, the farmers used a one-share plow.

Abraham loved horses all of his life. In America Abraham was known for his "fine, matched set of black funeral horses. Everyone wanted to borrow Abe's buggy for their funeral procession," wrote Walter Karber (Abraham's grandson).

In this picture Abraham is about 60 years old. His wife Katharina Regier Schmidt is 52. They are standing in front of one of their horses. I believe that in the following generations this love of horses evolved into a love of cars by his son Henry Schmidt and his grandson R. Schmidt.

In the spring there were many jobs for the boys to help with. For example, there was plowing and sowing the fields; planting the gardens and pruning shrubs. Some chores were done year round like feeding, cleaning and caring for livestock. In the summer everything was readied for the harvest. They repaired and sharpened tools. The hand scythe was the only tool made out of steel because it had to have a good temper and keep a sharp edge. The haying was done two or three weeks before the harvest.

Immediately after haying the rye was reading for harvest. This was a valuable and useful crop. Rye was grown mostly to make into bread. "roggenbrot" was a favorite of the Mennonites. Abraham's granddaughter Dorothy remembers the best roggenbrot that she ever tasted was made by her cousin Rosa Voth Toews. After harvesting the rye, the workers tied it into bundles to keep it smooth until it could be threshed in the winter. After threshing the straw was used for roofing and some was braided into hats by both men and women.

The barley and oat harvest followed. The farmers used the barley for cattle, horse and hog feed. They took the oats to market and traded it for young pigs, ducks and geese. Since barley and oats were easier to harvest, the sons of the family did the harvesting and the women did the binding.

Men were hired for cutting and binding the wheat harvest. As soon as it was ripe they tied it in bundles and set it up in shocks -fifteen bundles to a shock. Everyone tried to get done with the harvest before the weather changed. They worked from sunup to sundown. Many times they had to cut at night when there was a full moon. The first harvesting machines didn't come on the market until 1875, after our Mennonites had left for America. (Henderson Mennonites: From Holland to Henderson by Stanley E. Voth, 1982.)

OK, but what about OUR Mennonites? What was going on in Abraham's family?"
Next blog - a death and a move...