My Dad was born in 1910 and grew up farming with horses. They also milked by hand, and separated the cream from the milk with a hand-cranked separator. They churned their own butter by hand, slaughtered their own calves and hogs, made their own lard and sausage; smoked their own ham and bacon, raised their own chickens for eggs and meat, and of course raised their own garden. Grandma washed clothes with a gasoline powered Maytag washing machine; heated her own water in a huge cast iron pot, with a wood fire.
My Dad road a horse to school, as did most of the other kids. He even told me that a bunch of drunken Indians, riding horses, shot the chimney off of their school house when he was in grade school (I expect that there was some slight exaggeration there, but it made a good story).
I made the comment one day, that it must of been fun growing up with horses. He said "He77 no; horses are stupid and you have to have your wits about you all of the time or they will get you killed. The tractor is the best thing that ever happened to farming". He also told me this little anecdote: When he was about 7 or 8 years old, some gentlemen from the U.S. Army came out to the farm. At that time, he said that Grandpa had a matched set of Clydesdale mules. He said they were big, strong and beautiful. The army appropriated these mules for the war effort, and wrote Grandpa a check for $800. I suspect that was a lot of money at the time.
