AlexSandra Lett "Lett's Set a Spell"

Women as Equal Partners
on the Family Farm

When Grandpa and Grandma (Puzie and Verta Lett) were raising a house full of "young'uns" from 1908 to 1950, Grandpa stood his ground as the man of the house. But he knew that he needed Grandma and their seven daughters just as much as he did their two strong sons to survive on the family farm in the Buckhorn community of Lee County. Most of the time Grandpa was the sun of Grandma's universe, and Grandpa thought Grandma hung the moon, but their relationship involved struggle as well as success. Everyone on the Lett farm had to work together day in and day out to feed the family and make enough money for bare household necessities. They even had to do some chores on the Sabbath.

While menfolk were in charge of the endless tasks around the farm—milking cows, making syrup from sugar cane, plowing the fields, feeding the chickens, cows and mules, cutting and hauling wood, sharpening tools—womenfolk focused on gathering garden pickin's, preparing the meals, preserving the food, cleaning, washing, sewing, mending, and quilting. It was a natural division of labor that evolved due to physique and tradition, but the idea of women being the weaker sex certainly had no merit on the farm. When it came to running a household and managing a farm, both sexes were equally involved and each person's contributions were critical.

Many a day women, men, and young'uns worked side by side in the fields, whether picking cotton or chopping corn, but household tasks were waiting when the women returned home. One of the most time-consuming and difficult aspects of women's work was washing, because it took at least one day a week, with several women pulling together.

The women used a large cast iron pot, set on a pile of bricks, and filled it with water taken from the well. They stacked wood around the bricks and struck a match. As the fire burned, the water boiled the laundry, and then the clothes had to be scrubbed on a washboard to get out all the dirt. The white and dark clothes had to be washed separately to protect the colors, pot after pot, hour after hour. No wonder women considered washing day to be a drudgery and the least desirable task! The Lett farm had clotheslines surrounding the house, and folks enjoyed watching clean clothes flapping in the wind and smelling their freshness when they folded and ironed them.

Aunt Gladys used bark from trees to dye some of the clothes. To make decorative quilt linings, she would tie strings all over a piece of white muslin and add dye to the formula, and then the part under the string would be white and look like flowers.

In the Age of Grandpa and Grandma, women labored from sunup to sundown and continued to work by oil lamps at night. These women were more than complementary workers to men on the farm; they were the moving spirits of the home.

The kitchen was the most important room in the house. Sometimes there was a feeding frenzy when time was short and chores were long, but more often, the kitchen was a precious place where folks could feed the body and nourish the soul. The big eating table offered a sacred space where the family could gather and talk freely about their work, play, school assignments, Bible studies, church functions, courting interests, and the joys and sorrows that made up their everyday lives. These generations of women did not complain about their lot in life but rather relished the cares of home and family. They did not resent their never-ending tasks but focused on their many blessings, and believed that through serving God and their families they got a little bit closer to Heaven every day.