The Unbreakable Pioneer Spirit - Exaggeration?
by Jeff Mason — Read all 207 poems by Jeff Mason
It needed to be said. We've heard this so often from our parents and our grandparents. Much of what they endured was real, and was more painful than we could know. Many of us have been way too sheltered, and don't appreciate what out ancestors did for us.
Wednesday, November 12, 2003
We lived in a one-room shack, 12 people, family,
sharing a meager rug on the floor; one wood
stove; an outhouse. We had no shoes; rags for clothes;
we killed and grew our own food; chopped our own firewood.
Built the house by hand; couldn't afford hammers,
so we used rocks in place of hammers. Scrounged for
nails and railroad spikes. Hammered 'til our fingers
bled and our hands were raw.
Got up every weekday at the break of dawn, walked
barefoot, uphill in the snow for 2 miles to our
one-room schoolhouse.
Got up on Sundays, walked 1 mile to the Church,
and thanked God for all our many blessings.
Copyright ©2003 Jeff Mason
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Ty, Dani
Well done.
Susan
This is a painful fact!!
Love Tinka
step-father had a family of 12 in a one-room house; the whole house was basically one large room ... well, the kitched did have a wall, so
it was really a 'two-room' house, technically.
Jeff,
I enjoy reading about how people use to live. It has to be exaggeration. Twelve people in one room?