This is, to the best of my knowledge, a true story about my maternal Grandmother Alvina Schroeder.
During the depression era my mothers family lived on a farm in Minnesota. Times were hard for everyone and at the height of this economic crisis Alvina's husband died followed shortly after by her only son. Leaving only her and her three daughters to run the farm. All the business dealings and financial matters had been handled by Alvina's husband Herbert. This was the accepted family pattern of that time, because he was the man, the "provider" all financial decisions were made solely my him.
Upon his death Alvina discovered that the family farm was in serious trouble. It was in a state of disrepair and not making money off of the feed crops that they were producing. The taxes were due and no way to pay them. When She approached the tax assessor with her problem and asked for time to make the payment she was refused on the basis of her gender. It was believed that one woman and 3 girls could not run the farm let alone make a profit. It was common practice to barter with grain. Alvina managed to strike a deal with the assessor to pay the taxes with the grain crop that was already in the field and this would give her another year to get the money for next years taxes.
In the following year she replaced the grain crops with food crops, mainly potatoes, which she sold locally. She also had a small herd of dairy cows. All the girls worked together running all the equipment it took to keep the farm going, Tractors, Harvest equipment, horse drawn wagons to haul the potatoes out of the field. My mother who was 4' 9" stacked 90 lb sacks of potatoes on the wagon from sun up till sundown. And during harvest the girls went to other farms to help harvest. And at the end of the economic decline Alvina Schroeder was the only person in their county who managed not to lose her farm.
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I really liked this story--thanks for sharing it.
I liked your story too. And it's a great reminder to all the fools who believe women to be so weak that we can't work with machinery and can't handle certain types of labor.