I found some old black and white photos yesterday, taken at my great Aunt Carrie's farm, back in the 1930's. Never met her, as she, like my gran, had passed on before my birth. (I was a late "surprise, you're pregnant!" type of baby, born the year of my parent's 10th wedding anniversary--not that they ever celebrated any of those).
Anyway, back to the subject, mum used to talk about visits to Aunt Carrie's farm. I think that she sort of had a love/hate thing going on with that. Often--usually in summer, gran and grandad would trundle mum off from their city of Hudson, over to Ancram, just a few miles away. Mum enjoyed outings with her family to her Aunt Carrie's, but...there were parts of farm life she really didn't care for.
Great Aunt Carrie's farm was located in the mid-Hudson Valley of eastern New York state, in Columbia County, near a town called Ancram. We drove down there once, back in the 80's, and tried to find the old family farm, but fifty years had gone by, and the farm lane was long gone. Mum's memory was terribly fuzzy. Oddly, there was a small general store there, and mum did remember that....but she couldn't recall if the farm was on the main road, or off on a side road. She thought she found the old lane (which no longer exists), but--who knows?
Mum had many, many memories of the farm, which she shared with me over the years.
Of all the tales she told, three stand out most especially, in my memory.
Mum used to talk about the geese. There was no indoor loo at the farm, so one had to use ye old outhouse. Well, seems there was a goose on the farm, who decided that the outhouse was his own personal turf.
So, every time poor mum had to spend a penny, she had to race for her life to the outhouse, with a honking, hissing, snapping, flapping goose at her heels, every step of the way. It would wait for her, outside the door, and the minute she opened it, it would try to get inside with her, and she had to make mad dash back to the safety of the kitchen door.
It didn't help, I suppopse, knowing that her family and Great Aunt Carrie thought mum's whole ordeal to be a form of high entertainment. Mum hated that goose with a passion, even 50 years later.
Then, there were the traditional chicken dinners on Sundays. Whereas the Brits do Sunday roasts, the Yanks do chicken dinners (or rather, back in the days of the family farms, they used to).
Well, back then, one didn't pop off to Sainsbury's for a free range hen. Nope. You went to the henhouse, picked out a nice plump one, took your ax, and lobbed off its head. Mum seriously hated that. She would talk--wincing even in her old age, about how the headless hen would flop about the farmyard, running around, gushing blood all over. Not a pretty picture. This where the saying, "running around like a chicken with its head cut off," comes from. It's quite literally true, apparently.
Then, I guess there was the smell. You see, nowadays your chicken comes already plucked and ready to eat. Back then, after you gutted it, you had to pluck it yourself--then hold it over the stove fire, and singe all the pin feathers off. Burning feathers would stink up a kitchen pretty fast, I gather.
And then, there was the day my great-great grannie died.
Mum's great grandmother passed away in her sleep. Back then, in the country, one didn't spend money on a funeral home. The nearest funeral homes were few and miles away. So, what to do?
Yup, have the wake/funeral at home...in the palor--which back then, was a special room set up for receiving visitors, aside from the main lounge/living room where every day relaxing took place. Great-great gran's coffin was placed in the palor--open lid, of course, so everyone could stare at her, and say, "Oh, doesn't she look lovely."
Well, with a home full of visiting family, whom do you think got elected to spend the night sleeping in the palor with grannie? Yup, poor mum.
Try to imagine that you are just 9 or 10 years old, and you have to sleep in a dark room, surrounded by the scent of funerary flowers, with your dead gran keeping you company--in an open coffin. Mum didn't sleep a wink, that night, and was never thrilled about wakes, ever since.
Oh yeah, that haunted mum for decades..in fact, knowing that she was dying, in the summer of 2005, mum was so strongly against wakes and funerals, that she insisted that I not give her a wake or even a memorial service in a church, but just something simple by the graveside, with a closed lid. And of course, I honoured her request.
