Snow days

  

Marty farm, 1930s. Photo by Viola Marty.

My grandmother began taking pictures of our farm as a young mother in her twenties during the Depression. While growing up, she had moved many times around the countryside of east central Minnesota. She found a permanent home on the Marty farm.

At the time, most of the farming was done with horses. You can see the mailbox in this picture is made of wood. Water came from a cistern outside the house.

I know this photo was taken before 1940 because the house where I grew up isn't in it. The new, little house would be built to the right of this farmhouse by her brother-in-law, a widower, for his new wife.

Many of the photos in my grandmother's album document deep, dazzling snow. The homestead was more than a half-mile west of U.S. Highway 61. I don't know when snowplowing the county roads began, but before snowplows and tractors, my grandfather's team of horses plowed out the driveway.    

Comments

[Doug Donley]

I wanna see more pictures. I have these mental images in my mind. I want to see how closely they mirror reality.

[Eugenia Smith]

Gayla, this reminds me so much of the house my mother grew up in in Long Lake--where I spent many happy times with my grandmother and cousins (we lived in the big city), and many hours in the barn with kittens. I can still smell the milk on their fur, the hay in the mow, the verdure of fresh cow dung....