in their old age often spoke regretfully of the hard work they had required of their oldest daughters, and of how the help of the older sons was as urgently needed. The daughter of one pioneer family mentioned the fact that most women were old at the age of forty and told of her own mother bearing a large family all without medical care, and doing her laundry by hand for all of them. They had only one well, which was between the pen for the stock and the cabin, so that every pail full had to be carried to each. The mother had to climb over the fence with the full pails for the cabin. This same daughter said "My mother was old at forty, and I really mean old."

Mr. Lewis Powell of Secor, whose mother's parents are buried in Gabetown or Carroll cemetery, said that his parents recalled with sadness the numbers of very young mothers who were buried there because they could not endure the hardships of pioneer life. Just as pitiful is the great proportion of children's graves. Women had to stoop for so much of their work, as over the heat of the fireplace where heavy kettles had to be hung or placed on trivets of different heights, for whatever degree of heat was required was regulated by such an arrangement or by hooks and chains. The baking oven was heated by putting coals inside, and the desired temperature was determined by how long one could hold their hand in the oven; if they could stand it until they could count to forty it was just right for baking bread. They then brushed out the coals and soot from the top and sides, and foods requiring the most heat were baked, following which foods needing a lower heat were cooked. Bread, meat and beans were baked in this order, though for several years the pioneer had no wheat bread until better and more improved mills were established.

The food problem was solved with the use of wild game. Deer, fish, wild turkeys, quail, squirrels, rabbits and prairie chickens were in plentiful supply as was wild honey and some wild fruit. They also had such vegetables as the Indians had taught them to use, squash, beans, turnips and corn in different forms, as meal in corn bread, mush, grits and roasting ears, or with beans for succotash, a special favorite which the Indians had made for years. They also taught the whites how to bake beans or corn on stones heated over coals. The pioneers made hominy by putting wood ashes in a barrel, then a layer of corn kernels, layer by layer almost filling the barrel, then pouring boiling water over the ashes to form a lye which ate the shell from the kernels. When ready the product was thoroughly rinsed and the hominy was beautifully white and delicious.

Pioneers found a use for everything. All the wood ashes were carefully saved, for they were also necessary to produce lye for soap making. The following account of the process, which to our efficient present day workers may seem tedious even to read, comes from an old cook book, The Pocumtuc Housewife, (1805). Their process for making soft soap demonstrates how tedious were many of their routine household chores.

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