Winter Wheat

Mildred Walker's novel "Winter Wheat" tells the story of Ellen Webb, a teenager growing up in central Montana's dryland wheat country in the 1940's.  The novel was first published in 1944 and was the inaugural One Book for Montana's community reading program. 

I fell in love with the way Walker wrote about wheat country and clung to every page of Ellen's story: "I love the wheat and I hate it. I love the green blades of winter wheat in the spring. They show through the snow on the ground and make the only bright color in that winter world of grays and blacks and whites."  At college, Ellen falls in love with a man from St. Paul and invites him to Montana to visit. He is uncomfortable with the rustic working life that Ellen and her family live on the farm, and suddenly, she sees her home life through his eyes - a lonely struggle against the unpredictable elements in a town void of "beauty", big city luxuries and entertainments.

I read "Winter Wheat" just after finishing "When the Meadowlark Sings", an autobiography written by Montana farm wife Nedra Sterry.  Sterry tells her story of Montana ranch life without any embellishment. She loved the farm, but quite frankly, she had just way too much to do to sit around romanticizing about wheat. Sterry writes during harvest the year she turned 45, she finally felt as if she was "caught up". Her children were grown and could help on the farm while Sterry pursued her writing in the evening. It wasn't to be. Two weeks after harvest she learned she was pregnant. And so it started all over again.

So many people tell me, "I wish I had the time to sew/knit/write", which makes me chuckle when you think of how hard our grandmothers worked on the farm or at jobs outside the home. Both books reminded me of how austere farm and ranch life could be, and how critical women were to survival in rural communities. In those days women's work - cooking, fruit canning, home sewing, embroidery, knitting and even raising children - were the tools of domestic survival. There is an often-read letter in Mike's family history from a great aunt who wrote that she felt "lucky" to have a [one] needle. 

One generation later, it's all still gendered as women's work, but now these activities belong to women of "leisure" - complete with negative stereotypes. Why do people automatically forget I run a consulting business when I mention I've been sewing? One outcome of the feminist movement seems to be that it's ok for women to enjoy themselves, as long as they've set the needlework down and closed the kitchen door behind them. It's meant to be a relic of the past, when women's work went unrecognized in the background of family life. Someone from the outside looking in might overlook the joy in the making and giving of the craft.

And as that generation of women slips away so does much of the meaning and tradition in family life.It wasn't until I was older that I understood how hard my grandmother worked at putting beauty and meaning into her everyday chores.  She clipped coupons and perfume samples and mailed them every week with a handwritten letter. She always arrived at our house with a bag of offerings - quilts, embroidered tea towels, canned fruits and home made bread were her specialties.  If you want to know loss, try coming to terms with the realization that not one of us ever learned how to make the whole wheat bread that was on her table at every meal. 

I'm carrying her lesson with me the last few years. Creating beauty in the everyday matters and, in the case of my grandmother, those quilts, pillowcases and handwritten letters are more than relics of days gone by, now those gifts are precious because they ARE her in my life. It was so much more than just passing time.

Comments

[Debra]

Wonderfully, wonderfully said. Good points and worth thinking about.

I catch myself envying people who seem to have an ideal "at home" life, which in reality doesn't exist. I need to remember that I worked harder on the farm at age 8 than I do now at 34 in an air conditioned office.

My grandma also wrote letters. When she and grandpa (spelled grandpaw in the 70's) wintered in Florida she would send letters with love and the tellings of her adventures. I wrote back when I was just learning how to write. She replied by needlepointing my entire letter including the drawing of our house and a giant green tree with a bird in it. It hangs above my desk in my studio. It reminds me of her and how much she loved me. Precious, yes.

Thanks Heidi. I love your blog.

[wilsonian]

What a beautiful post. I work at a local history museum, and I have to say it is the stories associated with everyday items that is lost first with the passage of time.

Hold on, revel, cherish, teach... by all means!