Diary of Susannah Woychik, 1868- 8 Keeping Accounts

 

Jeden lubi grac naskryzpeach. A drugi jak munogi smierdza

One man likes playing violin, and the other when his feet are smelly

Sunday

There was no place we could go for church today, so we just said some prayers together in our house and then walked over to see Uncle Simon. It was pretty hilly, the land we walked on with lots of trees and bushes, but no houses in between – for the moment anyway.

Their new house is one and a half storeys and the children have their beds up under the eaves in the attic.(pictured above)   It goes up about 12 feet and then sloping up another few feet for the roof. There was a chimney which was letting out lovely smells from the cook stove.  Aunt Christina brought lots of nice things with her and she certainly has made the house look like home – with curtains and a table cloth. She has her dishes on shelves that have been nailed into the trunks in the kitchen area.

They have divided the downstairs into three sections – their bedroom, a kitchen area and the living area with some of her ornaments from home. She cooked us a lovely meal on her cook stove and Moma and I were very jealous.

They also have their garden space cleared and planted and it sounds like they will be growing more or less the same things as we are.

Uncle Simon suggested that the men and boys go out fishing in the river after lunch, so we women did the dishes and caught up with the gossip. We reminded Aunt Christina that next Sunday we would meet up at the Sura’s for mass, and Julianna found out that there will be a barn dance on the 4^th of July. We are hoping we will be able to see all our friends from home at that time.

June 15^th

Pa asked if I would be willing to deal with the finances and organising the money situation for the family. Moma isn’t very good at that sort of thing, and he doesn’t really have the time. Now that we know that we will be getting $10 a week for Pa’s work with Uncle Simon, he needs to know how much of that will be needed for food, and how much can be put towards buying the house, and paying back the loan from Aunt Susannah.

So I have made a list of the groceries that we will need – some weekly and others only once in a while.

Flour – we bought a 100 lb bag when we first arrived in Trempealeau, as well as other staples and that should last us about two months. It cost $2.50 so that means about 30 cents a week.

Salt – we bought a sack, and that should last about the same as the flour, except when we are doing preserving. That cost 25 cents, or 2 cents a week.

Instead of sugar we got a gallon of molasses, which cost 40 cents and should do for two months. We might need to buy real sugar for when we are doing preserving. I need to check about that. It works out at about 5 cents a week.

We bought some cornmeal, which we had never had at home, but we were told it is a staple food here, used for making Johnny cake, as recommended by the Scrotch relatives. Cornmeal cost £1.50 for a 100 lb bag, so that makes it under 20 cents a week. We haven’t tried it yet.

Vinegar – 25 cents a gallon or about 4 cents a week

Adding them all together, that makes 61 cents a week.

Then we have to add in the things we buy weekly: eggs, potatoes, butter, lard, cheese, milk, coffee and ham. The cost of that for the portions we use comes to $1.55 and when you add it the 61 cents, that makes a total per week for food of about $2.20.

Of course we have to buy other things besides food, like nails, so I think I should set aside $1.00 a week for that.

So if we put away $2 a week out of Pa’s $10 wages to pay towards our house, and the same towards our debt to Aunt Susannah, that still leaves $2.80 a week to pay towards getting some equipment for the farm and house.

Here is our list for what we want to buy in the near future:

Cook stove           $20

Team of Oxen         30

Wagon                   35

Plow                       26

Horse                     10

Cow                         7

Since we won’t be planting out until next spring, there is no need to buy the plow and oxen until nearer to the time, as they would not be used over the winter. And we’d have to shelter and feed the oxen, which would be a waste of money. Pa is considering getting a job at the Eau Claire lumber mill for over the winter from November until April when the ground will be unfrozen enough for him to do plowing. It would mean that he would be away all week, only coming home Saturday afternoons and Sundays, but apparently most of the men around here do just that to supplement their incomes.

By my reckoning, if no unforeseen expenses come up, we should have enough money to buy a cook stove by September, and then it will be important as a source of heat for us as well as for cooking. Pa hopes he can keep us in meat over the winter by hunting and fishing, and then putting the meat in an ice house to preserve it.

June 23

We walked into town today to go to Mass at Peter Sera’s house said by Father Kampschroer. The Sobattas came too, and it was so good to see them again, as well as lots of our old friends from Poppeleau. There must have been 50 of us there, and as it was such a nice day Father took the table he uses for saying mass outside and had the service there.  He gave his sermon in German, but it was similar enough to Polish for most of us to understand at least some of it.  After Mass, the Seras provided coffee and cookies for everyone, and as we had also brought a packed lunch with us, we went off with the Sobattas, to catch up with their news.

We found out that across the Trempleau River in Glencoe Mass is offered each Sunday. It is so important for Moma to go to church regularly, so Mr. Sera said that he couldn’t offer us all lifts, but he would take me and Moma if we wanted to go.

When we went to see the Suras to say thank you, we had two surprise presents. One was a baby pig and the other two chickens, which we can now raise and get eggs. The pig will provide us with food for the winter. Pa told Mr Sera that he couldn’t pay him for them, but Peter said that he liked to do this for all the new emigrants who are struggling, and rather than pay him back, he said that when we had pigs and chickens apleanty, we should return the favor to another lot of newcomers.  

The men said there was good hunting around here, with prairie chickens and ducks in the fall, and ice fishing in the winter. We are lucky that Pa brought his gun with him from home.

The only light we have in our sod house once the sun has gone down are some candles, which we are saving for winter, and some saucer lights. The women showed Moma how to make them. You take lard, or coon oil, but we haven’t caught a coon yet, and you take a rag and roll it up, making a wick. The oil penetrates the rag and once lit makes a slight flame on the dish, just about enough to see, but not enough to read or sew by.

Moma says she wants to save any old papers that we have to cover the walls.  We didn’t bring much because mostly we covered the breakable stuff in the packing cases with soft cloths, so we could use them later as towels and dish rags. She thinks that putting paper will sort of insulate the walls and make them warmer and less damp, and also look better. You can make a glue out of straw and mud and manure – to stick the paper to the walls.

We now have a system of having baths once a week. But because it is high summer and hot, lots of days we swim in the river so we don’t get all that dirty during the week. When we get the bath tub out filling it with two hot buckets and two cold, we bathe it in this order: Moma, me, the younger boys, the older boys, and then Pa. He says he doesn’t mind much if the water is cold and pretty dirty by then. And afterwards we wash Pa’s heavy working clothes in there too and when that is done, the water is used to put on the vegetables which are sprouting nicely in the garden.

When we wash dishes, we don’t rinse them, and our laundry is done once a week in the minimum of water. We brought some soap from home, but it will soon run out and Moma says we must learn to make our own. After work one day Pa brought home an empty barrel to keep outside and catch the rain in, but we sure don’t get much of that at the moment.

We had an animal come into the dugout last night – a racoon I think it was, but everybody just calls them coons, and it was not very nice. Moma said one of the women said to keep some cayenne pepper (we brought some from home)  handy and to sprinkle it in the animal’s face. It would not be tempted to come back after that experience. I just hope there aren’t any snakes that come in. I really am scared of snakes. I heard they had rattlesnakes around here that come up from the Mississippi. We are much bothered by mosquitoes so we think we will keep a fire smoking just outside the front door from now on to deter animals and keep the mosquitoes out.

When we were at church, we were invited to the big barn dance which Julianna had mentioned before. It’s going to be at the Bautches in Arcadia for all the Polish families in the area. There will be a barbeque first with a pig cooked on a spit, and the in the evening, the older people, which includes me, will have the dance, while the children hopefully go to sleep in the corners of the barn. I wish I had a new dress to wear. My everyday dress is so worn out looking and I don’t think Moma would let me wear my church going dress for a dance.

June 28

Boy is it hot here. The temperature gauge says 95 degrees.

Moma and I went to Mass today at St. Joseph’s church in Glencoe with the Suras. The priest was Father Spitzenburger who comes from Fountain City, but he wasn’t able to stay around to chat afterwards as he had another mass to say someplace else. After the service, we were invited for coffee and cake afterwards by Mr. John Gleason. He told us that this congregation had been set up way back in 1854 and his family had donated the land.

We saw our friends the Sobattas again, and their brothers and met Agatha and Eva Kulig’s brothers who had just come over via Quebec. The older boy, Hyacinth, is 20 and has a job with a nearby farmer, grubbing stumps. He said to tell Pa that another job he heard of as going was hauling stones for lime kilns in the Trempealeau area, but I think that is too far away unless he stayed there. The younger Kulig boy, Jacob, who is 18, will help his sister’s husband, Thomas, on his farm. Both of the boys were pleased to see me again, and said that they hoped to get to dance with me at the 4^th of July party. I sure am looking forward to that.

July 6

We had such a good time at the barn dance. And quite a few of the boys seemed to take a fancy to me. I was never without a partner, but the one who pleased me most was Hyacinth Kulig.

The music was very familiar to us as there were polkas and shottishes, played by fiddles and accordions, just like at home. Then we did some square dancing which I hadn’t done before. I remember some of the names of the square dance calls – Birdie in the Cage, Divide the Ring, Lady round the Lady and the Gent also, and Chase the Rabbit, Chase the Coon.

July 12

The temperature went up to 112 degrees in the sun today, 95 in the shade.  I don’t think we can take much more of this weather. We had another visiting day in Burnside today, and Mrs. Sura (she said to call her Thula but I find that hard to do) taught us to make hooked rag rugs. You have to cut or tear material (usually from worn out clothes) into strips about two inches wide. We found it fun and not too hard, but it will be a long slow process. But eventually we will have a rug for our floor.

I would love to have a dresser again, and a mirror, and a place to keep my things apart from everybody else’s stuff.  The boys don’t take proper care of their things and it is very hard for me to keep my things nice. We have just one set of going to church clothes, which we have to take off as soon as we get home from church – and two sets of work clothes for summer, and two for winter. Pa has taken to wearing bib overalls on top of his other clothes.  And they have loads of pockets and are made of very heavy material but he says they are very hot in this weather. But it means his ordinary clothes don’t get dirty or torn as much as usual.