From an interview with Christina Denton, Little River
They worked very hard in those days. I, you know, you got up and you, to begin with, you made all your own bread, you know, you baked your bread but your bread then, back in those days, I was just talking about this to someone yesterday, about how hard they did work, those people. You made your bread overnight, you raised your yeast after supper at night and before you went to bed you mixed your bread, a big pan of bread and in the morning when you awoke, that bread was running everywhere because it had raised. My mother would put it in a pan, she’d have four and five big double loaves of bread out of this and they did that several times a week, like every other day, it wouldn’t be everyday but every other day they’d have to, ‘cause you didn’t go to the store and buy a loaf of bread. Even after I was married, I didn’t go to the store and buy a loaf of bread because I made bread three times a week and that’s what they did back then, they made the bread. They washed their clothes, they got, like first they’d get their children up and out, if they were old enough to go to school, they got them out to school and then there would be the washing to do and the washing was done on Monday. Everyday it seemed to be that there was something special that had to be done. Monday would be your washing, Tuesday, besides you getting your meals and all the other chores that go on all day, your washing would be Monday, Tuesday you would iron, everything in those days was ironed, it wasn’t permanent pressed, it was all ironed. I remember my mother, she used to even iron the facecloths, yeah, they ironed their facecloths, their pillow cases, I don’t do none of that nowadays, they’re lucky if they get washed (Laughter) but in those days they ironed everything and they were ironed with irons from the stove, you heated them on the stove and you had your handle that you’d put in and go to the stove back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. They got plenty of exercise.








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