Emily's father and brothers do most of the work with the crops, livestock and horses. But Emily and her sisters do much of the milking and help Mother with the garden and chickens. Eggs, sold in town on Saturdays, are a key way to get cash for household items that can't be grown, raised or made by hand. The family is isolated in many ways, but at least they now get mail delivered on a rural route. Unlike some other Iowans, the family has a telephone, and that helps.
School is a walk of nearly two miles.
No state law requires her to attend, but Emily tries to make it if at all possible. Only about 40 percent of school-aged students regularly attend. There are 23 students at the school, counting all eight grades. Iowa has 14,296 school districts, none of them subsidized by the state. Teachers are poorly paid, so there's not much incentive to become one.