Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1914-11-04
THE FARMERS WIFE.
She is the Person on the Farm Who
Can Least be Spared.

speaking races, until it is driven
home to us that the farmer, besides
live stock of various kinds, and
children of various ages, has wife.
Until we make life on the farm sat
isfying to the farmers wife, we will
labor in vain to check the drift Of
rural population to the towns and
cities.
The farmers wife is really the
best thing on the farm. She works
more hours than any laborer in the
city or town, more hours than the
hardest driven lawyer or doctor. In
addition to this, she is the mother
of the farmers children. She really
has the biggest place on the farm.
Often, when accident or death lays
the farmer low, the wife takes hold
of the farm and manages it, some
times succeeding better even than
her husband did. If it were not
for her thrift, her ability to make
little go long ways, and to get
large part Of the living of the fam
lily off the farm in the shape of vege-
tables, butter and eggs, a good many
farmers would have broken up long
ago. She is the person on the farm
who can least be spared, and the
hardest person for whom to find a
substitute.
Why should we not make the life
of this hard worked farmers wife
as comfortable as possible and farm
life for her as satisfactory as posi-
BILE? There is one thing greatly in
our favor in this attempt. She loves
her children. She fears the dangers
of bad companions to her children.
She breads the foul-mouthed boy,
and the foolish or silly and uncouth
girl She knows there is less dang
er in the country to her brood, for
which she would give her life at any
time, than in the city. Hence her
inclinations naturally lead her to
prefer the country. Why should we
take advantage of this mother-love
by asking her to do things that there
is no need of her doing? For exam
pie, when the farmer installs a wat
er system on the farm, why should
she not have one in the house? When
he puts tank heaters in his water
tank to take the chill off the water
for his live stock, why not have hot
should she churn when it is posi-
Bile to organize a creamery? Why
after the creamery is organized
should she do her own washing, and
often that of hired hands as well,
when it is possible to operate a CO.
operative laundry in connection with
the creamery? Why should she
wear out her life in poorly con-
structed house, where two steps are
necessary where one should be
enough? Why should she have to
go around and pick up after hus-
band and children, when it would
he a great deal better for them to
pick up after themselves, thus train
ing them to habits of neatness to
take into their own homes later on?
Why should not the farmers wife
be encouraged to have her club, her
church society? She loves her hus-
band, she loves her boy; but no wO-
man is entirely satisfied unless she
has from time to time the compan-
ionship of women outside her own
immediate family.
If we are to make the home happy
and farm life satisfactory and worth
while, we must consider the farmers
wife and inquire in what way mere
man, naturally stupid, can add to
her comfort No amount OF study
viii ever enable us to do that, be-
cause men don't understand women
and women's ways Of looking at
things. Himself Ito use an Irish
term will simply have to ask her
SELF, and let herself tell him
self what herself wants. Then
let himself proceed to do it,
Give the farmers wife a chance to
go to church. There are five times
Cat least as many religious germs
per cubic centimeter in her system
as in the system of the farmer. Give
her an opportunity to develop her
religious instinct naturally. We
sometimes fear that they are quite
ready to; but when they tell us they
are buying one for the sake of the
wife, we give up at once and say:
buy two" The field of human Wis
ION in the country is measured by
an hours journey by whatever
means of travel may be available. 1t
was very limited when we had to
walk, not over two or three miles.
When we got a good trotting horse,
ii Stretched out to ten miles. The
Automobile has extended it to TWEEN
ty. There is nothing else that tends
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