Minnesota Pioneer Woman

Growing Up on the Farm at the Start of the 20th Century

De: Curt Langlotz, Laine Bryce

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

This is the story of Leone Rischmiller, born at the turn of the 20th century on a farm just outside the small town of Arlington, Minnesota. This detailed and personal diary captures the vivid details of a young woman's upbringing in early 20th century rural Minnesota, including:

• feeding and watering the cattle, horses, pigs, chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, calves, and colts,
• riding to school in a one-horse open sleigh
• fetching beer from the saloon for her grandfather
• falling asleep while doing homework at the dining table to the light of a kerosene lamp
• managing the chamber pot and the "back house" in winter
• telling time by the sound of the train whistles
• watching the elephants watering at their pond when the circus came to town
• harvesting and hauling wheat, potatoes, and corn
• preparing five meals a day for a family of eleven with no refrigeration or running water
• lamenting the kidnapping of cousins who had lived with them for years
• surviving for eighteen months in a cabin north of Silver Bay during the Great Depression

Later in life, Leone wrote about her past in distinct longhand on whatever paper was available—steno notebooks (including the covers), old newspaper clippings, or the back of junk mail. Those stories were transcribed by her daughter, Laine Bryce, in the mid-1990s, and edited into a narrative by her grandson, Curt Langlotz, in 2021. The result are these touching vignettes of pioneer life.