Born on an Illinois farm in 1906, Splear describes a hard-working but satisfying life as one of four sisters in a tenant farming family. Everyone has clearly defined work to do. Mother gardens, cooks, does the wash, cans food for the winter, and sells her excess butter and cream. The girls help mother in the kitchen and garden, and they take care of the cows when school is out. They help dress and prepare chickens for market, keep the fuel box full, and carry water into the house from the well. Father plows and harvests the crops, cares for the animals, and slaughters them for market. This farm family, living before the invention of labor-saving devices, is a virtuous unit, harmoniously working together, celebrating holidays, and enjoying the fruit of their labors. Although they move from place to place, crops grow, and animals and humans thrive. The family always has food to eat and enough money to buy a $500 car. Stark’s casein paintings are carefully detailed, taking pains to show the readers the unfamiliar household equipment of the time. The washtub, clothes wringer, clothesline, horse-drawn plow, Model T car, and the stove that fills the house with warmth—all recreate what life was like before the mechanized farm. Bath night in the kitchen, showing a girl squeezed into a tin tub bending over as her mother ladles water onto her head, is especially evocative of a time gone by. An idyllic picture of a wholesome, white, midwestern farm family. (Nonfiction. 8-12)
