All Anybody Ever Wanted of ME Was to Work

From "All Anybody Ever Wanted of Me Was to Work... " "Starting around 1950, people stopped raising chickens, milking cows, and raising hogs. They just buy it at the store, ready to eat. A lot buy a steer and have it processed in Dongola and put it in their freezer. What a difference Girls have got it so easy now. They don't even know what it was like to start out. And I guess my mother's life, when she started out, was as hard again as mine, because they had to make everything by hand. I don't know if it could get any easier for these girls. But they don't know what it was like, and they never will. Everything is packaged. All you do is go to the store and buy you a package and cook it. Automatic washers and dryers. I'm glad they don't have to work like I did. Very glad." Edith Bradley Rendleman's story of her life in southern Illinois is remarkable in many ways. Recalling the first half of the twentieth century in great detail, she vividly cites vignettes from her childhood as her family moved from farm to farm until settling in 1909 in the Mississippi bottoms of Wolf Lake. She recounts the lives and times of her family and neighbors during an era gone forever. Remarkable for the vivid details that evoke the past, Rendleman's account is rare in another respect: memoirs of the time--usually written by people from elite or urban families--often reek of nostalgia. But Rendleman's memoir differs from the norm. Born poor in rural southern Illinois, she tells an unvarnished tale of what it was really like growing up on a tenant farm early this century.

ISBN 0809320592   Volumes 1 ISBN13 9780809320592 (What's this?)   Co_publisher Shawnee Books Publisher Southern Illinois University Press   Weight (grammes) 426 Imprint Southern Illinois University Press   Published in Carbondale Format Paperback   Series title Shawnee Books (Paperback) Publication date 31 Mar 1996   Height (mm) 204 Library of Congress 94037252   Width (mm) 178 DEWEY 977.3903092   Spine width (mm) 19 DEWEY edition DC21   Academic level General Pages 240

		Plates
		Editor's Preface
		Map 1: Union County in the Mid-Nineteenth Century
		Map 2: Union County in 1900
		Map 3: The World of Edith Bradley Rendleman's Memoirs
		Introduction by Jane Adams		1
1		The Hard World I Was Born Into		24
2		First Memories of Home		36
3		Spice Cake and Fried Squirrel		51
4		Bringing in the Harvest		66
5		Farm Chores and High Jinks		83
6		A One-Room School with a Potbellied Stove		94
7		"Jump, Edith!"		110
8		Having the Time of Our Lives		128
9		Bedbugs, Fleas, and Hired Hands		141
10		My World Comes Apart		152
11		Carrying On		176
		App. A. The Family of John and Mary Curtis Bradley		183
		App. B. Descendants of Zachariah Lyerla (1755?-1847) Relevant to Edith Bradley Rendleman		184
		App. C. The Family of Adam and Etta Bittle Ballance		186
		App. D. The Family of Allen and Minnie Ballance Morgan		186
		App. E. The Family of Sarah Penrod Grammer Bradley		187
		App. F. The Family of Mary Lyerla		187
		App. G. The Family of Robert and Hallie Crowell Rendleman		188
		App. H. The Family of William and Edith Bradley Rendleman		188
		Notes		189
		Selected Bibliography		201
		More...

"Recalling the details of a long and well-remembered life, these memoirs communicate a way of living far different from that lived now. In the small and large details of daily life, this account reveals many of the changes that worked a revolution in farm life. It is told neither to celebrate the past--that life was far too difficult and loveless to wish to return to--nor to celebrate the present-- there is too much heartache and loneliness for that. Rather, Edith seems motivated by an urge to communicate across the generations, to break through the loneliness imposed by being formed in a different time, a time that those raised since World War II have difficulty imagining."--Jane Adams, from the Introduction

 Be the first to write a customer review