Family Life

By Jillian Halterman and         Jessie Eversole During Pioneer days, the houses in Timnath were spread far apart. But, that didn't keep the women away for long. They often had get-togethers for large parties. Everyone knew each other. If you were to walk down main street in the 1800s and early 1900s, you would see many people out and about.

When the women were not around town, they worked hard. Every day they took a big lunch out to the men in the fields. Making lunch was a long task. The women of the family also made many quilts. Many of them were used for bed covers at night. They were very warm, and kept everyone comfortable. Many of the neighboring women worked together in one room on different quilts, and had an enjoyable time talking. Often times, the patches on the quilts represented something about each person in the family.

When a pioneer family moved, they had to start all over. They had to either make or buy all new furniture, and that cost a lot of money. They didn't have enough room on the covered wagons to bring everything. Sometimes, they even had to make new shampoos and soaps. To wash clothes, they also had to buy new tin tubs. One of the very big, and necessary items they used was a wood burning stove. Every time they cooked, they had to use it to make bread, meat, soup and many other common foods. Wood burning stoves were very warm, of course. If women and children were not careful, they could easily catch their sleeve on fire from the blazing hot stove! Cleaning and working on the stoves was a dirty and very dusty job.

The kids in Timnath didn't all go to the Timnath school. They would attend schools in surrounding towns. Many kids went to Harmony Elementary school located on Harmony Road. Every day, young girls had to wear dresses to school. When they would return home, they had to immediately change into their chore clothes. The kids had to do many chores at home such as shaking out the rugs and sweeping.Sometimes boys helped their fathers pick onions in the fields.

Pioneers used to make all of their own cleaning supplies. They made them out of herbal essences. People made their own soap too. Each family had their own recipe for their family soap. Women used brooms often. They used them to sweep, kill bugs and to dust.

The food they made was prepared on an open fire. If they didn't have their own food they didn't eat, meaning that if they couldn't supply their own food, they wouldn¹t buy any at the store because there weren't any stores. Before people ever had general stores, which were established in 1889, people had "shops on wheels." Peddlers for the shops on wheels would have eggs, butter, chickens, news, messages and even gossip. They would also have products such as pots, pans, needles, thread, sugar, salt, coffee and tea. People in Timnath had a drug store that was located in the hotel.

They shared fruits and vegetables that they grew with their neighbors. During the winter, they had to dry and salt their meat to preserve it. Children, starting at the age of eight, helped their parents cook dinner often. Fat from the animals could be used to make soap, baking and even for preserving other meats. They could also melt it and cook meat into it.

Aprons were used often in a daily life. Women and children wore them while cooking. They were also used for candy holders for kids, to remove hot pans from the stove, to wipe babies tears away, and to wash clothes.

The kids in Timnath didn't all go to the Timnath school. They would attend schools in surrounding towns. Many kids went to Harmony Elementary school located on Harmony Road. Every day, young girls had to wear dresses to school. When they would return home, they had to immediately change into their chore clothes. The kids had to do many chores at home such as shaking out the rugs and sweeping.Sometimes boys helped their fathers pick onions in the fields. Wives had a very big job to take care of a house, and a big family. Homemaking is a topic that is important to the way pioneers lived.

Bibliography

Miller, Del and Elsie Fisher. Timnath
Timnath: Columbine Club, 1996.
Fisher, Elsie. Personal Interview. 7 May 2003.
Miller, Dell. Personal Interview. 7 May 2003.
Shader, Keith. Personal Interview. 7 May 2003.
Shader, Barb. Personal Interview. 7 May 2003.

Jillian's Processing Page
I created this Timnath History page when I was in the sixth grade as a part of a final choice class. My group and I chose this topic because of our interest in how pioneers lived their home lives, and of our interest in historical homes. Most of our information came from the Timnath History Book. We couldn't have written our article though without the helpful information from Elsie Fisher. My group and I had a lot of information before the interview. We were really looking forward to the interview though. We were not nervous at all, we knew that we would get a lot of information from the interview; and we did!

Before we started our article, we researched in the Timnath History Book for about three days. That book is full of a lot of information and was very well written. The most interesting thing anyone that we interviewed brought was the historical items found in a house in Timnath. I would really like to thank Mrs. Durkin and all of the people I interviewed. I thank Del Miller and Elsie Fisher for their excellence in writing in the Timnath History Book. Finally, I thank the Columbine Club for their help.

The best thing about this project was all of the interesting facts, and all of the historical items that we investigated. It was so interesting to learn all of the facts about the tiny little town of Timnath. Many of them, I didn't know. I think that it would be really interesting for future researchers to investigate more about historical people and houses. Many of our topics could be researched more. Working through this whole experience was great!

Jessie's Processing Page
I created this history of Timnath page when I was in sixth grade as a part of a final choice class. I chose the topic of Timnath homemaking because there wasn't much information on it. Also because I woke up one morning thinking I knew nothing about how people lived in Timnath back in the 1800s, and I wasn't going to leave Timnath Elementary not knowing about it.

I got my information from interviewing women that have lived in Timnath all their lives. Also, the Timnath book of history helped a lot. The interviews went well and were a lot of fun. As I said, I didn't know much about Timnath homemaking before the interviews. I had only gotten a little information from the Timnath book of history. I was a little nervous before them too, because I was worried I'd say the wrong thing and offend them on accident. Once we started it was all ok though and they showed me and told me some very interesting things. One person showed me a cheerleading uniform they had when they were young and one person showed me a lot of stuff they had found in their house that people had had when they lived there "back in the day." This interviewing process was a very good experience.

I would like to thank Del Miller and Elsie Fisher for all of their information that they gave me. They were very helpful and I couldn't have finished this project without it.

This project was a pretty fun project to do. I think I liked the interviewing part the best, because I learned a lot and got to meet some very interesting people that were very friendly. If I could do it all over again I wouldn't have changed a thing. I hope that I made a difference in the society of Timnath. I hope kids will read this and learn what I learned and want to take this class.