Do you have any close relatives who homesteaded in days gone by

**homesteadmamma** · 01-07-2006, 08:38 PM

My great granny came here from England and homesteaded. The old home is still standing although not liveable. She has been gone now for 35 years, however I'm reminded daily of her whenever I think about homesteading.

**duckduckgoose007** · 01-07-2006, 09:27 PM

My Dad's family home in Lacute, Canada...is still occupied.

I beleive it is now owned by a French family.

It is an old stone house, that my Dad was born in.

A few years ago, they had a reunion in Lacute & both my Brother's got to look at the outside & the barns.

They also took pictures. My youngest Brother has an Artist friend who painted a picture of the farm in Lacute.

It is a lovely painting.

I was in Lacute a few times when I was a child.

**slowtypinwoman** · 01-07-2006, 09:42 PM

No I don't, but the land we bought still has the original homestead on it. A log cabin of 150 some years old. It is occupied by groundhogs now. It is very cool. You can still see where the logs were hued. I think that is the word.

**dwallyfam** · 01-07-2006, 09:49 PM

My grandparents used to homestead. They had two places on in St Joe Mo and then after a few years they moved down to the Lake of the Ozarks Mo and had a cabin and everything.

Kellie

**Valerie in WA** · 01-08-2006, 12:35 PM

Not exactly, but...

My mother grew up in house located rurally, outside a town of 500 people in Northern Wisconsin. They gardened. They had an outhouse. They kitchen sink water was operated by hand pump (and cold water only, of course). The house had three rooms: a living/dining/kitchen (which doubled as my uncle's bedroom), the adults' bedroom and the bedroom my mom & aunt shared. The house measured 16 x 20 ft (320sq ft). What's amazing about this history is that my mom was born in 1950 and lived in that house until 1968.

My dh's grandparents homesteaded/ranched in Montana. I believe that they leased the land from the Forest Service for $1/year. The house is now gone, but the road is passable. We've been out there a couple of times. We've found part of the house foundation. We tried using a metal detector, but it found every tiny nail. The neighbors refer to the area as "Smith's Meadow" (not our real last name). Dh has contacted the Forest Service and is in the process of officially naming the area after his family (at no cost).

When we realize our dream of having a large property with a few vacation rental cabins, we will call it "Smith's Meadow Cabins" - even though it won't be in Montana.

My dh is that last of the "Smiths" since he had no brothers, and we have two daughters.

**momof42003** · 01-08-2006, 07:35 PM

My DH grand parents live in a converted carriage house.. When they moved in clear back in the 50's it still had the huge double doors where the horses would have come in through.. They totally remodeled it and it now has a huge brick fireplace where the doors were, and now has a dining area indoor bathroom, and a complete upstairs with another bathroom.. When they first had their home they had about 20 acres with cows, horses the whole nine yards.. Now that they are much older (94 and 85) they have even had to take the garden down from almost an acre to just enough for themselves... Grandma still cans, and makes bread from scatch, I don't believe I have ever seen any "ready made" items in her house.. She knits, crochets, sew (with a tredel sewing machine I might add), and still loves to send hand written letters... Back in the day they had an awesome homestead going on. Now it is just a nice place to get away from home life at my house.. It is now busy with grandchildren and great grand children raiding the strawberry patch and riding 4-wheelers around the property (If you can get Grandpa to let you have a turn-he is the one who just turned 94), while grandma over seeds tomatoes, so that when it is harvest time she has way too many to can, but does so anyway. I really need to sit down with them one day REALLY soon and talk to them about growing up and such.. They both have had interesting lives, and I want my kids to know about it... Any way they are the only ones I can think of who actually homesteaded...

**forestdale** · 01-08-2006, 07:45 PM

One of my mother's ancestors came out from England as part of the Royal Corps who accompanied the convicts to Australia on the second fleet in 1790. they were encouraged to stay by being offered land grants. He took one and was trasnferred to the NSW Corps. When he married, they built a homestead on their land, which is now part of Sydney, but was then in the sticks.

My father's family came from ireland during the potato famine, 1850s. They bought land about 200 kms from where I live now and lived on a homestead there for about 65 years. The house is still standing.

When I lived up north, I had a lot of friends who were homesteaders. their properties were each spread out over 10,000 sq kilometres. We spent many days with the kids out on those homesteads. The kids learned about milking and horse riding out there. It still is a very tough life out there but I don't know of one person who would change it for city life.

**canadian gardener** · 01-08-2006, 10:22 PM

My grandad on my dad's side came over from England and worked then bought acreage near Lac La Hache in BC, built a log cabin that he and the nurse he married settled in and had their two babies (my dad and my uncle) in. Still standing. It's an antique store now.

On my mothers side they came of Scottish settler stock who settled in Ontario as farmers, some in the early days others came more recently.

**jlxian** · 01-10-2006, 05:06 PM

My great grandparents on my mother's side homesteaded in western Kansas in the late 1800s. They had a sod house and my grandmother was born in the sod house. They eventually had to give up their homestead and return to Missouri --- they hand dug a well, but couldn't get deep enough to find water.

**SewCrafty** · 01-10-2006, 05:18 PM

Originally posted by momof42003
My DH grand parents live in a converted carriage house.. When they moved in clear back in the 50's it still had the huge double doors where the horses would have come in through.. They totally remodeled it and it now has a huge brick fireplace where the doors were, and now has a dining area indoor bathroom, and a complete upstairs with another bathroom.. When they first had their home they had about 20 acres with cows, horses the whole nine yards.. Now that they are much older (94 and 85) they have even had to take the garden down from almost an acre to just enough for themselves... Grandma still cans, and makes bread from scatch, I don't believe I have ever seen any "ready made" items in her house.. She knits, crochets, sew (with a tredel sewing machine I might add), and still loves to send hand written letters... Back in the day they had an awesome homestead going on. Now it is just a nice place to get away from home life at my house.. It is now busy with grandchildren and great grand children raiding the strawberry patch and riding 4-wheelers around the property (If you can get Grandpa to let you have a turn-he is the one who just turned 94), while grandma over seeds tomatoes, so that when it is harvest time she has way too many to can, but does so anyway. I really need to sit down with them one day REALLY soon and talk to them about growing up and such.. They both have had interesting lives, and I want my kids to know about it... Any way they are the only ones I can think of who actually homesteaded...

This is just way too cool! Don't forget to either tape the conversation or at least have a recorder handy. What a fantastic way to learn about early life in North America!

**Michele Annette** · 01-11-2006, 12:57 PM

My great grandparents and my PaPa (when he was an infant), on my father's side, came to settle in Geneva, NY back in 1923 from Sicily. I only remember my great grandma in small spruts, since she died when I was very young. My great grandfather died when I was first born. Some things I remember about my great grandma were that she made everything by hand. Clothing, beautiful doilies, pillows, afghans, etc. She made the best Italian food known to man and still to this day we cannot replicate her pizza (we have tried several times). She had a Summer kitchen in her basement where she did all of her canning and cooking in the Summer. Also in the basement were very long tables where we used to all gather as a family for huge dinners. She had the most beautiful gardens I had ever seen. Both ornimental and vegetable. They grew a lot of what they ate. They didn't have animals though. My great grandma was also had a very stong faith in the catolic church. In the parlor she had a 5 foot statue of the Virgin Mary dressed in the most beautiful cloaks that my great grandmother made and embroidered by hand. She always had candles lit at the statue's feet. This intrigued me so much as a child. I would love to just look at this statue. She was so beautiful.

**AmyBoz** · 01-21-2006, 01:59 PM

My fathers mother grew up on a farm in rural Ohio. As a child, they lived completely off of the farm. She never lost all of the things she knew how to do, like crocheting, cooking from scratch, hanging clothes on the line, etc., but when she and Grandpa got married and moved to a house in a real town, she was ready for all of the innovations of the 40's and so on. I used to love to go back with her to the farm (her brother took it over when their parents died) and see how it all worked. They also had Amish families who worked the land with them. Pretty cool.

**crunchycon** · 01-29-2006, 08:54 AM

My great-grandparents homesteaded on the western slope of the Colorado Rockies when they thought my grandmother had TB..so they loaded up the Model T and drove all the way from PA...this was back in 1917. They moved back to KY when my GGF went back into the coal industry in the 30s.

**rebecca** · 01-29-2006, 10:35 AM

My great grandmother and grandma. My great grandmother homesteaded tell she was is her later 70's. What really amazed me with her she had so much energy. Naturally when she got older she had a smaller garden, but one thing she always had was strawberries. Everytime we went to her house she always made us a huge strawberry shortcake (shortcake naturally were homemade) with tons of ice cream. We used to call her Grandma
Strawberry. They would harvest their food and go to the Public Market and sale their food from the farm. They had a dairy farm and my great-grandpa would go around and sell the milk.

My grandma, who was great-grandma's daughter, both her and her husband worked on the farm until they were in their early fourty's than moved on Center Ave. which have beautiful homes. Although they quit homesteadding, my grandma was always sewing, needlepointing, croteching (sp), canning. On top of all this she would do the accounting for my grandpa's business and her son's.

**rebecca** · 01-29-2006, 10:43 AM

Also, wanted to add that with all the homesteaders did way back than it seems as if they had tons of energy. Not only did they work on the farm they had their regular housework to do. Some without washers and dryers. Taking care of their families and they didn't have only one or two kids. My great-grandma had five children by her first marriage. Her first husband died and she remairried and they had four more kids. My god, than we complain about being tired with all the conveniences we have. Don't get it. Does anybody else feel this way?