Doing the Neighbors' Chores

May 1, 1931  H. H. Reimers were here.  C. Dalkes came over.  They are going to Nebraska so he gave instructions for doing chores.  Our children did their chores.

A farm family could not travel overnight because chores had to be done twice daily.  Cows, pigs, and chickens had to be fed and watered twice daily.  Cows had to be milked twice daily; and for much of the year, eggs had to be gathered daily.  The farmer’s wife or older children could do the chores on their own if the farmer left, but the whole family could not leave for even one day.   If a couple had no children at home anymore, such as the Cornelius Dalkes, they could never travel.  But the Dalkes’ children lived in Nebraska, where the Dalkes had lived before the Kleine Gemeinde moved to Meade, so they wanted to go visit them.  And many other people had similar situations.

The solution was for neighbors to do the chores.  The Siemens lived less than a mile from the Dalkes, so the Dalkes came over to the Siemens to explain how the chores needed to be done.  The normal arrangement was that the neighbors could keep the cream and eggs for doing the chores.  The cream would be sold for a little extra cash and the eggs eaten.  The four older children (Mary, Jake, Corney, and John) did the chores, and some of them probably stayed at the Dalkes’ house so that they would not have to walk over in the early morning before breakfast to do their chores.  

Normally, the next time the Siemens wanted to travel, they could ask the Dalkes to help with their chores.  But in this case, they probably would not do that because the Dalkes were an older couple with no children at home, so it would have been a burden for them to do the Siemens’ chores.  In this case, the Siemens were just doing a favor for some older relatives.