American Experience

Interview with Mrs. Elizabeth E. Miller

Interviewee: Mrs. Elizabeth E. Miller (Grammy Miller)
Age: 90 years old
Ethnicity: Scotch/Yankee
Family: 4 boys, Clarence, John, James, George and 1 daughter who died in infancy
Location: Mountain and Lake View Farm, West Newbury, Vermont
Date: November 4 and 16, 1938

Interviewer: Rebecca M. Halley

Interview Excerpt: "Did you ever have to do work that the men usually did?"

One fall we had a five hundred and fifty pound dressed hog hanging in the yard. The men went off to Wells River to take up another hog they had dressed at the same time and left it hanging there and the caldron kettle half full of water. They aimed to get back and take the hog down to cellar before it froze. It would never do to let pork that was going to be salted freeze. I was all alone with the children and I waited until almost twelve. My husband didn't come and so I took a lantern and a saw and a knife and went out to fetch in that hog... I cut up that hog and loaded it piecemeal onto the sled. The worst part was getting it through the front door, but I managed. I had it all done before my husband got home. He asked who had brought the hog in. I said, 'I did.' He asked who helped and I said, "Alone." I wasn't wasting many words on him. He was struck dumb.

Excerpt from the Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, WPA Federal Writer's Project Collection, Transcript #37130111.

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