The Maningers grew wheat and corn as a cash crop. But what and how did they feed the family? Billie, tell us about it.
Mealtime
We had a kitchen, a dining room with a potbelly stove and a round table that would seat the whole family. No one ever ate unless the whole family was there.
There were three meals a day, a breakfast that by our standards today seemed like a feast. We always had hot biscuits, bacon, or ham and eggs, oatmeal (that is the only cereal I remember). No matter what time anyone went to bed, they were always up at breakfast time. Dinner was always at noon and supper usually when the chores were done. In the winter it was shortly after dark and in the summer when there was farm work like plowing, planting or harvesting, it could be any time up until 10 p.m.
My Experiences Growing up on our Kansas Farm – Billie Maninger
Butchering
Butchering – Harper, Kansas – c 1900
I remember butcher days – all my uncles and aunts and the kids would come. We had a big vat that they would put the hogs in after they would shoot them; and the men would hang the pigs in trees and take the insides out and cut them up. The women would make sausage with a sausage grinder and render the lard and we always had live for dinner the day they butchered. We kids always had to go to the house when they got ready to kill the hogs. Grandfather Valentine never allowed a picture to be taken of him and the only picture we have of him was one taken while he was butchering hogs.
The only photo we have of Valentine Maninger. Val is the one on the left.
Then the meat would be divided up among the families. We had a small house and they would hang the hams and shoulders up and smoke them for days somehow with a lot of salt and hickory smoke; also the slabs of bacon. The aunts and my mother would can the rest.
I think I was about 12 or 13 years old before I knew a butcher shop had anything but bologna because mother would tell dad to go to the butcher stop and he always brought home bologna; it was the only thing we didn’t raise.
My Experiences Growing up on our Kansas Farm – Billie Maninger
Gardening and canning
We were self-sustaining; the only things we ever bought at a store were sugar and salt. We had our own flour that we ground from the wheat we raised. We had a large orchard of apples, peaches, pears and plums. We had currants for jelly and blackberry patches and strawberries. We had a huge garden and we raised all the vegetables. My mother would can the vegetables and fruit. I remember her saying if she didn’t have 500 quarts of fruit that she felt we didn’t have enough to get through the winter.
We had a cave with lots of shelves and all the canned fruit and vegetables would be stored there. Dad also made wine and I remember big kegs with grape and cherry wine. Also we made sauerkraut. They would shred the cabbage and put it in a wooden barrel and puts lots of salt on it and weights from an old plow and after a few months we would have kraut. We also put pears and apples in the cave in a huge wooden box filled with oats. They would keep fresh for most of the winter. Also we kept the potatoes in the cave. I don’t think we ever bought a potato.
My Experiences Growing up on our Kansas Farm – Billie Maninger
Billie mentions that they never bought a potato. We can see in the 1905 Kansas census that John and Priscilla Maninger planted a full acre of Irish potatoes!
Bread and butter
We had a coal range in our kitchen which, winter and summer, furnished the heat for cooking. It had a high back on it and an enclosure that was called the warming oven. Since all the bread and pies and cakes were baked in the oven below. There were no bakeries and the stores did not carry bread as everyone baked their own. In this warming oven on the back of the stove was what we knew as a “starter” for bread and rolls. It was fermented yeast that was kept alive by always taking some out and putting it back in the warming oven for the next batch of bread. It was always a treat to come home from school just as mother was taking bread or cinnamon rolls out of the oven. I shall never taste anything as good as that warm bread with home-churned butter and sugar.
My Experiences Growing up on our Kansas Farm – Billie Maninger
From the census, we know the families made their own butter and milked their own cows.
The family had made 100 pounds of butter by March 1905. They had 8 milk cows. Maybe they increased the number of milk cows between 1905 and 1909, because John and Priscilla built a modern new dairy barn.
Val and Lena’s farms
While John and Priscilla built a new dairy barn, Val and Lena were continuing to build houses and barns for their other children.
Eating in town
Val and Lena Maninger had moved into the town of Harper in 1899. They still controlled all the farms where their children lived, and no doubt shared in the meat and dairy and vegetables those farms produced. But, if they wanted, they could visit the grocers and restaurants in town.
Carr’s Restaurant – Harper, Kansas – 1909
Poison Cucumbers
I remember Grandad telling me I should not eat cucumbers out of the garden. He said they were poison. He said the only way cucumbers would not hurt you, if you picked them when the dew was on them early in the morning, then bring them in and slice them and put salt on them, leave them all night and the next morning feed them to the hogs. They would never hurt you. We used to make pickles with them, but we were never allowed to eat them.
My Experiences Growing up on our Kansas Farm – Billie Maninger
Other news
Uncle Buddy
Buddy Weyeneth was Priscilla Maninger’s older brother by two years. He had come to live with the Maningers, helping with farmwork and household chores. The Maninger kids loved him.
My mother’s bachelor brother lived with us and he was born in Switzerland. Since my Uncle Buddy played a very important role in my childhood I must tell you many memories about him that I have. The first thing I remember about him was before I started to school and he was building a pigeon house to put on the cow barn. I thought how wonderful he was because he knew just how long a board must be to fit on to another board to make a house. If I ever wanted to know anything I would always ask him. I can remember just how he looked when he would throw his head back and laugh so loud at my curiosity.
I remember him in the field behind a team of horses and a plow, yodeling at the top of his voice. I loved him, I think, more than any one as a child. He was never too busy for me. He would do anything I asked of him. We had horses, as tractors were not yet invented. One horse we had was named Don. When Uncle Buddy would come in from the field I always wanted him to catch Don and put the saddle on him so I could ride. I was with Uncle Buddy from morning ‘til night. He would hold me on his lap on a plow or take me with him on the hayrack or manure spreader or wagon. I don’t ever remember him getting impatient with me.
My Experiences Growing Up On Our Kansas Farm – Billie Maninger
Happy 40th, Priscilla
On August 30, 1910, Priscilla Weyeneth Maninger celebrated her 40th birthday. She was born in 1870 in Roanoke, Illinois.
Priscilla hosted her own 40th birthday dinner because that’s what she loved to do. She was known as a great cook and hostess.
Imaginary view of Priscilla’s 40th birthday party
Kids should be seen and not heard
When we grew up kids were supposed to be seen and not heard. When company was there we always knew to say hello and then leave. When we had guests for dinner the kids always waited outside until they were finished eating and then we would eat. We were to make ourselves scarce during their mealtime. We didn’t feel abused. We didn’t know any different.
My Experiences Growing Up On Our Kansas Farm – Billie Maninger
Mattie and Billie and the wine cellar
One Sunday our parents had guests for dinner and my dad and some of the men had been in the cave sampling some wine. My sister just older than me was about six and I was nearly five. She liked wine very much and knew how to turn on the spigot.
My dad always kept the cave door locked but this day, when they went in to dinner, he forgot to lock it and my sister knew it and we went down into the cave and she started drinking some wine. After awhile we started up the steps and she kept falling down and giggling. I didn’t know why, but I kept helping her up and we went in the house and she started singing “John Brown had a Little Indian.” My dad took one look at her and knew what was wrong.
They put her to bed and she slept all afternoon.
My Experiences Growing Up On Our Kansas Farm – Billie Maninger
Timeline
Sources:
Image – Billie Maninger – age 10 – Maninger Family Photos – Emily Maninger Cheney Collection
Family Nibbles 