Pioneer Women

Icelandic pioneer woman spinning. (Provincial Archives of Manitoba, New Iceland Collection 507, N11492)

W.J. Sisler (see post below) interviewed Kari Byron from Lundar in the winter of 1944

"My mother raised ten children and we hadn't much money. We had a flock of sheep - 50 to 75. The wool was nearly all used in the home. She washed, carded, spun and knitted that wool into mittens, socks and underwear for the whole family. She made shoes and moccasins from the hides of the sheep and cattle. She did this for several years. One year she knitted five heavy sweaters for winter wear.
Butter. She made hundreds of pounds during the year, most of it in spring and summer. The milk was put in shallow pans - the cream skimmed off then churned by hand. It was salted and packed into tubs and kept till fall. In the fall it was taken out, worked into pound prints. It was taken to Winnipeg and exchanged for tea, coffee, sugar and other goods we could not produce ourselves. We always had plenty of meat, fish, venison and if we were short of these we could snare all the rabbits we wanted [...]
How my mother ever did bring up a family of ten, and do all the work herself except milking cows. When we were away making hay she sometimes did milk the cows too. She would take all summer to make 1500 pounds of butter. Now they make as much in the creamery in an hour.
I'm telling you all this as a tribute to my mother. In any story of the early days the work of women such as she should be recorded. They kept the home fires burning while the men were in the fields, woods, on the trail or fishing out on the Lake. Younger generations should know and appreciate what they did"