An unlocked farmhouse in Morgan County. A blizzard in April 1960. Dozens of people without power, water or food. What did they do? Diana Chamness tells the story.
Rural Life
Gay Burkhart
Gay Burkhart talks about Indianapolis and Westfield in the 1940’s, coal furnaces, tin can phones, and telephone party-line etiquette.
Jacquelyn Adele Cornish
Over the course of her life Jacquelyn Cornish has learned the full story of how the loss of her grandparents farmhouse to a fire changed the lives of her family and the surrounding community in Freeport Pennsylvania.
John Carl Trimble
John Carl Trimble tells a 150 year-old story about how a great, great, strong-willed Aunt held off Morgan’s Raiders with a country breakfast at the family farm in Carlisle, Indiana.
Lou Ann Homan
All that her three little boys wished for Christmas was a pony. But in order to raise the $75 dollars to pay for it their homesteading mother would have to bake THIRTY PUMPKIN PIES for Thanksgiving … with no electricity, no running water and a wood burning stove! This...
Michael O’Brien
Michael Obrien talks about training to go to India with the Peace Corps in 1973, how growing up in a large family on a Wisconsin dairy farm helped prepare him for that work and how stories and language affect our world view.
Nichole Leigh Markle
Nicole Markle tells of her love of dance and how her mother struggled to pay for the education that would lead away from rural Virginia to a much bigger world.
Letha &Tisha Pletcher
Letha Pletcher tells her granddaughter Tisha about living near the railroad in Pierceton, Indiana during the 1930’s; playing in grain elevators, air that smelled of peppermint, and feeding the hungry.
Tammy Ann Lieber
Years after leaving home Tammy Lieber visited the rural farm house of her childhood periodically to reflect and rebuild her life. In this excerpt of her life story she describes listening to the wonderful range of sounds of the country heard from the porch and her...