June 30th, 2008 - Book review: We Belong to the Land
We Belong to the Land by Beulah Meier Pelton is a memoir of farming during the 20s, 30s, and 40s in Iowa. What I love most is that Beulah knows full well that “the good old days” weren’t all that great–from outhouses to no running water to backbreaking work. She tells it like it is (was). She talks about the delights and how when the opportunity came to quit farming she realized how much she loved it. But she also talks about the realities they face without pulling punches. (I skipped a number of bloody passages about birth and death on the farm.) It’s also quite funny; she’s not a “farm wife” and pales in comparison to many of her neighbors. It’s full of vignettes of their 18+ years (plus a few chapters about her grandmother and mother as well her childhood) as tenant farmers. Although only a little over 100 pages, I felt like I knew them by the end–and wish I could go meet them!
Actually, I wished they were relatives I could go visit; not too far fetched since my Mom’s family is all in Iowa. I recently read through the family genealogy looking for old fashioned baby names, and I don’t remember any Beulahs.
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