Beuna Carlson

Short chapters about growing up on a Northwestern Wisconsin dairy farm during the Depression years. Very readable, and I feel like it really gives an accurate portrayal of those years and place as seen from a child's perspective. It seems very much a collection of newspaper or magazine articles that have been collected into book form. Sometimes this means the author repeats herself several times. We hear over and over again how times were hard during the Depression years. There are also hints of family drama (her mother had an abusive father and left home at 18 to never see her parents again, a brother of the author died young, etc.), but we never really hear the whole story. It's much more about the walk to school in below zero temps. Or how the family collected butternuts from the special tree. Or what it felt like to be the first to see the new Sears Roebuck catalog. They are good stories, but it could have been a lot more. Still a quick, easy read about rural America in the 1930's.… (mere)

As I yearn for rural life, this memoir of Carlson's took me back to a simpler time. Reminiscent of Caroline Fraser's biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder, Prairie Fires, Farm Girl recounts the memories of Carlson in a small farming community in Wisconsin during the Great Depression. Her memories are not one of deprivation but of fondness and love for rural life. It is true that their family lived on the edge of poverty, and by today's standards, over the edge, but there is not one line of self pity in this book. Her memories are largely happy ones, despite not having much. "Make do" was the theme of the time. My favorite quote of the book, "As I remember, it was not the difficulties, the bad breaks, the misfortunes that were emphasized but the solutions, the triumphs, and the successful make-dos that were celebrated in our home. Never were we victims."

A particularly poignant attitude in today's life.… (mere)