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Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression
Mildred Armstrong Kalish
#UB6672
Hardcover, 292 pages; 2007
$17.60
For us children, building character, developing a sense of responsibility, and above all, improving one's mind constituted the essential focus of our lives. Childhood was generally considered to be a disease, or, at the very least, a disability, to be ignored for the most part, and remedied as quickly as possible.
With limitless joy and extraordinary grace, Mildred Armstrong Kalish shares a delightful collection of stories about her Depression-era childhood, spent on a farm in Iowa. "Austere and challenging as it was," Kalish says, "it was quite a romp." Indeed, Kalish makes the many laborious chores on the farm sound enriching, if not enjoyable. And her recollections of other activities—like singing along with Aunt Belle's Victrola; getting scrubbed clean and running naked to the windmill for a refreshing rinse; or trying to domesticate an uncooperative opossum—abound with true bliss. A charming and fascinating memoir, Little Heathens offers a remarkably detailed and inspiringly happy portrait of "a time, a place, a way of life long gone." (And the old-fashioned recipes—including one for homemade marshmallows—are not to be missed!)
(CH)
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