We have begun learning about Verlane and Lois Willard growing up with their three sisters on their farm in Sodus Township, Lyon County.

The Willards had a large farmhouse, but sleeping quarters were tight with their Grandma Willard living with them.

(Lois) “Iva and I always shared a bedroom. (Verlane) Fran, Fern, and I always slept together. There were three of us in bed and Grandma’s (room) was down the hall to the right. (Lois) Mom and Dad’s bedroom was downstairs.”

The Willard sisters enjoyed played together.

(Verlane) “We’d play in the grove in the summertime. It’d be cool there. (Lois chuckled) We’d take little sticks, scrape (the ground) with our hands, and then build little houses. This is this room and this is the bathroom and we’d dig a little hole.”

Making mud pies was another favorite pastime, but they needed a missing ingredient.

(Verlane) “We knew it had to have an egg in it. (Lois chuckled) Mom caught us one time taking an egg from underneath a hen to put in our mud pies. (Verlane, laughing) Mom was picking eggs when we came in to get an egg from the chicken house. That was the end of eggs in the mud pies.”

The sisters also recalled more active forms of play.

(Verlane) “We used to climb trees and swing. (Lois) Our cousin was older than us, but we thought we could do anything he did. (Verlane) Once he jumped from the machine shed to the hog house roof. (Lois) So, like fools, we had to follow him. (Verlane) It was like a 3-foot chasm. (Lois, laughing) We jumped. It’s a wonder we didn’t fall and break a leg.”

Lois shared an indoor play choice one December that landed her and Fran in trouble.

“Grandma was in a rocking chair, listening to the radio. Mom and Dad went into town. (Verlane) We (Iva, Verlane, and Fern) were in school. (Lois) Mom had just rendered lard in a big, cast-iron pot. Fran and I thought we’d have fun skating. So, we put this soft lard down on the new kitchen linoleum and went skating. We were barefoot and had a ball! Mom came home and had to scrub the floor by hand.”

Life on the farm was not all play. Their parents’ livestock needed daily care.

(Verlane) “Dad had cattle, pigs, and horses then. (Lois) Mom had chickens and eggs. (Verlane) Dad used the horses for everything. (Lois) Plowing. (Verlane) Cutting and raking the hay and planting the corn. (Lois) Putting the hay up. It would go on slings and up into the barn. The horses pulled that up. When he got his first tractor I thought, ‘What’s the tractor going to do? The horses do all this work.'”

Some of the livestock provided a regular source of income.

(Lois) “A Slayton guy picked up the eggs by the carton. (Verlaine) It was a big carton of at least three dozen. (Lois) That was Mom’s money to spend for groceries. It was the same way with the cream. (Verlane) David Hilquist was our cream hauler from Balaton. Dad had five or six milk cows. (Lois) Mom and Dad always milked by hand. I think that was the only time they got to spend alone because Grandma lived with us. They milked together and could talk to each other while milking.”

Like all farm kids, the Willard sisters had chores from an early age.

(Verlane) “Some of the earliest chores involved bringing two, bushel baskets of cobs in the house. When I was about three, I’d go with Dad to do chores. When he went out to milk, it was my job to go along and feed the kitties. Once Dad left to put out a salt block for the cattle. There was a rooster in the barn who didn’t like me. The minute Dad shut that door, the rooster came flying across the barn, jumped on my chest, and started pecking at my face. I was screaming and crying. Dad came in and we had chicken dinner that Sunday. (Verlane and Lois laughed)”

The sisters recalled that chicken chores and harvesting fruit in season were always a thing.

(Verlane) “We always had chicken chores. We’d carry water to the chickens and feed them oyster shells, grit, and ground corn. Picking raspberries was another chore. Mom tied a muslin belt around gallon pails, so we could carry it, leaving our hands free to pick a gallon of berries. (Lois) And we had all kinds of apples.”

Bringing the cattle home from pasture was another responsibility.

(Lois) “Fran and I got the cattle. They were always at the farthest end of the pasture. We went down there barefoot. I went across the creek, stepping on what I thought was a nice, solid piece. When we came back, I looked again and it was a big, old snapper turtle that I had stepped on. (Lois laughed) That was quite an experience, but we got the cattle home. We unplugged the electric fence and brought them in the cattle yard.”

As they grew older, the small grain harvest (threshing) created additional responsibilities.

(Verlane) “Iva and I did some of the shocking of oats and flax. (Stacking shocks in the field to shed rain.) (Lois) I drove tractor while they threw the shocks from the field on the wagon. (The threshing crew fed them into the threshing machine that separated the grain from the straw and chaff.)

The Willard girls’ social life revolved around their extended family, church, and school.

©2026 William D. Palmer.