Rebellious Farm Wife Sounds Off, 1942

From "Letters from Farm Women" in the March 1942 issue of The Farmer’s Wife

Every other month or so a letter appears in ‘Letters from Farm Women’ that is just a variation of the same old story. At considerable length some woman describes her humble farm home and how happy she is to be living in it. She tells of the joyous sight of a cellar full of canned goods, a husband coming home at night, dead-tired from a hard day’s work in the field, and contented children popping corn in the evening.

How those letters irk me! Show me the woman who gets more pleasure from a cellar full of canned goods than form a chic hair-do or a snappy new dress, and I’ll show you a woman whose husband doesn’t love her nearly as much as she thinks he does.

And may the Lord save me from a husband who is too tired at the end of a day’s work to practice a new dance step or take me skating on a moonlit rink. He’d probably be bald-headed.

As far as pop-corn is concerned, my children hate it! So do I. So we all see a movie or go bowling and have a capital time. Evenings at home get tiresome.

I can hear good women disagreeing with me already. Let them. My husband and children love me more for my being able to wear a size 14 bathing suit than they do for my cherry pie, which is really super.

Does a woman have to be an old stay-at-home, or stick-in-the-mud in order to be a good farm homemaker? Not if you ask me.

Let other gentle letter-writers spend the $3 they receive from ‘Farm Women’s Letters’ for baby layettes and gingham aprons. If this is printed, my daughter and I shall have twin manicure sets.

--Rebellious, Minnesota