​Life on the Plains

Anyone hoping to bring the creature comforts of life back east with them to the Great Plains must have been sorely disappointed. The Great Plains was no place for the weak. In the summer, you baked in 100 degree heat and in the winter the -30 degree temperatures turned your eyelashes into popsicles. Then there was the wind - constant, relentless wind that drove people half-crazy with its howling. Droughts could last for years. Grasshopper swarms could descend like a biblical plague and devour an entire year's crop in an afternoon. Tall prairie grass stretched in all directions for miles, with barely a tree in sight except along creek beds and river bottoms.

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Most folks had already sold everything and turning back wasn't an option. The first thing on their minds once they arrived on their empty plot of land was building a house. This was as a new of an experience for them as it would be for us. Since trees were scarce that meant building with wood was out of the question. The other option often came in the most abundant natural resource available - sod. Sod is a clumpy mixture of vegetation and dirt that makes the land so difficult for wimpy plows to break through. However, it makes an excellent building material that keeps the house cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Relatively speaking that is. The walls were typically 2-3 feet thick, which provided great insulation but also made the interior pretty dark.

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Plains farmers - known as sodbusters - got to work carving out bricks of sod and stacking them on top one another. Building a typical soddy required cutting thousands of these bricks. A door and a window might give some light but not much. The roof was also made of sod, which meant that when it rained, mud would drip down on everything for days afterward. A fireplace was built along the back wall that served as a kitchen and heating unit for the family. In your comfy new soddy, measuring maybe 12 by 14 feet, your family of 5-6 people would eat, sleep, cook, sew, entertain, and relax after a hard day of farming.

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Keeping a soddy clean was impossible. After all, your house was made of dirt. Housewives tried their best but from their diaries, you can tell it was a never-ending battle. Inside was smoky from wood fires or more commonly burning buffalo chips (ahem dung). Insects and mice burrowed through the dirt walls and ceiling. Rattlesnakes were everywhere. People often slept with a hoe or a stick nearby to kill any venomous intruders.

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If you think that living in a soddy was bad, wait until you hear about the rest of how Plains farmers spent their days. Farming took up the majority of the family's time. The sod had to be broken in the spring using a team of six oxen and a heavy plow that could weigh up to 300 pounds. This "breaking" process was backbreaking work - the prairie grass roots went down several feet. Once broken, farmers planted wheat and corn, though success was never guaranteed with the unpredictable weather. The fields had to be weeded. Men and women both worked the field. But women had even more responsibilities. From sun up to sun down there was a long list of chores that kept these people busy. Cows needed milking, wood chopped, water collected, butter churned, clothes washed and sewn, meals prepared, fences mended, tools needed repairing, the list goes on and on. Even drawing water for most folks meant a walk of a few miles to the nearest creek. When you weren't working on your own farm you were expected to help out at your neighbor's place. After all, they did the same for you. Now you get an idea of why farmers had such big families back in those days.

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But one thing that most pioneers didn't consider was the intense loneliness of the Great Plains. Many pioneers describe in their diary feelings of intense isolation and sadness. Their nearest neighbors often lived a mile or more away. Life could be pretty dull. Children's toys were often sticks or logs that they gave names to. Often times the biggest social event was helping your neighbor build a barn or women might sew together in something called a quilting bee. With most people living miles apart church services happened when a circuit preacher came through, once a month if you were lucky. Neighbors might get together to play cards or board games but not often enough to keep people from feeling small and alone. The isolation hit women especially hard - doctors at the time documented cases of "prairie madness," a very real mental health crisis brought on by the crushing loneliness and endless work. Some people couldn't handle it and headed back east. Others went insane. Most just made the best out of a really tough situation.