Story: Rhythms of daily life

Ellen Dennison remembers her work on a farm in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Her day started at 4 a.m. and ended at 11 p.m. Like the anonymous woman in this late 19th-century photograph, milking was part of Dennison's routine. 

Transcript

They had to work hard, milk cows and bake bread and look after their children and all had big families too. I drove the horses and the chaff-cutter for 15 years, cutting this chaff.

Interviewer: Pretty tedious job driving a horse round and round and round for a matter of hours I suppose?

Well I'd be driving from about seven o'clock in the morning until perhaps seven o'clock at night.

Interviewer: Oh wow, and you'd just have a spell for meals?

Yes and I had to go and cook the meals too. I had to milk the cows before I started and after I'd finished.

Interviewer: Not a 40-hour week certainly!

I've seen me get up at four o'clock in the morning and gone to 11 o'clock at night and that went on for years. I'd baked all the bread, made all the butter, made about hundred pound of butter a week.

Interviewer: Is that a fact?

Yes, my son made me a churn. It was just a big box churn and I used to churn about 30 pound of butter at a time.