Ice Before Refrigerators
How did families who lived out in the country keep ice for their ice boxes, and how did they keep it from melting?
C. Smith
Reply from Darrell Wiseman, Indiana
An ice man came around in a wagon and delivered large blocks of ice. You would take an ice pick and break off a chunk for your ice box. The rest of the ice was wrapped in cloth and placed in straw, out in your "ice" house.
Reply from Tom Mlinar, Wisconsin
When I was a kid we lived in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, on a 160-acre farm. There were Mom and Dad, six brothers [and] one sister. Each winter, as soon as the lakes froze over, all the farmers and locals would gather on the Plover River with their horses and sleighs. The ice would be roughly 30 inches thick, and the men would shovel off the snow and cut the ice with big saws like the type lumber jacks used. They would be cut into blocks about 3-foot square, loaded onto the sleighs or vehicles, and taken home and put into the ice house. It was—at least ours was—built like a car garage today, and the inside was lined with bales of straw, 2 to 3 bales wide and across the floor. The ice was placed inside the bales and then covered with sawdust about 5-feet deep, with a layer of bales on top. When ice was needed in the summer, you would go to the ice house, shovel off some sawdust, chip off as much as needed and cover up and go. It is surprising that in the month of September or October there would still be lots of ice. As kids we would go in there when the temperature was in the 90s and lay in the sawdust—it was cooler in there.
When we moved to Milwaukee, there were ice men that delivered to the homes. Each home had a card about 10 X 12 and on each side there was a number on the top half of one side with a 25 on it, and on the bottom half was an upside-down number 50. On the other side was a number 75 and on the bottom was a upside-down 100. The ice man delivered 2 times a week. The person wanting ice would take the card and display the pounds of ice he wanted and showed that number in his window. The delivery man had only to look to see what number was up: 25, 50, 75 or 100. And he could carry it in on his shoulder, which had a leather cover or a leather bag. Each ice box had a drain, and usually had an upper and lower half, and each drain would run into a pan under the icebox which had to be taken out and dumped each day.
Butchering a Hog & Burnin’ Lard
Tom Packard
I just read Melinda Long's story "In Grandma's Kitchen". She states that nothing was wasted when butchering a hog and burnin' lard. I remember living in Stevens Point WI. in the early 40s on our farm. We raised hogs, and in Fall all the neighbor farmers would gather. My dad had a big steel barrel, maybe
80 gallon or bigger. A large wood fire was started to get the water boiling in the barrel. A block and tackle was hung over the barrel, then the men would get the hogs in a pen, anywhere from 200 to 500 pounds. The men would then slaughter them and they would be dunked into the boiling water, scalding the skin so the hair was scrapped off, then gutted. Now, nothing being wasted, the intestines were stripped and cleaned for casings for sausage. The only thing wasted were the hair, hoofs, and squeal. The rendering (or burnin' lard) was taking the excess fat and melting it down as Melinda states. The chit links were a delicacy. But the lard wasn't only used for cooking. The ladies would have the old wood burning kitchen ranges fired and they would be roasting the meat to just about being done, but
still a bit raw. The meat was then taken to the cellar where we had large 25 gallon porcelain crocks; the partially cooked meat was placed in the crocks, and the liquid lard would be poured over the meat so that no air was left in the crock. The liquid would solidify and would be pure white like Crisco. There was no refrigerators so this was how it was stored and preserved. When Ma wanted a roast, she or one of us would go to the cellar, and reach into the soft white lard, grab a roast, and Ma would then put it in a pan with the trimmings and finish the roasting. I have yet to find a roast pork ACthat has the flavor like that. The meat that wasn't used this way was either made into sausage and stuffed into the intestine casings, or hung in the smoke house for smoking, or salted to make a ham or bacon. Lots of work for all, but the benefits of neighbors and family working together somehow isn't there today.
Tom Packard
Published in U S Legacies Magazine February 2003
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