Tomboy: Remembering a Family-Farm Childhood, 1934-1948

Tomboy: Remembering a Family-Farm Childhood, 1934-1948 In 1934, Virginia Evans was introduced to the world of Sharon View Farm with a birth announcement in the Ayrshire Digest, the journal of the national Ayrshire Breeder’s Association. The country was deep in depression and soon to be consumed by world war, but her childhood was bounded by the idyllic world of the “family farm.” Her farm chores began with teaching newly weaned calves to drink from a bucket, but there was plenty of time for creative play like teasing crawdaddies in the creek. During the war her big yellow school bus rocked to the rhythm of Mairzy Doats amid fluffy floating milkweed seeds that schoolkids collected to stuff life jackets. Growing up on a Family Farm was innocence and joy with a ten-party telephone line surrounded by a world at war. For many readers, Tomboy can be a trip down memory lane, recalling visits to a grandparent’s farm. For elementary teachers and living history museums it’s a fun history lesson. How does a 1930s and 40s family-farm childhood compare with childhood today?