A Schwob's Wife
 

Life of a Schwob
by Alex Leeb

"A farmer's daily life in the village"

From sunrise to dawn,
a farmer's work was always hard,
working on the land and raising a family.

Plowing the soil

In the early days, the land was plowed with horses, cows or oxen. In the 1920's machinery appeared on the scene. Some farmers had tractors. When a corn field was plowed, the corn roots were assembled as seen in the picture and taken home to be used as fire material in the ovens when cooking.

Plowing with cows

Farmers who only had a few acres of land, would use cows.  At times, even grandmother had to pitch in and help to work the land.

Donkey at work

Who needs a horse or tractor, I can do the job just as well as they can, especially going down hill?  Some plowing was done in November and some in the spring. Manure was used as fertilizer.

Seeding

Winter wheat was seeded in the autumn. Other seeding was done in March. In the early days as seen here, was done by hand, before machinery.

Harvesting

Before machinery came along, harvesting was done by manual labor.  Here is a Schwaben family harvesting. In the picture, the man is using a scythe which has a bend stick tied to the end of the scythe and the other end tied to the handle of the scythe.  As the scythe is raked through the wheat, the stick holds the wheat in an upright position and piles it against the standing wheat behind him.  Then the woman is picking it up with a small handle sickle and lays it down on the ground forming a bundle (sheave). The son follows behind and ties the sheaves with twisted straw or twisted wheat. The harvesting wouldn't start not until a couple of hours after sunrise, because of the early morning dew.

Your ancestors at work

During harvest time, most people enjoyed helping one another as a group.

Harvesting by machine

Harvest machines, pulled with horse power were first used in the 1930's.

Hauling Wheat

The wheat was hauled either to the farmer's yard or on the outskirts of the village.  The wheat would be stacked on a big pile until harvesting began.

Dampfmaschine - Threshing in Moritzfeld

The thresh machine is driven by a steam engine or known as a Dampfmaschine. Straw was used to fire the steam engine.  Later the tractor was used for threshing.

Dampfmaschine - Thresh machine can be related to a combine. The difference being, the thresh machine is stationary and where the combine moves and produce the same results. The harvest, wheat, barley and oats were brought home and stacked on a large pile. As seen in the above picture in Moritzfeld.  It looks like the wheat pile is covered with something. The top portion of the pile is covered by the sheaves being placed in a reverse position to protect it from the weather damaging  it. The sheaves are tied together at the top. A threshing crew would consist between 22-25 men.  After 1945, the women would outnumber the men 3-1, working on the thresh machine. One person would  keep the fire going in the steam engine. Three persons worked on top of the wheat pile, passing the sheaves to the top of the thresh machine. One person would take the sheave handing it to another person called the drummer.

The drummer was standing in a hole, who would lower the sheave into a drum, which separates the wheat from the chaff and straw (chaff-the outer husk of grain separated by threshing). In the picture below, you can the about half down the machine, you can what it looks like a fan built in the thresh machine with a portion sticking out.

The fan blows the chaff and straw forward. Because the chaffs are small pieces they will fall down and the straw will be pushed out by a belt. The straw comes out in front of the machine, which then falls on a elevator with a belt which takes the straw up high and dumps it on pile. The straw crew, which consists of 2-3 person. They will stack the straw and a nice square or rectangle shape. There is a sheave crew of 8,  drummer crew of 2, chaff crews of 4, sack crew of 2. They handle the wheat when it comes out of the machine filling up the sacks and scale them 50 kilo in each sack. One person feeding the straw into the steam machine. Each crew was split into two, who would work for certain length of time, then be relieved by the other members of the crew. The crew that was on a break, it was their job to carry the sack full of wheat either to the attic or to a wagon standing close by. Each crews work for 30-40 minutes then take a break. The wages for each worker was paid at the end of the threshing time. They got paid in wheat, oats or barley.
 

Making Bread

After the threshing, the wheat was taken to a Flour Mill. If a person took a sack full of grain, in return he would get a sack full of flour.  Flour was used to bake bread and prepare other meal. In this picture, we see a women's hands preparing dough for a ordinary meal.

A grandmother baking bread

These ovens were used in the summer time to bake bread and other meals. Sometimes between 5-8 loaves would be baked at a time, depending on the size of the oven.

When there was no wood available for making the fire, corn stocks and corn roots would be used.

Typical Swabian bread

The loaves were round and high.  Bread was baked once a week, depending on how many persons in a family.  The Swabians ate bread with just about every meal.

A Schwabian kitchen

To the left is a whitewashed oven, built of clay, atop is a steel plate with four circled holes.  In front is a small gate with small hole in it. The holes are there to allow a draft to enter the oven to improve the burning of the fire. Broken up corn stocks or corn roots would be used to fire the oven, if wood wasn't available. In the background, a pipe or similar to a pipe entering the chimney. The back portion of the oven is higher as the front part of the oven. The back part of the oven is also used to do baking. After the oven was no longer in use, the ashes are removed and disposed in the garden. *The wall decorated by stenciling.

A wine garden

A young women hoes the wine garden. A lot of work is put into a wine garden. Some grapes are used to eat but mostly to make wine. A farmer enjoys making wine and is very proud of the product.

Wine operation

This operation is done in fall when the grapes are ripe. Just like slaughtering late in the autumn, making wine in the early autumn is just enjoyable for the Swabians.

Autumn Husking corn

A group of Swabians taking a lunch break.  Corn was used for animal feed.  The husks were used for various things such as fire starters and for stuffing sleeping mattresses.