Henny Penny and Singing Jenny
When Leora was a girl, she took over caring
for the setting hens, ones brooding eggs to hatch,
each in its own wooden box. She knew how
to get a reluctant hen to stay on her eggs–
give her a cartwheel ride until she is dizzy. She’ll sit.
After Leora married in 1914, she kept track of the dates
her hens stopped laying eggs and began to brood,
keeping track of the dates about three weeks later
when they would hatch. Even while nursing a baby,
cooking, cleaning, washing, and ironing,
by July 1916, she had sold 350 dozen eggs
and began selling chickens for meat.
Eight years and six more children later, she ordered
two hundred Rhode Island Red eggs for hatching
in an incubator kept in the living room. Leora made
enough with her poultry money for a Singer
sewing machine from the Sears Roebuck catalog.
After the Depression years, Clabe and Leora returned
to farm life near Minburn where Leora kept
a flock of chickens. As her sons left for the military,
they’d send requests home–someone take a photo
of Dad with a fish or with Spats, let's have one of Mom
and her chickens. A couple of hens followed Leora
as she did her outside chores. She named them
Henny Penny and Singing Jenny.
Meadowlark Songs
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Love your title for this post!
Thanks, Dennis! I’m still having fun!
I remember you saying you didn’t tend to have chickens on your farm. My Mom must have taken after Grandma Wilson. Grandma Scar used to hatch chicks in an incubator upstairs in the stone house. Later we bought chicks from Schirm Produce, 2-300 hundred for two large hen houses. We ate lots of fried chicken and eggs and gathered, washed, and took 12 dozen at a time back to Schirm’s. I don’t know if Arnold, a good friend of Dad’s, sold them directly or maybe supplied Adkin’s Grocery.
I love your stories, Bob! Dad is the one who didn’t want “chickens running around.” Betty Shirm was in Gloria’s class when we went to Dexter. I remember their store.
I smiled, imagining Leora giving a hen a cartwheel ride as a strategy to encourage a hen to stay put and get down to business. Perhaps that’s a well-known trick, but it’s new to me.
I didn’t grow up with chickens so it was new to me as well, Pete! Yes, it’s a “thing.”
One more testament to what a remarkable woman Leora was! For mothers at that time, buying a Singer sewing machine would have been a lifesaver for keeping her family clothed.
She had taken that sewing class in 1910 (while Halley’s Comet was visible) and probably used her mother’s machine. My mother even remembered at least a couple of dresses her mother made her when she was a child.
Both my mother and my grandmother sewed most of their children’s clothes.
Mom sewed for us when we were little, but after I got into 4-H, I pretty well took it over. I started to sew things for Dan but quickly learned that boys things aren’t as much fun to make as cute girly ones! BTW, you share a December 13 birthday with Dan!
Happy early birthday to Dan! His wife Renee’s BD is today, a week apart.
To you as well, Liz!
Thanks!
Fascinating for all of us who don’t know live chickens well, or at all.
How are you feeling, Joy?
I didn’t grow up with chickens either. I’m doing okay, looking forward to the next infusion (Dec. 30), which allows me to eat (and leave the house). It’s too icy for me to mosey outside, so I miss that. We got 10 inches of snow last weekend, more forecast for tonight. (Favorite Guy is on his walk right now, thankful for that.) How are you doing?
Do you know if farm ladies were expected to wash their eggs before selling them during that era? That would be a lot of eggs for farm ladies to wash! But, if anybody could do it, Leora could. :).
If I remember right, unwashed eggs would keep at room temperature because of a natural coating called the “bloom”. They had to keep nests very clean And she sold dozens of dozens of them!
I’m hanging in. Doing exercises daily to prepare for my shoulder surgery. I have a date for my pre-op consultation (February 9). Surgery will be 4 to 8 weeks after.
That’s such a long time to wait!
That’s how it is when there’s universal access to care. I’m prepared to wait if that’s my cost.
There is something so precious about the scene of Leora’s chickens following her. I’ve never had chickens, but people I know who have kept them are quite devoted. I love it anytime people and nature connect.
I grew up on a farm but we didn’t have chickens! Thank you, Lori.
Sorry I haven’t been around. WP is not allowing me to Like posts and sometimes comment.
Must be frustrating, GP, or maybe it’s a relief? I usually post these on X and LinkedIn as well. Pearl Harbor Day. . . .
Heartwarming story about Leora, Joy. That she got a chicken to sit on eggs is very smart.
Thanks, Tim. I guess chicken-raisers know the trick, but it was surprise for me as well.
I don’t know if Gandma Wilson washed the eggs or maybe just the ones that “really needed it”. As far as my era, we had a large flared-side metal pail and a wire basket that fit inside. Filled with water and the basket with dozens of eggs would sit on this simple device, plugged in and oscillate gently side-to-side. Lift the basket out and lay the eggs out to air dry. Fresh water, then another batch. Into a 12-dozen crate and into Schirm’s Produce to sell. This was Mom’s grocery money for items not grown on the farm or canned in quart jars.
Bob, I just love your stories!