Product Description

Fork handle—$.65 Mash for chickens—$7.15 One milk pail—$1.15 Horse collar and pad—$8.15 Gloves for Herm—$.52

"Chores started on the home farm when you were around four years old, depending on, as Pa would say, ‘how much meat you have on your bones.’. . . "

So begins Jerry Apps’s "Every Farm Tells a Story," a collection of true tales inspired by entries in his mother’s farm account books. The values recorded in the account books prompt recollections of Jerry’s childhood and the traditional family farm values and ethics instilled in him by Ma and Pa.

Running a Wisconsin dairy farm in the days before electricity or indoor plumbing, Jerry’s family used kerosene lanterns, gasoline engines, a team of draft horses, and a homemade tractor converted from a truck. During Jerry’s growing-up years, he witnessed the second great revolution in farming—the arrival of electric lines to rural areas, running water in barns, and new farm machines like tractors, balers, and combines.

Illustrated with 50 vintage advertisements from catalogs and farm journals, "Every Farm Tells a Story" traces that revolution by way of costs for everything from the family’s first Sears, Roebuck and Co. milking machine to the used telephone pole that supported their first electric yard light.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #274141 in Books
• Published on: 2005-03-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

Review
"...destined to become the book everyone points to...to extol virtues of rural living....fun to read, personal, warm." -- Washington State Grange News, October 2005

Review

From the Publisher
Jerry Apps was born and raised on a Wisconsin farm in the days before electricity, central heating, or indoor plumbing. He is a former county extension agent and University of Wisconsin agriculture professor. He is the author of several other farm nostalgia and Wisconsin regional titles.

Customer Reviews

An inviting chronicle of changes in farming over the decades
Farm values and management can offer many lessons, especially when told through humor, as Jerry Apps demonstrates in Every Farm Tells A Story; A Tale Of Family Farm Values. Tucked into an inviting chronicle of changes in farming over the decades and resulting changes in values and methods, readers receive a fine blend of business savvy, history, and humor lending to light, easy reading.

A wonderful nostalgic romp, a letter to my cousins.
I have just come across a book you all should read: it is called EVERY FARM TELLS A STORY, A TALE OF FAMILY FARM VALUES, by JERRY APPS. it is published by Voyageur Press and is a wonderful story about growing up on a farm near Wild Rose Wisconsin in Washara County in the north central part of the state. As most of you know, Cousin Tom Larson and I spent a number of summers on the Bergum farm north of Wheeler in Dunn County; and almost everything that Jerry Apps describes in the book is something we did with Uncle Nelmer (who Tom and I still consider the greatest man in the world) and Aunt Selma (our second mother) and Kon and Stanley on that farm: threshing, making wood, cultivating, feeding chickens, stripping cows; old fashioned crank telephones, freeshows, feed mills--everything. The book is illustrated with period advertisments. This is a brilliant nostalgic journey. It's a neat
companion to my own The Reunion. But all of you should take a trip in EVERY FARM. this is a story that speaks to those of us who have had anything to do with farm life. it's a wonderful book for all my cousins and for all of us.

Steven Fortney
Author of The Reunion.

The heart and soul of family farm life half-a-century ago.
Jerry Apps magnificently captures the heart and soul of growing up on a small family farm in EVERY FARM TELLS A STORY. His youth was spent in rural central Wisconsin half-a-century ago, but the character of the culture he writes about was not unlike that of much of rural Middle America in those times. The book is based on his Ma's journal accounting of all the family's expenses and revenues through the years, but the anecdotes take you back to all the stories behind those numbers. Apps shares with us how all the entries were, indeed, more than just numbers - they had meaning and context in the bigger picture of what farm life was all about. In a comfortable and enjoyable style, he tells stories of family values, the hard times and good times, the honest dealings and fair play that caused most farm kids back then to grow up with integrity and a solid work ethic. EVERY FARM TELLS A STORY is a great read, but it's much more than just nostalgia. In a personal and sometimes almost poetic way, it documents a significant part of our country's historical heritage.