Tuesday, February 4, 1919
A rainy day. Jim made
him a tomato bed. Josie ironed
and got dinner.
Ben come home from Danville
tonight. He sold tobacco there
today. Mayhew carried it on his
truck.
Henry went to school today.
I went to Carries a while
this evening.
Jim hung up the meat this
morning.
We heard to day that Willie
Brumfield went to Robert
Laynes. We thought that he
would come to see us but
he did not come.
9 15 oclock
Notes
"Jim hung up the meat..." > I think this would have been a step in preserving the hog meat.
Some time about Thanksgiving, they would have killed hogs and butchered the meat into hams, sholders, bacon, fat back,... that went into the salt box. It stayed in the salt box for some length of time with the salt pulling the moisture out of the meat and then the meat would have been hung in the smoke house and a smudge fire built so as to coat the meat with a smoke residue that insects would avoid. After some time smoking, the meat could be left to hang with no further treatment. The meat that wasn't smoked (sausage, tenderloin, pork chops, and cracklins were cooked at butchering time and canned or preserved in some fashion. Please check with Wayne on this and correct or delete as is proper.
by Neil Brumfield
