While my mother was raising us, wherever we were, even while out on the land, there’s one thing I really enjoyed doing: cooking and baking. I really enjoyed doing this. Once I learned to do a lot of things, I cooked regularly, cooking all kinds of dishes. I really enjoyed cooking. Come meal time, I would serve everyone. That’s what I did. Once married and with children, I cooked, making meals for my children. I did a variety of chores, i.e.: dishes, cooking, and laundry as well, scrubbing clothes on the washboard and hauling water for laundry. I did all this on my own while my husband worked. I hung laundry outside. It was good to hang the wash outside. Eventually we had washing machines. I used this later. Even then, I washed a lot of clothes before the washing machine. I washed everything on washboards: blankets, men’s work pants, just everything was washed on the wash boards. Washboards were already around by the time we were adolescents. Many young women did this, washing clothes, and hanging the laundry outside. They enjoyed doing this. The collected water was heated for washing. We never thought to think, ‘this is hard’, we just enjoyed doing laundry even after I married and had children. Diapers, (also known as Pampers) we made a lot of these and washed them outside. Even while out on the land, we continuously did laundry. That was the role of a young woman, doing laundry and cooking. When someone is married, she cooks, sews and makes handicrafts. Come winter she makes moccasins for her children, you made mitts. We also made coats for our children and pants too. Items were scarce back then. It was different. I never stopped making things. I made everything. Others did this too, especially those from my age group. We made everything.

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