Time Lost—Part 1

Most everyone knows Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867-1957) for her Little House series of books. Some 20 years before the first publication of one of these books (Little House in the Woods, in 1932), she wrote a column titled “As a Farm Woman Thinks,” in a local Missouri newspaper. Some 140 of these articles were collected and published in a 1991 book, Little House in the Ozarks: The Rediscovered Writings.

Wilder honed her writing skills in this column for over 14 years (from 1911 to 1925). She wrote about the simple pleasures of country living and all the mundane-but-meaningful tasks one engages in. I enjoy her insights and descriptions, as the lifestyle is roughly similar to what I chose, some three decades ago.

I have countless times had impressed upon me how one trades time for money, when living a pared-back rural life. In order to acquire the things you need for this kind of lifestyle, it seems you have to put in lots of time, since you've chosen not to possess much money. Laura Ingalls Wilder eloquently describes her enjoyment in performing the many time-consuming tasks that a “farm woman” faces.

Some of her columns in the Little House in the Ozarks wrestle with the issue of technology and how technological conveniences are able to trim the amount of time required for certain domestic tasks. When folks 100 years ago acquired a washing machine, the weekly laundry went much more quickly. By buying a vacuum cleaner the house got spiffied up posthaste. These devices are often described as “labor-saving”; the implication being that one would have more “free” time for other pursuits.

In one of Wilder's columns titled “What became of the Time We Saved,” she wondered why it is that we find ourselves increasingly busy and rushed, after we invest in technology. In this article she writes about driving to a women's club meeting in a neighboring town in a newly-purchased motor car. She describes how she used to travel the same route slowly by horse and buggy, taking nearly all day to get there and back. The speedy motor car promised to save her much time.

Yet her experience was that she—as well as others—now arrived late for the meeting. Everyone hurried through the session, hurried during their after-meeting chats, and hurried all the way home, to arrive later than before, when they traveled by leisurely-paced horse. She asks, “What became of the time the motor car saved us?” She writes that she and her friends now have “so many machines and so many helps,” yet “there seems to be no time for anything.”

More lost time next time...