where I learned the names for everything
My grandmother was in charge of the big vegetable garden, and very fancy gardens all around the house. She was an old German woman, and she loved plants. That’s where I learned the names for everything from hollyhocks to delphiniums to zinnias to moss roses, whatever. We had long rows of asparagus and long rows of rhubarb, and we’d harvest it and then go into town to a grocery store. The grocery store sold vegetables, it was a little side thing, anything to make a little money to keep the farm going. It was a dairy farm, twenty-eight cows, different kinds of cows, and a team of horses that weren’t the great big horses that you see at the fair; they were lightweight. So my sister and I galloped horses since we weren’t out working, and their harnesses would come off and we’d put bridles on them. We’d race them, putting milk crates with a pole between the crates and make them jump the pole. When we weren’t playing, Betty would be with Mother and I would be with dad. And, of course, my father always wanted a son, and you know, three tries, and we were all girls. So, I was his son. And, I learned to drive a tractor, I suppose I was about twelve years old. Then the farm truck. Then during the war, all of the able-bodied men were drafted, and there was no one to run the milk truck, so my sister and I learned to drive this international milk truck. We would drive to the city of Madison and deliver glass bottles with cream linings on them - this was before homogenized milk. It was a raw milk dairy. It was a long time ago.
-from an interview with Lorrie Otto