------
5630.59

This inventory, attached to the will of a small farmer, shows the
diverse equipment found on the 1920's farm.

[Illustration: Plan of the family farm of Mason F. Smith, drawn by Mason
Smith, Jr., for a 4-H Club project. The farm was bought in 1932 by Floyd
Kidwell and now constitutes the nucleus of Frying Pan Farm Park. From
Mason Smith, Jr. Livestock Record Books in Annual Report of County Agent
H. B. Derr, 1929, Virginiana Collection, Fairfax County Public Library.]

Though the wood-burning stoves often imparted a special flavor to the
food prepared on them (for example, one farm cooking devotee opined that
no waffles could taste like those from a wood-burning stove[50]), the
stoves were fearfully hot in the summer and needed constant refueling
and expert attention to heat evenly. Few Fairfax County farm women had
the luxury of electricity in their kitchens until well after 1935.
Statistics show that only 65% of farm women cooked with electricity even
in 1940.[51]

In addition to the large regular meals required by a hard-working
family, the farm woman prepared the gargantuan harvest meals shared by
all who worked in the fields. Cooking these meals in the late summer
heat was a chore which took several days. "An ordeal" one veteran called
it and enumerated some parts of the expected menu: corn bread, hot
biscuits, pork shoulder, pressed chicken, fried chicken, vegetables and
pie. "We'd put food enough together for them--and did they eat!"[52]
Even at other times of the year, a farm wife needed to count on
unexpected visitors and accommodate her activities to an unforeseen need
to entertain. Her adaptability is attested to by Joseph Beard who
described the open farm hospitality of the era:

When anybody came around to your farm in those days, when
dinnertime came, you'd say, 'Well, it's time for dinner. Let's go
eat.' It didn't seem to matter if you had somebody drop in on you
on short notice. Women, ladies, mothers, wives, were accustomed to
this kind of thing. It never seemed to upset them. They just took
it in stride. They put on another plate and said, 'We haven't got
much, but you're welcome to what we have.' They'd go on like this.
They would bring out the best they could find. That was the kind of
condition that prevailed.[53]

The lady of the house in this period did not mere