By Cara Jepsen
Jerome Johnson runs the Garfield Farm Museum, which occupies 280 acres of the Garfield’s original claim and boasts nine original buildings, a collection of artifacts, and over 2,000 documents. He admits that the 1840s were not the greatest time to be alive. In those days, Johnson says, people believed that night air and bathing made them sick, and fleas were rampant–which made it difficult to sleep in the summer. Medicine was not widely available, and at times whole households became sick–which is exactly what happened to the Garfields in 1847, when the family took turns coming down with typhus, and one of the younger sons died. But from their first days on the prairie, work took precedence over everything else.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
In 1957 Johnson’s mother wrote Elva Garfield an 18-page letter encouraging her to carry out her mother’s wishes. Eighteen years later, Elva called her and said she was ready to do so. “My mother had no idea what she was talking about,” says Johnson. Elva refreshed her memory and started making plans.
There’s also a diary Garfield’s son Robert started keeping once he inherited the farm after Timothy’s death. It’s a litany of making hog pens, cutting wheat, laying fence, making racks and carriage sheds and stanchions for steer–and, of course, changes in the weather. The entries are terse. “John and I fix the picnic ground. Went to picnic in the afternoon,” he wrote in 1860. In 1863, “My bees swarmed, went into the chimney. Had a fine time getting them.” After Robert married Hannah in 1864, his notes become dominated by improvements made to the house. In 1875 he “worked like a good fellow at scraping and mixing in the house. Had got all the old paper off and had it all washed out below.”
