Working on Wednesday:Susan Hanon Matthews (1805 - 1884) Farm Wife & Mother

To date almost all my Wednesday posts have been about men in my family tree because it's easier to categorize the work men did while the women's contributions to the household have been taken for granted. Here's an example from the 1850 U.S. Census for the family of a pair of my maternal third great grandparents Susan (Hanon) and her husband Eli Matthews, who were then living in Christian County, Illinois.

[Year: 1850; Census Place: District 22, Christian, Illinois; Roll: M432_100; Page: 132B; Image: 27. Ancestry.com. 1850 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2009. Images reproduced by FamilySearch. Original data: Seventh Census of the United States, 1850; (National Archives Microfilm Publication M432, 1009 rolls); Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29; National Archives, Washington, D.C.]

Read the instructions sent to the marshalls and their assistants for this census:

[census.gov]

At the time it simply wasn't contemplated that women could have an occupation or profession.

Susan and Eli were the first couple married in Sangamon County in 1823.* This quote taken from 2011 article in the Illinois Times titled Pioneer life here was hard on women and animals gives us a glimpse into aspects of a woman's life in Illinois.

Christiana Tillson and her husband moved to central Illinois from the east coast in 1822 and settled in Hillsboro; she wrote about her experiences and impressions of 19th century pioneers here. She said husbands often mistreated their wives. “If (the farmers) had slaves,” wrote Tillson, “the authority was exercised over them; if not, the wife was the willing slave.…” 

Men hunted for food, built cabins and farmed, while women helped farm, planted and harvested vegetables, picked, carded, and spun cotton, made the family’s clothes from cotton or wool they’d weaved, cooked, kept the house clean, took care of the children and animals, made candles, soap and butter, tapped maple trees for sap and made sugar, and birthed many children. 

While pioneer men visited friends or took off on long hunts with them, the women didn’t have time to visit friends, who usually lived several miles away. One such pioneer wife recorded that she only left her neighborhood three times in four and a half years. Men were able to play because their wives were taking care of things at home.**

I don't know any personal details about Susan's life but I'm sure it wasn't greatly different from this description. Susan had eight children, her youngest one William was born when she was 40. Eli died in 1864 and Susan survived him by 20 years.

*Christian County was formed from Sangamon County in 1839 along with parts of Montgomery and Shelby Counties.

**All of this reminded me of this humorous folk song:

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