Simple Things: Lessons from the Family Farm

By: Apps, Jerry

Recollections and lessons from life on the farm in mid-twentieth-century America, told through the objects, animals, and experiences that shaped that world.

"What of yesterday is worth keeping?" muses Jerry Apps. "What should be left behind? Thinking about the lessons we glean from the deceptively 'simple' things in life helps each of us answer that question for ourselves."

In this collection of thoughtful essays, beloved storyteller and rural historian Jerry Apps reflects on the "simple things" that made up everyday life on his family's farm in the 1940s and '50s: pocket knives, hand tools, farm dogs, kerosene lanterns, the Sears Roebuck catalog, and more.

As Apps holds each item up to the light for a closer look, he plumbs his memories for the deeper meanings of these objects, reflecting on the fundamental values instilled in him during his rural boyhood. He concludes that people who had the opportunity to grow up on farms gained useful skills, important knowledge, and valuable lessons that serve them well throughout their lives. Apps captures and shares those things for people who remember them and those who never had the benefit of living on a small family farm.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1976600952
• ISBN13: 9781976600951
• Release Date: September 2026
• Publisher: Wisconsin Historical Society Press
• Length: 160 Pages