Blunt's Memoir Breaking Clean

1425 Words3 Pages

Breaking Clean Growing up in rural Montana in the 1950’s and 1960’s was a life a large majority of Americans cannot fully comprehend, appreciate, nor would even want to live. It was a hard life for men who worked farms, and was especially hard for the women who shared this life as well. Breaking Clean is a simple, honest memoir written by Judy Blunt who grew up as the third child out of five of a third-generation of homesteaders in eastern Montana. The family farm was closest to the town of Malta with a population of only 2,500 that was more than an hour away, and the biggest town there was within a hundred miles in any direction. People in these Montana prairies had an isolated life where “Every generation relearns the rules its fathers have forgotten”, cursed nature when it threatens their livelihood, yet realized that “This land owes you nothing” [p. 60]. This was a time and region where the difference between what was expected of men and women was paramount. Children grew up working hard, knowing their place in their society and grew up quickly as a result. Being somewhat of a tomboy, Blunt could handle farm equipment and chores as well as her brother, yet was still expected to learn how to cook, clean and care for the men. As with previous generations, it was expected that she follow a planned path to becoming a rancher’s wife. But Judy Blunt always felt there was something more to this hard, bleak life and began a long journey towards breaking clean from the constraints of her upbringing. An example of the cycle followed by her father, his father, and his father before him is told when Blunt recalls a major blizzard in December 1964 that trapped the family and some neighbors in their small homestead. She unemotionally describes how her father simply proceeded to go through the motions of keeping the pipes from freezing, calmly accepting the fact that he could do nothing as the storm progressed and he could not prevent loss of a of their livestock. Or how when he first ventured out to check on the animals in their nearby barn and nearly lost his way back in whiteout conditions. Later, when the storm passed, she told of playing amongst the frozen corpses of the cattle, jumping from ribcage to ribcage, daring her older brother and sister to cut off pieces of the animals, all with the calm acceptance that this was so normal, nothing strange about it.

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