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Show Page 10 The Ogden Valley News Volume XXX Issue VII June 15, 2023 Flight From the City: A Book Review By Forrest Brown Flight From the City, written by Ralph Borsodi, is a short read of only ninetythree pages, but it is quite an impactful book, especially since it was published in 1933. The author was among one of the first Americans to experiment in leaving the bustling city for a more relaxed and rural life in the country. Join me as we review some of the experiences of changing from one lifestyle to another. In the first chapter, the author describes the makeup of his family with consisted of himself, his wife, and his two small sons. They lived in New York City in a small, rented apartment. Ralph worked a white-collar job and used the subway to get back and forth from work. He said that he and his family enjoyed many of the conveniences that big city life offered such as numerous restaurants, libraries, theaters, and other amenities. However, he often wondered how his family could enjoy all this excess when they were financially insecure and never knew when he might be without a job and all the other uncertainties that came with that possibility. Suddenly, in 1920, the year of the great housing shortage, the house that they rented was sold out from under them and they had to find a new place to live. He said that during this time of turmoil, he and his family began longing for the country, for the security, health, leisure, and beauty that evaded them in the crowded big city. So, instead of participating in the stressful process of constantly looking through want ads for available apartments, they decided to make a radical change from their comfortable manner of life offered in the city. They began writing to real estate dealers who sold land in the surrounding countryside. Ralph had to find land that was near a railroad station so he could commute to the city for his job. They looked for a house that could be remodeled and five to ten acres of land so they could raise some livestock. They also wanted fruit trees, a garden space, and, if possible, a brook. Also, they desired a location where electricity was available. What they found and purchased was a place located about an hour and three-quarters from the city. It had a small frame house, one-and-a-half stories high, but there was no indoor plumbing, no running water, no gas, no electricity, and no steam heat. But it did have an old barn, chicken house, a few fruit trees, a garden plot, pasture, and a woodlot. Here, the Borsodi’s felt confident that they could achieve economic freedom and reach a degree of comfort that they never enjoyed in the city. As far as schooling for their two sons, they believed home schooling offered the best option for them. They called the place “Seven Acres,” since their new farm was about seven acres in size. In Chapter 2, the author discusses domestic production describing what can be produced at home. He says in the summer of 1920, which was the first summer after their flight from the city, his wife started to can and preserve fruits and vegetables for winter consumption. The first thing that Mrs. Borsodi canned was tomatoes. As she continued the canning process, the author wondered, “Does it really pay?” to do all this work? Isn’t it easier and cheaper just to buy canned fruit and canned tomatoes from the store? He writes: “Mrs. Borsodi had rather unusual equipment for doing the work efficiently. She cooked on an electric range; she used a steam-pressure cooker; she had most of the latest gadgets for reducing the labor to a minimum.... I looked around the kitchen, and then at the table covered with shining glass jars filled with tomatoes and tomato juice. It’s great, but does it really pay? Of course it does, was her reply. Then it ought to be possible to prove that it does—even if we take into consideration every cost—the cost of raw materials, the value of the labor put into the work yourself, the fuel, the equipment. That ought to be easy, she maintained.” Ralph then went about trying to figure out all of the associated costs of the purchased materials, the cost of his wife’s time in canning the fruit and the tomatoes, the cost of the electricity used, and other related expenditures. What he did not anticipate what that coming up with reasonable costs for this undertaking proved to be somewhat difficult. It proved difficult to determine how much time should be charged for the actual work of canning. It was also challenging to estimate how much electricity had been used for the entire effort. Likewise, it was problematic trying to figure out gardening costs and all the raw materials used in the canning process. Some of the other issues were coming up with actual costs of buying the canned tomatoes and fruit from the store because different stores charged different prices determined in part by the quality of the product purchased. After many calculations Ralph said the results astonished him. There would be savings by doing the food preservation at home rather than buying it already canned from a store. He found this to be true after every item of expense had been taken into account, even after figuring out an accurate estimate of his wife’s time in preparing and processing the vegetables. The other benefit that Mr. Borsodi realized was that home-produced food, such as the tomato soup, was much higher in nutritional value than the store-bought Campbell soup. Ralph writes: “I discovered that more than two-thirds of the things which the average family now buys could be produced more economically at home than they could be bought factory made; that the average man and woman could earn more by producing at home than working for money in an office or factory and that, therefore, the less time they spent working away from home and the more time they spent working at home, the better off they would be; finally, that the house itself was still capable of being made into a productive and creative institution and that an investment in a homestead equipped with efficient domestic machinery would yield larger returns per dollar of investment than investments in insurance, in mortgages, in stocks, in bonds.” One area that Ralph found where most of the savings occurred was the costs of storing product and the cost of advertising for the sale of the product. With home production, these costs are very minimal and in some cases zero! Thus, besides eating healthier, he and his family were also saving money by developing their own home production methods for food. Chapter four is about how Ralph and his family developed ways to use a loom and a sewing machine to make and repair their own clothes. He remembered his father telling him that in the past, most family made and mended their own clothes, but after the turn of the 19th century, the country opened up thousands of mills employing hundreds of thousands of wage earners. Many of the workers in these mills were underage children and the wages paid by these mills were notoriously low. Added to this were the sub-standard working conditions present in many of the factories. Ralph and others saw this as an opportunity to creatively produce work in many of the homes across America. Ralph found out that weaving is one of the favored methods of occupational therapy in an increasing number of institutions for nervous and mental disorders combating the strain placed on laborers of repetitive work in most of the factories. The weaving work in the home can replace much of this, particularly for women and children, which was turning many into a group of neurotics. Some physicians started putting looms back into people’s homes in order to make the victims of this deprivation well again. Nonetheless, can home producers actually same money by doing some of their own weaving? Ralph was able to prove this with the following example: “The suit was made up by a tailor operating a one-man shop near our place. The yarn cost $4.50; the tailoring $30. I had it appraised by various so-called experts at the time, and they valued it all the way from $60 to $90. One friend, who could not qualify as an expert but who has his suits make by Fifth Avenue tailors, said that he had paid $125 for suits no better than this one.” In the rest of the chapters, five to ten, the author discusses shelter, water, education, capital, security, and independence versus dependence. What Ralph Borsodi captures in this short book written ninety years ago is that through sacrifice a person and his family can find a new life away from the crowded metropolitan area to a place of challenges for sure, but a place where a family can enjoy a closeness to each other and to nature, grow better food, and develop a range of practical skills and knowledge. In Search of Ogden’s Hole: Stories of the Shoshone Draws Widespread Interest On May 18, a crowd of local history enthusiast enjoyed an OV200 run-up event to Ogden Valley’s upcoming 2025 Bicentennial, marking the historic week in May 1825 when Ogden Valley’s namesake, Peters Skene Ogden, and his fur trapping brigade entered the unsettled Valley. Attendees of this year’s (6th annual) ln Search of Ogden Hole were treated to the perspective of Ogden Valley’s original residents—the Shoshone. Featured presenters included former Chairman of the Northwest Band of the Shoshone Nation Darren Parry and Mary Murdock Meyer, Chief Executive of the Timpanogos Shoshone. Both shared insights into Shoshone life along the Wasatch 200 years ago, the difficulties arising from immigrant settling of Shoshone lands, and continued and conflicting challenges of assimilation while preserving Shoshone history and culture. Dan Harris, local Eden resident (and modern mountain man), provided attendees an opportunity to sample roasted elk, a staple of both Shoshone and Mountain Man alike in Ogden Valley 200 years ago. Dan also demonstrated the workings of an iron trap similarly used to harvest beaver by fur trappers in Ogden Valley in the spring of 1825. To the gasp and surprise of a cringing audience, Dan averted the perceived loss of a finger while setting off the trap’s spring mechanism. Dan also explained the process of extracting the valuable felt from the pelt of a beaver that was then used to produce various styles of hats, which dominated the European fashion market for the better part of three centuries. Dressed in Mountain Man attire, Liberty resident and former Chairman of the Fort Bridger Rendezvous, Chairman Dave Morby gave an update on the upcoming Bicentennial Rendezvous to be held in Ogden Valley in 2025. Chairman of Ogden Valley Bicentennial Council, Eden resident Dave Martin, summarized several upcoming heritage projects, including the placement of historical Valley Roadside markers in the coming year indicating Peter Skene Ogden’s May 1825 campsites. To give attendees a close-up view of a Shoshone shelter, Landry Rosskelley animated the scene with an authentic, hand-painted teepee adorned with tools, implements, clothing, and artifacts, demonstrating Shoshone resourcefulness and lifestyle efficiency. Local heritage partners Karen Stark, representing Daughters of the American Revolution, and Sabrina Lee, President of the Weber County Heritage Foundation, also contributed to the program, offering support and addressing future heritage projects from their respective organizations. In Search of Ogden Hole, sponsored by OV200, was held at the Hearthside in Eden on May 18, 2023. Anyone with questions or who want to be involved with Above, from left to right, are Landry Rosskelley; former Chairman of the Ogden Valley‘s upcomNorthwest Band of the Shoshone Nation Darren Parry; Dave Martin of ing bicentennial, are Eden, host of In Search of Ogden’s Hole; Mary Murdock Meyer, Chief invited to reach out to Executive of the Timpanogos Shoshone; presenter Dan Harris of Eden; ogdenhole@gmail.com. and Dave Morby. THE DIGGER If you’ve got a problem, We don’t care what it is. If you need a hand, We can assure you this, we can help, We’ve got eight strong arms, we can help! It would sure do us good to do you good Let us help!!! It’s a fact that people get in trouble, ain’t nothing new But people like you, should never have the blues Let us help, We’ve got three strong machines, let us help!! When you go to sleep at night, you’ll always be glad you call us, that’s our my dream! Fixing or digging it right and telling you everything will be right! 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