IOWA WOMEN’S ARCHIVES
UNIVERSITY OF IOWA LIBRARIES
IOWA CITY, IOWA
ADA MAE BROWN BRINTON
(1891-1988)
“Sunshine and Rain in Iowa: Reminiscing
through 86 years,” 1977
70 pages
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ACQUISITION: |
“Sunshine and Rain in Iowa: Reminiscing
through 86 years” was donated by Elaine Brinton Phair (donor no. 728) in
2000. |
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ACCESS: |
“Sunshine and Rain in Iowa:
Reminiscing through 86 years” is
open for research. |
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PROCESSED BY: |
Margaret Richardson, 2001.
[BrintonAdaMae.doc] |
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Biography
Ada Mae Brown was born May 5, 1891, near Stuart, Iowa. Her father, Thacher Brown, came by train to that area from Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1868; after purchasing land, horses and equipment, he broke the sod for farming. Brown’s mother, Rhoannah Hinkson, had met her father in Lawrence; in 1869 Rhoannah and her family arrived, and purchased a farm across the road. Rhoannah and Thacher Brown were married Christmas Day, 1869.
By the time Ada Mae Brown was born her parents had sold a very successful dairy farm and moved into Stuart where her father still maintained a dairy herd of four cows. Ada Mae Brown delivered milk throughout the community as a young girl. Though she did not finish high school, Brown was known for her musical ability and sang at weddings and funerals throughout her life. On December 9, 1914 she married Marion Brinton. Four children were born of this union but two died in infancy. Ada Mae Brown Brinton died at 97 years of age in 1988.
Scope and Content Note
In 1977 Brinton wrote an essay, “Sunshine and Rain in Iowa; Reminiscing Through 86 Years” which reflects on rural Iowa, hard work, church traditions, and the love of family and community. Brinton gives the rich details of her childhood, wedding, Sunday dinners, and husking corn. She explains the process for drying corn, testing oat seeds, removing chinch bugs, and the workings of a primitive electrical system. She offers a recipe for making soap, explains World War I rationing, describes roving gypsies, peddlers, the circus and Chautauquas. People and places in Stuart, Iowa are illuminated in her writing as well as the “brick” ice cream with the lavender wedding bell shipped in from Atlantic for her wedding dinner. She describes the depression of the 1930s, the preaching of Billy Sunday, a train trip through Iowa, which was her honeymoon, and explains the importance of woolen underwear and feather beds in winter.