Jerry Apps Paperbacks Share ‘Stories from the Farm’

Paperback editions of two Jerry Apps classics – Every Farm Tells a Story: A Tale of Farm Family Values and Living a Country Year: Wit and Wisdom from the Good Old Days – are now available from Wisconsin Historical Society Press.

In both books, the noted rural storyteller preserves memories of life on his family farm near Wild Rose, Wis., from the Great Depression to the 1950s. In Every Farm Tells a Story, Apps takes inspiration from his mother’s meticulous account books, and recreates the ups and downs of life on a small dairy farm in Central Wisconsin. From the routine purchase of six dozen eggs to the arrival of electricity, this book not only tells the story of one family, but of an entire rural community. In Living a Country Year, Apps includes family recipes to accentuate the rhythms of rural life. His memories of such farm-life treasures as The Old Mill, a pony named Ginger, and hard-earned heaping pancake breakfasts after a day of chores recreate a world many have forgotten.

Each paperback also features a new introduction by Apps.

A professor emeritus of agriculture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Apps has written more than 40 fiction, nonfiction, and children’s books, many of them on rural history and country life. He has created four documentaries about farm life and country living with Wisconsin Public Television. For more information visit wisconsinhistory.org/whspress.