Gee-Whiz: Presidents
By O.E. MacDougal
November/December 2016, Backwoods Home
I could spend all day coming up with interesting trivia about the Presidents and those who surround them — wives, children, assassins, etc. I could literally fill this magazine...
The greatest American who was never President
By John Silveira
Issue #60a • November/December, 1999
"The election's next year, right?" I asked.
Dave Duffy, the publisher of Backwoods Home Magazine, was editing a rather lengthy article on water. I don't know if he didn't...
President George Washington’s Farewell Address
Friends and Fellow Citizens: The period for a new election of a citizen, to administer the executive government of the United States, being not far distant, and the time actually arrived, when your thoughts...
Catfish Biscuits
By Danny Fulks
Issue #87 • May/June, 2004
Danny Fulks, 71, grew up in southern Ohio where his parents worked the land and milked cows, and his tightly written stories paint a vivid picture of life...
George Washington Carver — He wrote the book on self-reliance
By John Silveira
Issue #31 • January/February, 1995
"What were you listening to when I got to your house? Sounded nice. I don't think I've ever heard it before."
O.E. MacDougal looked at me from across the...
The Great Depression — A reminiscence
By Alice B. Yeager and James O. Yeager
Issue #115 • January/February, 2009
I was a girl of 8 when the stock market crashed in 1929. It was the Great Depression, and unless you were living...
Habeeb Salloum — Poet, Traveler, Recipe Writer
Habeeb Salloum, 95, a poet, world traveler, linguist, and author of recipe books on Middle Eastern cuisine, has written recipe articles for Backwoods Home Magazine for 19 years. The son of Syrian immigrant farmers,...
Former first ladies — Beautiful, brilliant, crazy
By John Silveira
Issue #30 • November/December, 1994
(This is a four-part series. Click the links to navigate to parts one, two, three, and four.)
(When we left off last issue, O. E. MacDougal and John Silveira...
Farm baseball … with ghost runners!
By Tom Kovach
Growing up on a farm in north-central Minnesota wasn’t all chores and hard work … although there was plenty of that too. But back in the l950s and early l960s when I...
The vanishing outhouse
By Tom Kovach
Issue #79 • January/February, 2003
A person recently wrote to a large Midwest newspapers' advice column asking for information about outdoor privies. It seems that this person's family inherited a log cabin from...
Oregon Trail preparedness: What supplies did the settlers carry?
By Don Lewis
Issue #176 • April/May/June, 2019
The year was 1834, a year that didn’t really stand out as all that particularly important in American history. But like any other year, it had its share...
The summer of ’35
By John Graesch
Issue #64 • July/August, 2000
Sixty five years ago I was living in that part of Seattle, Washington, known as South Park. Few places had as much natural beauty as "The Park" as...
Was the first government gun confiscation attempt foiled by an unsung colonial heroine?
By John Silveira
Issue #119 • September/October, 2009
Gun control people don't seem to get just how deeply etched into the American psyche gun ownership goes and that the resistance to being disarmed by their own...
James Polk — A model for modern presidents
By John Silveira
Issue #32 • March/April, 1995
It was snowing and three of us were up at the office. Dave Duffy, the fellow who publishes BHM, and I were trying to get some work done...
Fried chicken for breakfast
By Danny Fulks
Issue #88 • July/August, 2004
Danny Fulks, 71, is one of those rare writers capable of painting a vivid picture of life back in another time. His stories focus on the 20s, 30s,...
Declaration of Independence: The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America
Action of Second Continental Congress, July 4, 1776
When in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume...
