Sarah lived on a small farm in Ohio in 1959. She was nine years old, had brown hair and green eyes. Her mother raised chickens to eat and would sell the eggs. One day Sarah's mother gave Sarah her very own chicken to raise. Sarah named the chicken Maryanne.
Sarah couldn't wait for Maryanne to start laying eggs because Sarah wanted to sell the eggs and buy a necklace that she had been wanting for just about a year now.
She found some wood, some chicken wire, a hammer, and nails laying around the farm and she built Maryanne a small chicken coup. Maryanne could eat in her mother's chicken pen but Sarah wanted her to lay her eggs in the coup that she had built. Sarah would let Maryanne out in her mother's chicken pen during the day and lock her in the coup at night. Maryanne wouldn't be too lonely because Sarah had built her coup right next to her mother's chicken coup.
Sarah Xmas 06 family sketch
English: A bowl of chicken and dumplings with vege...
English: maryanne weeselsThere was a garden on the farm that Sarah's family used for canning their own food and Sarah's job was to pick the bugs off of the beans, tomatoes, and cabbage. She would take the bugs and put them into an old Mason jar. When the jar was full of bugs, she took them to Maryanne's coup and fed the bugs to her as a special treat. She also fed Maryanne laying mash which was supposed to help her lay eggs and keep her healthy.
One morning Sarah went to her mothers chicken coup to feed and water the chickens and she saw some hens sitting on their nests and they wouldn't get up to eat or drink. She went into the house and told her mother that some of her hens were sick...