The Medill Fact Check

That August morning was particularly special. The heat had already settled in, the kind that throws long shadows across the fields and makes the clouds look soft and deceptive — because in August, you never know when those gentle shapes will rise into tall thunderheads and drop a hard, sudden rain. Eleanor McLaughlin loved August. By then, the fields had a rhythm again. Hay and straw were being baled, and the strong men of Manhattan Township moved with the easy cadence of people who had done this work their whole lives. It was hot work, but it was good work, and it was done with good people.

Soon, threshing would begin, when farm families stopped being individual households and became something closer to cooperatives — groups of five, ten, twenty-five working as one. Eleanor loved bringing food and cold drink to steady the men as they worked. It made her feel part of something larger than herself, something she had longed for since childhood.