A Tale of Two Farmers Home from War
Life Magazine, December 1945

The Christmas Eve, 1945, post-war edition of LIFE Magazine led with a feature article called “Christmas At Home.” It took a look at Neosho Rapids, Kansas, a small town of 159 people who had welcomed home early one of their own, a 20 year old Navy seaman on leave for the holiday.

The piece chronicles in pictures the Irwin family's midwest, television-free celebration.

”The men went hunting for rabbits and quail. The women cleaned house, did the washing, prepared the food.

A goose, fat and ready, was killed and plucked. ( The dinner included fruit salad, relishes, rabbit, roast goose and dressing, rolls and butter, strawberries from the family's freezer.)

The tree was cut and carried triumphantly home. Carols were sung around the piano. On Christmas Day the Irwins attended the Methodist Church. Then Uncle Fred, family humorist, dressed up in a Santa Claus outfit and distributed presents to all the children. They were terrified.”

In the same issue, another picture essay is entitled “Japanese Farmer.” He is a soldier returning to his village farm after a year's absence.

“ The soldier wound up in his own backyard where his wife was bundling potatoes in straw sacks. His greeting was unemotional and his children seemed dazed and unresponsive. He laid down his pack and went to work sacking potatoes beside his wife, to resume the Japanese farmer's life of unremitting toil.”

The family meal consisted of rice and sweet potatoes, along with pickled onions, dried grasshoppers, beans and tea.

Aside from some obvious editorializing, the focus is on on family and how families in two disparate parts of the world—recent “enemies” of one another-- build their celebrations around food.