Lights were kerosene lamps; cooking, heating, hot water from the cook stove; heating the house via the other wood stoves; water from the pump at the end of the soapstone sink - water from hand dug well.
It wasn't easy, but really, the much larger portion of independence than people have today was a plus...believe it or not, just as much free time. Also the security of an average of a years food on hand, (jars and barrels in the cellar, eggs and chickens in the hen house, milk, butter and beef & pork in the barn, wild game & fish in the woods and waters - the gardens and berry bushes -
It was a good life.
To keep a life like that going requires organization and family cooperation. People had to help or it didn't work. Kids had their chores, girls had to help with the cooking, washing, and canning. Men had to tend to the animals. Eggs had to be gathered, chickens killed, cleaned and plucked, butchering time was a lot of work. Just keeping things running smoothly took a lot of skill and determination. I probably don't know the half of it.
That's one reason my now deceased aunt left the farm, it was horrible cooking in the late summer/early fall heat when the threshers came through with the wood stove going full blast in the kitchen. I was there one hot August night with no a/c or fans going and it was so hot in the house I nearly fainted.
I guess people got used to it. It would have been a good life if everybody pitched in and did their share. I can't see my kids willing to work that hard at that kind of work, and to be honest, I like to can and do some of that but never had the strength to do long stretches of it like they had to do. A batch of tomatoes or applesauce is one thing, food for a family for the winter is entirely something else.
Now the women have to help drive the tractors, do the mowing; they have to farm so much more land in order to make it pay. Maybe all don't, but I sure know one who does, and she keeps the house immaculate and her church life going as well. She keeps herself looking nice, too, slim, hair simple but nice, amazing. I remember in past years the farm wives were a little sloppy about their appearance, but maybe that was just true in my small world.