Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a peasant, a farmer, an unsophisticated rural person; thus sod-busting adj., rural, unsophisticated.

1885		Donaldsville Chief (LA) 26 Sept. 1/6: Hustle around [...] and take along a nigger or a Chinaman to mind the bats. Paralyze the sod-busters!
1907		Lexington Intelligencer (MO) 26 Oct. 6/1: It is rumored that a prominent sodbuster living not far from town will soon have someone to keep him company and feed the chickens.
1913		Tulsa Dly World (OK) 19 Apr. 5/3: A clod-hopping sod-buster, who eats peas with a fork .
1927		(con. 1917–18) J.M. Saunders Wings (1928) 201: They were put on the train under two guards, neither of whom spoke English [...] ‘These sod-busters are safe,’ Starling said.
1942		Berrey & Van Den Bark Amer. Thes. Sl. §391.3: rustic, bumpkin, sodbuster.
a.1946		‘The Open Book’ in G. Logsdon Whorehouse Bells Were Ringing (1995) 116: This calf robbing lad and his sod busting dad / Spend most of their time fighting booze.
1946		W.L. Gresham Nightmare Alley (1947) 72: He was a tall, raw-boned sodbuster.
1957		H.B. Allen ‘Pejorative Terms for Midwest Farmers’ in AS XXXIII:4 265: [...] sodbuster.
1969		‘Iceberg Slim’ Pimp 260: Helen stung a rich sod-buster for seventy-two hundred.
1974		(con. 1940s) E. Thompson Tattoo (1977) 33: Sodbusters and McCormick reapers.
1978		S. King Stand (1990) 1296: No, it ain’t right, you sodbuster.
1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 193: These include: [...] shitkicker, sodbuster, swamp angel, timber rat, woodchuck, and wood-hick (or -tick).
2001		(con. 1975–6) E. Little Steel Toes 37: Goat ropers, klansmen, sodbusters, nazi motherfuckers.

2. (US) an undertaker.

1922

Edwardsville Intelligencer (IL) 14 Sept. 4/4: The Flappers’ Dictionary [...] Sod-buster: An undertaker.

an actual widow, whose husband has died.

1902		Ade Forty Modern Fables 6–7: She consulted her Aunt Em, who was two kinds of a Widow, Grass and Sod. She had buried one Husband and come out in Black. She had tied a Can to No.2 and come out in Bright Colors.
1938		D. Runyon ‘Neat Strip’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 608: A sod widow who is with him nearly thirteen years [...] runs off and marries a joskin.
1953		Berry & Van Den Bark Amer. Thes Sl. (2nd edn).
1997		M. Babson Whiskers and Smoke 122: A sod widow is a woman who’s buried her husband — he’s lying underneath the sod, see?
2003		M. Babson Tourists are for Trapping 171: ‘I’ — she drew herself up proudly — ‘am a sod widow!’.