Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 241, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 October 1916 — Good Cheer, Order, Beauty Prevailed In Home of the Southern Woman Long Ago [ARTICLE]

Good Cheer, Order, Beauty Prevailed In Home of the Southern Woman Long Ago

In her social progresses she rode in a velvet-lined coach drawn by four or six horses —not one too many for the mud holes to be pulled through In those brave times, writes Octavia Zolllcoffer Bond in Southern Woman. Her negro coachman, in cloth coat and brass buttons, who could be trusted to drive her a hundred miles in safety, skillfully handled the lines, while liveried footmen swung jauntily to the carriage straps behind, ready to spring to the ground, open the door and let down the folding steps at the will ,of the .mistress. As to her wholesome life at home, Thomas Nelson Page has covered the case in asserting that “the system of living In the South made the domestic ’virtues as common as light and air.” Housewifely thrift and executive ability of a high order made the home of the Southern woman who was true to the typean Eden for all who partook of her hospitality. Good cheer, order and beauty prevailed from the entrance hall, impressive with its array of ancestral portraits, to the clean and ample kitchen and servants’ quarters. The well-filled smokehouse, the poultry yard astir with fowls, the pantry supply of jelly, pickle, cordial, “bounce” and preserves, the cellar stocked with the choicest vintages of the old world, and the garden growing with every herb, vegetable and flower known to the new, were results of the industry of the lady bountiful of ye olden time. And, withal, the “swept and garnished” guest rooms, as rarely unoccupied as vacuums occur in nature, were dainty with lavender scented linens, waxed floors and polished mahogany. __