Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 December 1897 — Housekeeping. [ARTICLE]

Housekeeping.

Recalling the much harder conditions of housekeeping of the times of our grandmothers and likewise of their mothers before them, we are impressed with the fact that the women ■who surmounted successfully so many obstacles must have been made of really tough fiber. The modern appliances which give us everything for our tables in highly condensed and beautiful forms, ready for use, with the minimum of preparation, were then unknown. They pounded the pepper and pulverized the sugar, and rolled the salt. So far from having electric lights to command at the touch of a mysterious knob, they had not even lucrfer matches. The fire had to be kept iu by strenuous care, and sometimes one went to her neighbor’s to borrow a handful of fire with which to light her own. Nothing was easy. Everything required hard, persevering and unrelenting labor, so that we may well believe that the women of that elder day were far from being incapable. Incapable women may, for the brief seasons of youth, while the sea shell color tints the rounded cheek and the “beaute de diable” beams in the bright eyes, win a passing tribute from thoughtless men. But the women who wear well must know how to meet emergencies, how to, tJfrder and see thedr. orders obeyed, how to hold themselves in calm composure, whatever tempests are abroad.—N. Y. Ledger.