A SUPER WOMAN OF YESTERYEAR

The John Dobson Family circa 1871

My favorite retro era is the 1930s through the 1940s. It seems to me that's when the concept of home management was at its peak – when it was studied as a system that could be taught for the benefit of the individual and therefore society. As the '40s became the '50s and '60s, we began to question that "a woman's place is in the home" and women began to express their right to find fulfillment outside the home, to have careers apart from or in addition to home and family – and rightly so. The wrong was that home management as a career was de-valued to the point that we stopped teaching, developing, and encouraging it. Some of us feel the loss of that. Some of us have discovered we can still find it – through the written word (books and letters) and through each other. The subject of domestic encouragement is really rather timeless in nature. Modern conveniences may relieve us of much drudgery, but the value of the home to society remains.

Here's an anecdote about my paternal great-grandmother, Lucy Winans Dobson, from my Grandmother Ina Dobson's unpublished memoir. Lucy was Ina's mother-in-law, of course. To my knowledge they never met. Lucy lived near Deloit, Iowa, with her husband, John.

"John Dobson was a good and kind man," Ina writes, "and was often called upon by the native Americans to settle little matters between them and the settlers. One chief and his wife called at the house to do honor to Grandpa John. At the time there were twins in the old cradle, Julian and Junius. Before this there had been twin girls in the old cradle, Julia and Mary. This seemed a great thing to the chief -- that this woman had born not one but two sets of twins, and he thought Grandma Lucy a wonderful woman. He offered to trade his spouse and I don't know what else for Grandma! We do not know by what diplomacy Grandpa John got out of this situation.

Julia Ann & Mary Jane; Julian & Junius

"Grandmother Lucy was a handsome woman, a great manager and worker. She raised lots of chickens and geese and had eggs and butter to sell, as well as some garden stuff. She made clothes for the family, and even the boys wore home-made clothes till they were in their teens. Grandfather raised sheep and used to take the wool to Peoria, Illinois, to trade for 'full cloth.' This was a heavy grade of wool cloth used for suits for men and boys, from which Grandma made clothes for the boys."

By the way, the two sets of twins were just four of the ten children that Lucy bore between 1856 and 1876. The girl twins were born in 1857 while the boys, Julian (my grandfather) and Junius were born in 1864.

Family generation gaps are certainly interesting, aren't they? My great-grandfather John Dobson was born in 1834, my grandfather Julian Dobson in 1864, my dad in 1904, and I in 1949. My half-sister Harriet's first great-grandchild was born in April of this year, just weeks before Harriet turned 80, while my half-brother Chuck at 74 has great-grandchildren who are half grown. Some people, like me, never knew their great-grandparents. They were gone by at least 20 years when I was born. 

[Recently through this blog I became acquainted with Leah, a shirt-tail relative, who provided the family portrait of the John Dobson Family from her genealogy research. I had never seen the family portrait but had the photo of the twins taken in 1871. Together, Leah and I worked through some errors in dating and identification of the photo. The baby is not Lawrence, who was born and died in 1868, but Cora, born in 1870. See the cute little topknot tied with ribbon?] KW

HAPPY MOTHERS’ DAY – PRESSING ON

Today as I think of mothers everywhere, I give gratitude for labor-saving progress that has improved the lot of all women and homemakers. Since we were talking about ironing recently, I "updated" my thoughts with a look back to the day when ironing was not electrified.

I believe the first iron I remember in my Mother's home was not a steam iron – just a simple electric iron. Probably by 1960 Mother had a steam iron, but it didn't change the ironing process. She still sprinkled the clothes before she ironed them since the steam alone was not adequate to the task in her opinion. In fact, I suspect if she were here today, she would still sprinkle some items even though irons now emit a shot of steam or a fine spray of water to help erase a particularly tough wrinkle. Even I will sprinkle an old linen tablecloth or a cotton blouse before ironing it.

A friend was telling me that while visiting her granddaughter, a young mother, she asked to use her iron. The granddaughter confessed that she didn't own an iron. My friend and I agreed that we would not be able to get along without an iron and we often leave the ironing board up. It seems that something always needs pressing and the iron is still an absolute must for the seamstress. Mother advised that good sewing was in the pressing as much as in the stitching.

But – ironing in my mother's day still seems like modern times to me. Here at the farmhouse, Grandma Ina didn't ever have electricity – still didn't have it when she passed on in 1957. Once, when Mother and I were cleaning the farmhouse in the '60s, she decided a curtain needed pressing. She considered taking it back to town, but you know how it is – she wanted to finish the job at hand. She decided to take advantage of the fire in the old wood cook stove and use Ina's flat irons to press the curtain, thereby also giving me a demonstration of how it used to be done. She put several of the flat irons onto the stove. After some length of time, she inserted the interchangeable wooden handle into one of the irons and gave it the sizzle test (moistened index finger). It was a must to test the iron, perhaps as much to be sure it was not too hot as hot enough. When she deemed the iron temperature adequate, she commenced to iron the curtain. As the iron lost heat and became less effective, she put it back on the stove, picked up another iron, tested it for heat, and continued ironing. Believe me, she worked quickly in order to cover the most "ground" possible before the iron lost heat.

[In the first photo, my paternal grandmother, Ina Dobson, appears a little self-conscious as she hangs clothes in the grove in 1921. The second photo is probably Ina's youngest child, Aunt Shirley, hanging clothes in the 1930s. And here's a photo of Ina's flat irons and some of her other laundry tools which I use to decorate my laundry room. Mike weighed one of the irons in the old Dobson cradle scale -- 4 pounds. I don't know if the little one is a toy or if it was used to press out corners of shirts and blouses. At any rate, I found it in the old toy box. Flat irons make excellent doorstops.] KW

A PRESSING TALE

A recent post on modernretrowoman.com served as a reminder of what was once an important homemaking skill "back in the day" – ironing. In the days before "wash and wear" or "permanent press," virtually all laundry had to be ironed, and ironing was indeed a skill. Some women earned money by taking in laundry and/or ironing. In our case, when I was very little – perhaps three, my mother had an ironing lady, Mrs. Murray, who came to the house one morning a week to press the family's laundry. Mother would set me in my youth chair and I was fascinated for the duration of Mrs. Murray's work. I loved to watch her smooth the wrinkles out of the clothes.

As older siblings left home and I was off to school, Mother no longer needed Mrs. Murray and did the ironing herself. How well I remember the process. Of course, it actually started with the washing. In the days before dryers, laundry was carefully hung on the line and smoothed for a minimum of wrinkles and creases. Mother's sprinkle bottle was a purchased corked watering cap inserted into a pop bottle, but sprinkle bottles could be purchased. She also had a "sprinkle bag," a zippered plastic sack designed for the purpose of holding the damp laundry. The bag had a divider to separate the whites from the colored clothes. As Mother sprinkled the clothes, she would fold and roll them and place them one by one in the sack, then cover it with a clean old towel and let the damp laundry set for a while. I can still smell the fresh scent of the damp textiles. Sprinkling was evidently an important step because in the whole of my growing up years she never allowed me to sprinkle the clothes. She said it was important that they not be too wet. I assume I am still an inept "sprinkler." Once the clothes were sprinkled, you were committed to finishing the job. Forget about the contents of the sprinkle bag and the clothes would mildew.

When I was 10 or so, I was assigned certain items to iron as part of my household chores — my dad's boxer shorts and pajamas, pillowcases, tablecloths, handkerchiefs, etc. Embroidered pillowcases were given special treatment. Mother taught me to put a towel under the embroidery as I pressed to protect it. (Crocheted edgings and doilies also received this special treatment.) Mother ironed all other items of clothing — and very carefully. She painstakingly pressed pleated or gathered skirts, ruffled blouses, creased pants. It was amazing what she could do with the point of her hot iron. I could never be her equal.

We also had a "mangle." My old dictionary defines a mangle as a machine for ironing laundry by passing it between heated rollers. The word could also be used as a verb – to mangle or mangling, meaning to smooth damp laundry by means of a mangle. As I recall, the operator sits on a chair in front of the mangle and places the fabric evenly over a horizontal roller, then causes that roller to move into the hot sleeve. Mother's mangle came out when she laundered the sheer curtains that hung in windows across the front of our house.

Mother's comment on permanent press: "A permanent press shirt doesn't look good unless you press it and even then it doesn't look much better." A friend points out that as life changes, our symbols change as well, and the symbol of the well-ironed shirt was disappearing. While Mother appreciated the crisp, clean lines of a beautifully pressed garment, she knew that the process of ironing was hard on textiles. She told me that she had received three sets of colored sheets when she was first married in 1929. She especially loved the lavender set, so she kept them for special and ironed them. She said that while she used that set far less, it wore out first.

[Photo – Mother's ironing board sat before this window for years. Eventually she updated and improved the little passageway, installing these "plant holders" for her African violets.] KW

ON DOING THE DISHES

I've been trying to stay focused on my new housekeeping system. I've made the job cards, and while I couldn't find labeled 3x5 dividers locally, I did find blank ones that serve the purpose even better. While shopping for a box, I happened to think of my mother's last recipe box. To use it for another purpose tugged at my heartstrings, but she doesn't need it now, I told myself, and it's silly not to make use of it. So, I transferred the contents of Mother's hand-painted wooden box to a plastic box and labeled it. I'm not as interested in those recipes as I am in the ones she used during my growing up years, but you know, the day will come when those recipes from the '70s and '80s will be sought after as "retro." So, the card system is functioning and I see progress.

"I love my dishwasher," said daughter Hallie when we were in Seattle. Dishwashers are great time and energy savers. When I was growing up we didn't have a dishwasher until I was 13 (1962). We did dishes the old-fashioned way, and it was a big deal. When I was little, my sister stood me on a chair and I was "allowed" to dry some select unbreakable items. Eventually, it was just me at home with my parents and I was expected to help with the dishes most every meal. At first I was mainly the drier because Mother insisted the wash water be very hot. I was not allowed to wash until I could stand to put my hands in the hot water. As I grew older, I had more responsibility in the dishwashing process. If Mother was involved in sewing or had something else to do, I might be expected to do them by myself. My mother considered that the dishes were not done until they were all washed, dried, and put away. Allowing the dishes to "drain dry" denoted laziness. Even when we had a dishwasher, pots and pans were always washed by hand. And of course, doing the dishes included cleaning the table, the stove, the sink, and countertops. If we had an evening obligation, we ate early so that the dishes could be done to specification before we left the house. The standard was that the dishes were done and the kitchen cleaned following every meal and before you left the house. The same standard was practiced by my husband's mother.

Washing dishes at Grandma Ina's house on the homestead was an even bigger deal, but I now treasure the fact that I was privileged to have the experience. There was no running water in that place, so when we started cooking a meal on the old woodstove, we would make sure to put a pot of water on in preparation for doing the dishes. After the meal, we would take the old wash pans from their place on the wall in the pantry – one for washing, one for rinsing, one for draining. Plates and dishes were removed from the table, scraped free of scraps, and stacked. Preparation was necessary due to limited space. The dishes didn't drain well in the pan, so the dishtowel was frequently exchanged for a dry one. As we did the dishes, we would look out the window, the same window and the same scene I see today when I'm at the farmhouse. And some days, when I'm thinking of old times, I almost have to pinch myself when I turn the faucet on and water flows out. It's magic!

I also love my dishwasher and wouldn't like to go back to hand washing. But I do think the camaraderie of doing the dishes together constitutes a loss to the home and a loss to society. We visited while we worked. As the family worked together things came out that might not have otherwise, perhaps giving a parent insight to a child's character and the opportunity to share wisdom and advice. Sometimes there were arguments over the dishes. That, too, might be seen as giving individuals opportunity to air and resolve differences. And when we were finished, we had accomplished something together, even though it was menial in nature. Something about that was basic and comfortable.

A sampler in my mother's kitchen read as follows:

Life's riches other rooms adorn

But in the kitchen home is born. KW

ON KEEPING HOUSE

I've always struggled to keep house. "It's a disease," said my oldest sister. "You get it from your mother." Yes, it's true – our mother wasn't as interested in keeping a tidy house as she was in her sewing / handiwork projects. "I'm a project worker," she admitted. So Alma came once a week to help while Mother handled the seasonal work.

"Why can't you just do it?" some might ask. Well, I think some of us just don't have an innate sense that tells us where to start and when we've done enough for today. "A woman's work is never done," as the old saying goes and that seems overwhelming. And once I've done a task, I tend to feel I shouldn't have to do it again. For example, I re-organized my pantry a year ago and can't quite face that it needs to be done again. Facing my housekeeping failings is a part of becoming the "modern retro woman."

I am one who needs inspiration and identified system in order to be disciplined about my housekeeping. Years ago I subscribed to a housekeeping system (Sidetracked Home Executives) that involved a 3x5 card filing system. I put a lot of effort into it, and it worked for me initially. (Kind of like Weight Watchers works initially.) When we moved in 1987, I revised the system for a much bigger house but life happened and eventually the box got stashed in a cupboard – BUT I knew where it was. Then we "downsized" and moved from a big house to two houses. ("You can't keep two houses," they say, but I'm trying.) I have turned both houses and a storage loft upside down. I just can't find that filebox – and that in itself is proof of the fact that I need a better system. So, I'm starting over – and you know what will happen: as soon as I've reconstructed the system, I'll open a cupboard, push some doo-dad aside, and there will be my bright yellow box. Or, I'll open some miscellaneous box marked "Daddy's glass" or "yarn," and there it will be in the bottom. I seem to remember – well, never mind. (Sometimes I remember things that didn't happen.)

In the words of an old hymn – "In beauty, grandeur, order, His handiwork is shown." And that word "order" is demanding my attention. KW