The Northern Pacific farmer. [volume] (Wadena, Minn.) 1878-1885, 1884-06-26
Two-score Years Ago-Abandoned
Customs of our Fathers.

From the San Francisco Chronicle.
Family cooking was better than at
present: Our mothers and grandmoth-
ers "took a hand" in it. Bread was
made at home. Coffee was freshly
ground every morning for breakfast.
The grinding of the family coffee-mill
was familiar sound of the early morn
ing long ere the children were up.
Foreign help was less sway in the
kitchen than now, and E uropean hands
did not make a botch of such purely
American dishes as pumpkin pie, cod
fish cakes, pork and beans, corn bread,
buckwheat cakes and succotash.
People then did not live as long, nor
was the average health as good as it is
to-day they ate more meat, more grease,
more hot bread, more heavy dishes,
drink more at meals and afterward
chewed more tobacco.
Dyspeptics and consumptives were
more common, disease and premature
death were devout1y laid at the diety's
door and alluded TO as Interpretations
of Providence"
Tombstones had larger epitaphs and
more verbosity engraved upon them.
At funerals undertakers cried with
the mourners, the flow OF tears being
proportionate to the expense of the
funeral
Collins were very plain and burial
caskets unknown.
Young folks in couples counted it
privilege to sit up nights with the corpse
before burial, and in many cases it was
% welcome recreation.
New Orleans molasses, very black and
thin, was the common "sweeting" for
buckwheat cakes. Refined molasses was
comparatively scarce.
The bank bills of state banks, and the
further west their locality the Shaker
were they. Illinois and Indiana bills
would barely pass in New York city.
Much of the silver currency-six-
pence, shillings and dollars-was of
Mexican coinage, brought to this coun-
try by the Santa Fe traders.
The country retail trade was better
than now. People then could not so
easily by rail run up to the city and
spend their largest cash accumulations
III U1lC 11O1 . OUu1D'
The country dry goods stores renewed
their stock from the city twice a year.
The arrival of "new goods" created
quite futter. It filled the store for
two or three days-r1ntil all the women
in the village had seen the new styles.
Eggs were a shilling a dozen, and
butter was considered high at eighteen
pence per pound.
There was ''York currency" being
eight shillings to the dollar, and New
England currency, six shillings to the
dollar.
Business letters were more volumin-
Gus and formal than now, and written
in precise, round hand.
Isolated rural settlements contained
greater proportion of lunatics, paralyt-
les and victims of the St. Vitus' dance
than they do to-day.
The railroad had not strung places to-
gether, and there were fewer hospitals
for special diseases, hence most of their
cases were kept at home.
The diet was more surcharged with
grease The winter breakfast at thou
sands OF tables consisted CT salt ham and
hot cakes.
Dinner was simply hasty lunch at
noon. Little importance WAS attached
to the necessity for good digestion or a
period of rest after eating.
The same heavy diet prevailed in
many families, without change, Winter
and summer. Hence On the first ap
proach of the warmth Of Spring came
Pox-ouV o,,1 Ill,
this the doctors of the period gave
strong cathartics, possibly q 'bluemass
pill" or dose of "calomel."
The regular professions then used
mercury in a manner which would now
be deemed reckless. The patient was
given regular purgation and directed
to "diet" for a few days. Children were
strongly dosed with castor oil and rhu
barb and salts and SIENNA on the least
It was strong age for medicine and
an age Of strong medicine. Under
such treatment the strong managed to !
recover, the weak died and the medium
class physically fingered on and suffered.
lightning rods made their way into
use with difficulty. The ultra devout
opposed them on the ground
that they were an insult to the deity
and that it was an interference with the
works and will of Providence.
Negro minstrelsy was just cropping
out in the travelling circus. There we're
generally but two performers, who as
sumed male and female characters.
The popular melody was "Jump-Jim
Crow"