The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1897-02-20
OLD-TIME CUSTOMS.

Inas or Keeping Warm in Unheate>
Churches Was One of Thorn.
Nowadays, with steam radiators
registers, double doors and screens to
guard the aisles from draughts, min
sster is still not surprised to find his
congregation smaller than usual upon a
Sunday of intense cold Or winter storm IN.
Doubtless in the old times, too, the
weather made a differenre, though, in
all likelihood, in that era of severe duti-
fulness, less rather than greater
one than to-day. Yet what hardships
our ancestors had to endure in winter,
in their bare, bleak, bitter cold old
meeting houses!
"Ye sacramental bread was frozen
hard, and ratified sadly in We plates,' -
wrote Judge Sewall in his dairy after
Sunday in the church at Newbury
with the Thermometer near zero. And
it was not uncommon, not only in the
days of the grand old justice but many
years later, for women to faint from
simple cold, or to become so chilled
as to be unable to rise or move when it
came to hymn time, and to have to be
carried out of church and thawed at
the nearest neighbor's. Little wonder,
poor things!
We have only to imagine how a girl
Of to-day would feel if, after getting
her feet thoroughly wet and half frozen n,
she wrapped herself in a heavy cloak
omitting, however, her warm fannels
and her close-ftting outside jaclzet-and
retiring to an unheated barn, sat up
straight On hard board for three hours,
with draughts from every crack and
lshothole playing freely about her. We
should expect consumption or ppeu-
monia as the natural result, and they
were the natural result, and carried
many of our shivering ancestresses to
an untimely grave.
Yet, with all that they had to endure,
women sometimes voluntarily increased
their misery at the demand of fashion;
at least the winter brides did SO. 1t
was long the custom for brides on first
attending church after marriage to
wear no outside garments-whether
merely to let the folks see their new
mony akin to unveiling, is not known;
but in the depths of January or Decen,-
Der, they would come to meeting, with
heroism worthy of better cause,
in all the unconcealed finery of a glossy
silk or satin, with not SO much as a
scarf across the shoulders for warmth.
A characteristic story of the revenge
of Puritan suitor upon fair maid
who had married his rival, relates that
he being the sexton of the church,
and she a December bride-he purposely
managed SO that bitter wind should
blow upon her from a deftly unstoppeti
chink, when she arrived the Sunday
after the wedding in the customary in
adequate array.
He would "bring down the saucy
hussy's PRIDE" he declared; though
whether he intended to do so ludicrous-
ly through influenza and a red nose,
or tragically by means of lung fever
and an early death, the story does not
relate. But in either case she survived
the ordeal.
There were often among the tougher
and more rigid members OF the church
a few who believed all this hardship
to be a good thing, and who opposed
even the popular little foot stoves as
a luxury; while when stoves were in
troduced which attempted to heat the
whole church, they fought them with
disgust and bitterness.
One old woman, Aunt Judy Jones,
made a point of sitting near the new
stove for several successive Sundays,
throwing off or flinging open one layer
Of wraps after another, and finally ~
ing back in state of conspicuous eX-
haustion, gasping family and tanning
herself with an immense turkey-feather
fan. But the stove continued to glow.
and the congregation to be comfort
able, and before the season ended it
was quietly observed that Aunt Judy
did not seem to feel the heat more than
other people, and had even been known
to 90 up and warm her feet at the un-
welcome red-hot thing itself before set
Ting down in the pew for the sermon.
Youths Companion.