Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1903-03-05
Fashions Of Bygone Days.
Katharine p. Fuller in the Springfield Republican

Perhaps no one has ever counted
among modern improvements the ill.,
tie compressed yeast cake which may
be bought any day Of the week at any
grocery store, but not long ago, while
reading recipe for good old-fashioned
raised cake, l found that it called for
zane cup distilled yeast" Straight
way I seemed to hear the voice Of Aunt
Miriam Bong since gathered to the
saints-as she said: There's the
emptins man. You run out, child
and get me a copper's worth" The
command involved a trip to the pantry
where the milk money was kept in a
cup on the shelf, the hasty throwing Of
a shawl over ones head, and then
followed a headlong start for the
street, lest the yeast man, whose hear
ing seemed never to be very acute,
should get away beyond recall. AS
Jared forth, divers other beshawled
female figures were to be seen ad-
vancing or retreating, holding their
shawls under their chins with one
hand and carefully steadying their
yeast cups with the others. Where the
estate was large enough to support a
driveway around to the back door,
the yeast man drove in with consider
able flourish and cIangor of his bell,
and for those affluent mortals who
took two cOppers' worth he plunged
his small dipper twice into the foam
ing mixture, and preserved an unsur-
passed gravity of demeanOr. OF
course, there are many people who
al exodus to the cart" on two days of
the week is a thing of the past. Find
me the child who wouldn't be com
pletely dumbfounded if told to Run
OUT and get a cOpper's worth Of empt'
ms" In the first place, the copper is
almost as extinct as the dOdO, and the
contraction of the word emptyings has
passed, along with the dear old people
who used it so innOcently.
These simple thoughts about yeast
caught on a reminiscent mood and it
struck me rather forcibIy that when
we look back, even into the middle
distance, as it were. we are shocked
to find how many things we remember
that some of those around us would
find utterly strange; things that are
thank heaven, quite old enough to be
cassed with the positive antiquities,
but which have gone, probably never
to return in their original hideOusneSS.
I
have sent to oblivion or the garnet
SO much that we blindly admired, or
used. or were constrained to wear,
even so late as the early '70s or SOS.
Come with me, little beginning-of-
the century girl, and see if you can
name some Of the aunty's (nOt grand
mas attic relics What do you call
this remnant of a gray flannel skirt,
striped around with the primary col
ors? That, my dear, in its original
entirely, was a balmoral-we always
accented the last syllable, with high
disregard for Scotland's royal castle.
This is a Garibaldi waist, so long on
the shoulders that it would feel now
as if it were dropping off. What an
insult to the italian patriots memory
to wear one today! But we used to say
proudly, I'm going to put on my
Garibaldi." Does it seem as if these
congress CATERS ever looked stylish?
Probably they did, to have been so
much affected. You don't remember
when buttOned boots were rather new,
and very, very-wel we didn't say
swell then, but we meant an equiva-
lent. When a machine sewed on the
buttons for us, without extra charge,
it seemed as if the evolution of the
shoe had been rapid. | wonder if you
wouldn't feel like a veritable goose If
you had to wear white cotton stock
ings all the time, though ! believe they
are now the fashion again; but they
were all the prevailing style, and all
the up-to-date little girls, and big girls,
too, wore white stockings and ankle
ties. as their slippers, which buttOned
around the ankle and had one button
on each strap, were called. You al
ways wore these to have your daguer-
reotype taken, at the time when Mon
sieur Daguerre was int1icting an ago
nizing word to spell upon a helpless
generation; and had discovered his
process of fixing your ankle-ties upon
a glass plate, so that future genera
tons might laugh. The plates were
set in gilt frames and further protect
ed with stamped crimson or green vel
vet, all set in a leather case, which
fastened with a brass hook and eye.
The artistic photography of today ac-
knOwledges nothing of the kind. Here
is some children'S jeWelry, whose pop
ularity it would be difficult to revive,
| fear; a carnelian ring, this red and
white striped one; and this, much less
expensive and elegant, is gutta percha;
it was ring, and that was about all
could say of it. These butternut pins,
a cross section of that domestic nut
admired at one time, and this 'lecket,
or tiny basket, is made of a peach
stone Perhaps you make now the
edible necklaces of allspice berries
they could be developed" as a But
trick pattern direction elegantly says
by stringing the berries together with
red. blue or steel beads, "as fancy
directed"
My dear, you do not know some OF
the awful secrets of the back hair Of
the late past. There were waterfalls
and "chignons," made up in styles toe