Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1903-09-09

the number of children born to Amer
loan parents are question: that are
just nofs occupying the public atten-
tion.
A recent article by a writerin q
monthly magazine contrasts the large
families of the early days of the Re-
public with the small ones of the
present day, with a masterful pen.
This portrayal of the experiences
of the patient women of the olden
times, when women not only bore
many children, but were over
burdened with the toll and care
necessary to bring them up, is graphic
in its correctness.
The picture is so true that / kneely
appreciated it, being myself the
eldest of thirteen.
In the retrospective it seems to me
Incredible that any woman could
have had the endurance and have
accomplished what our mother did
for her large family in country
primitive in every sense of the word
in those days.
Yet she performed her duties so
faithfully and with such marked
ability that the remembrance of her
achievements has been rebuke to
me all the long years since her un-
timely death.
She filled her mission with such
exalted ambition for all of her chill.
dren that it still seems to me that
her like is not to be seen in these
latter days.
That the women of her day were
superior in the qualities that go to
make up blessed womanhood and
motherhood seems indisputable. In
the first place they were wholly un-
selfish and self-sacrificing for their
families.
do not claim that there are no
women of the present day who
would not do as they did, but I do
claim that their prototypes are not
numerous.
We have only to contrast the con-
ditions of to-day with those of a
quarter of a century ago to realize
the difference in the facilities for
accomplishing anything in those days
and the present era.
Electricity and the ingenuity of
men have lifted many of the burdens
Of domestic life from the shoulders
of women.
Imagine the contrast of the White
House with its up-to-date improve
ments and the modern methods of
conducting it as the home of the
Presidents family and it's condition
when Abigail Adams had to have the
family washing dried in the East
room and wrote such gloomy letters
about her domestic trials while she
was its mistress.
All along the line from the first
home in the land to the humble cot
tage in the far West, domestic work
has been made easy; to say nothing
of the change from hand carding,
spinning, weaving hand made mate
rial and hand made blankets, table
and bed linen and the clothes for
these large families.
The cheese, butter and sweetmeats
that these women made every year,
not only for the use of their large
families, but the hosts of guC SITS they
entertained, for hospitality was un-
limited in eye olden times"
To which add the prodigious labor
they performed in raising poultry
and supervising, if not actually work
ing, the kitchen and flower gardens.
Other fields occupied their time also.
The work of their churches-they
took an active part in every move.
ment for the advancement of religion
and the building of churches.
They had to take turns in board
ing the ministers and school teachers,
and aid in keeping up the six months
schools-all they had each year.
Mrs. John a. Logan in ST. Louis Re-
public.