The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-11-01
OF INTEREST TO WOMEN
THE "OLD III AT M AND
HOW THEY sHOULD BE TREATED.
The Girl Who Tried to Follow News
paper Advice-WOmen at the
worlds F~air-Odds and Ends.

Though there is not a grandfather and
grandmother in every home, yet TO most
households the time does come, in the
course of years, when some old person is
It's inmate. 1t is TO be feared that the lot
of these elderly guests. even when they
are welcome, is not always enviable, says
a writer in the Ladies World. Sad to. say.
such a life is oftener a bed of prickles than
one Of roses. This is not, indeed, inten-
tionaI; for the aged and infirm in American
homes are not purposely treated with un-
blindness. If their feelings are hurt. and
their lives saddened, it is oftenest for the
the lack of sympathetic imagination.
The bustling young matron, proud of her
home, of her new furniture, her own ability
and Importance as a housekeeper, some
times appears to think hat no one ever
kept house before and that no one else
possibly could do it just right but her i'm
portant self. She is apt to have small pa
thence with the notions of GRANDMOTHER,
great aunts and mothers-in-law, and even.
it is to be feared, with those of her own
mother, who has never attended a cooking
schoo nor taken a course of lectures on
domestic science.
Could she for a moment feel what it
means to one TO be dependent after having
had a home of ones own; to a a SUBJ
ordinate position, to have no rights, no
authority In the new home, she would I'M
derstand what being old is like. Does it
look like a pleasant prospect? Oh, no; one
should try to understand these feelings, to
put ones self in the place of the old-that
is the mission of the sympathetic imagina-
ton. Then one can see why the aged are
so often %querulous. They have weakness
and bodily infirmitieS, and in addition, they
have lost most of the friends and associates
of their own age, those who had similar
memories. The interests of the young are
not their interests, nor their society al
together congenfal, even were they OF II;
but the young world too often moves heed
lessly on without an effort to let them into
the charmed orbit.
Does the old man or the old woman have
the sadder life? Without doubt a woman
suffers the most pinpricks. Her life as a
housekeeper has left her with opinions and
habits about that work formed; she Is set
in her ways" and she sees, it may be,
| every tradition of her youth set at naught,
| and rules that lave been to her as those
of the Modes and the Persians broken
without scruple. She is annoyed every
day and in a thousand little ways. But
she has compenSationS in having more re-
sources of occupation than an old man.
The needle is the old ladys friend. though
Ii may nave been her tyrant in youth.
With sewing and knitting, embroidery and
crocheting, there is sure to be something
she can still do to while away the long
| hours when she cannot read.
A man does not imagine a thousand
sights and slurS as a woman does; he Is
less sensitive: making his way in the
world has hardened him to trifing annoy
| house are matters of indifference to him.
What does 1t matter If the window cur