Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1906-09-03
When Grandma Was a Girl.

| al made nineteen hundred pounds %
| butter the first year after ! was mar
ried, and was only nineteen year,
old--made it in an old stone churr
with a wooden dasher. and sold som,
of 1t for as low as ten cents pound.
said one OF A company of old ladies
sitting around quilt In New Eng
land farmhouse
Dear. dear, those old stone churns!
said another lady. What backacht
producers they were when one WAS al
| tired out! I'm thankful the creamer.
| has driven them to the attics, where
: they keep company with the spinning
| wheel
| and with the candle molds," sait
another old lady II was almost
grown before | ever saw kerosene
lamp. and / remember perfectly vel
the first time l ever saw q match
My father had been to town to sell Q
wagon load of produce, and he
brought home about dozen matches
and in the evening all the neighbors
were invited In to see him strike three
or four of them. Some folks thought
them too dangerous to have around
the house. We didn't have candle
mold at our house; we dipped all our
candles. Some folks used to call i,
'dippin taller The whole house
would smell Of it on the days we dip
ped taller"
"Then there was the old rag-carpet
loom." said the old lady who had first
spoken. II made the first yard OF
carpet l ever had cut and sewed
the rags and wove the carpet with
my own hands. Hard work 1t was
sitting at the old loom heating the
rags up in the warp with the bar
Do any of you remember old Color
ing Ann, as we used to call her? ]
remember her very we'll. She used
to go around from farm to farm color
ing carpet chain or linsey -woolsey or
jeans or anything the farmer folk
wanted colored. Had tongue loose
at both ends and fastened In the mid
die. We always expected to hear
and did hear, the news for miles
around whenever 'Coloring Ann came
around. Some times she would boil
soap for u.s.
Not many folks boil their own soap
nowadays, but when l was girl no
one ever thought of buying bar Of
soap. We always had an ash leach
dipping, and every scrap of fat was
saved for soap.
And now quiltmaking has gone
out, When l was a girl 1t was thought
to be something Of a reflection on a
girl if she didn't have about fifteen
quilts she had pieced and quilted. |
had sixteen. and began to piece some
of them when l was six years old l
used to have regular stint Of so many
blocks day Of patchwork. I had one
quilt with three thousand scraps In it.
1t took the blue ribbon three years in
succession at our county fair There
was some beautiful quilting on that
outfit. l had it quilted in a feather
and-herringbone pattern. Nobody
could set heater, finer stitches than
my mother. and she quilted all the
feathers and clearinghouse herself
Then. one hardly ever hears of any
one doing any pig work now. Why
when I was child at home my father
used to kill six great fat hogs just for
our own use. and we had only six in
the family! We used to butcher along
in November. and it was such a great
event that we children were allowed
to stay at home from school that day.
Then in the evening the neighbors
used to come in. and help make and
stuff the 'sassingers as some folks