Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1906-12-12
Memories of an Old-FashiOned
Woman

Memories of an Old-Fashioned
Woman
Oh, she is only grandmother. She
doesn't understand the way we do
things nowadays. Let her alone, for
she is too old to work and wouldn't
know how to go about it, anyway.
But grandmother, sitting in the
family ''sittin' room,n as she calls it,
watching her children and her grand
children fit about her, looking out in
the road at the swift autos and the
swifter trolley cars in a hopeless, dazed
sort of way, has forgotten more than
this generation will ever know.
Grandmother must have been a very
busy and tired person in those old days.
the days when her little children were
growing up about her, for there were
many things for her 10 do then, things
that we of to-day, with our luxuries
and convenienees. know nothing about
Grandmother's l~ifeless, luxury loving
granddaughter never have known the
joys of a real country wash day, the
beauty of a long line of dazzling white
clothes hanging against a background
of green beneath a canopy of blue, the
pungent odor of cleanliness, of fresh
scrubbed porches, of the satisfaction of
bringing in at evening armful after
urraft1l of FRO IN nj alnthoc drioA i'm tho
fresh air and golden sunshine.
In grandmother's youth she made
many things that are obsolete now,
obsolete because neither love nor
money can buy them, for this reason;
in this busy twentieth century rush
nobody has the time to make them.
Her quaint log cabin quilts, tufted
comforts, Melted co~unterpanes, are
quite different from the 98-cent afro
cities that greet us nowadays-quite
different even from the silk-and-down
comforts beneath which grandmother's
grandchildren sleep. The work of her
hands is almost priceless now but it
wasn't worth much then.
And the jellies,~ marmalades, pickles
and preserves that grandmother used
to make in her younger days, quite
different indeed were they from the
bought stuff put up in fancy bottles
with gaudy labels that is served on her
grandchildren's tables. She knew
that nothing but the ripe fruit and the
best sugar went into hers, because she
made them herself; there were none of
your chemicals and glucose and artifi-
cial coloring in grandmother's jelly.
Grandmother lived the simple life,
but it was a strenuous and she
lived up to every day and every hour.
She and grandfather relished life as her
up-to-date grandchildren will neve
relish ii. She did not try to do any
thing but live and fill the niche in
life she was intended for.
She did not try to get ahead of her
neighbors, there was no effort toward
elegance, she lived close to the earth
and to all that it implies. Her hearth
stone was large enough for all gathered
round it, and no stranger was yer
turned from her gate. At all the
weddings and at all the funerals grand
mother was there to lend a helping
hand, IN occasions of joy or sorrow.
Yes grandmother is old and her ways
are old-fashioned and out of date. Let
her sit in her armchair and watch the
world whiz by, while she, with folded
hands, calmly waits for the coming of
the end.
She is old fashioned but she has many
things to remember; sweet memories
that her twentiety century grand
children are pitied for never having
known.
Grandmother may be o~ld-fashioned,
yet this but adds to her value. Old
music, old paintings, old jewels gain
added value IN their age. -Philadelphia
Evening Bulletin.