Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1906-07-17
THE OLD FASHIONED WOMAN.

THE OLD FASHIONED WOMAN.
If there lives an individual who does
not know or remember an old-fashion-
ed woman, that one is to be pitied. If
he does remember he recalls SIM
pie broad bosomed. motherly creature
who made up in instructive mother
hood and Unborn sympathy with the
race for all the tricky graces and trained
dexterity of speech and manner that
are grouped under the generic name
of accomplishments. She wasn't grace
full. She made her own dresses and
they failed of the Partisan standard.
She was ignorant of the niceties of
the social code and in all her life never
owned a visiting card or used corr
rect note paper. Her musical educa-
ton had been neglected, she could
neither play nor appreciate classical
music and there were no shakes, runs
and trills in the simple little songs
she sang at her housework, or crooned
over the cradle at eventide to the
babies who, one after another, cud-
died down into the sleepy pillows. Her
figure was too plump for style, her face
too broad for beauty.
But what good woman she was!
She radiated kindness and sympathy
and helpfulness as the sun sheds sun
shine. She had always smile, kind
word, and a plate on her plenteous
table for the timid little boy who
came to play with her boys. She had
a word Of strength for the girl who
came to her. and girls were wont to
come to tell their sorrows and lean
on her sympathy. She was first at a
sick neighbours bedside and last to
leave. Tenderly, sympathetic and tact
full she smoothed away the wrinkles
of trouble over half the neighborhood.
Her home. like her heart, was open to
all who were weary and heavy laden.
She rejoiced with those who rejoiced
broad shoulders and great soul were
made for bearing burdens and she
never shirked her own nor refused to
lishten another's. Don't you remember
her? Don't you remember the white
house with the wide veranda and the
big lawn and the fields stretching
away on each side, and can't you re-
call that all these We're simply settings
for the lovable woman who stood to
welcome you when you came home
from the city that first time after you
had gone out in the pride of youth to
CONQUER the world and had come back
with the foreknowledge of life in your.
eyes? And can't you remember what
she said to you and how you went
away quietly, determined to be all
she seemed to take for granted you de-
sired to be? If you can't, then you are
to be pitied, and if you remember that
other homecoming when the house was
hushed and there was .'juist ae heart
in all the neighborhood, and it was
"sair' because a good woman had gone
away to the FAR country you will
pity yourself as you were then. Every
has had it's "Gordie
Howe" its returning and repentant
sea pegrace, and it's '.Marget." McLaren
and Drumtochty have no monopoly of
these.
Times, not people, change. The same
qualities that made the old fashioned
woman only little lower than the
angels exist, but in our division Of
labor we have supplied her place with
the trained nurse, and the physician
waiting the call of the telephone; we
have built up classes and erected So
cial barriers and grown more toward
the artificialties OF life, plastered a
shining veneer over the solid oak of
human interest, and interdependence
Human helpfulness and sympathy have
not faded from the earth But men
and women who knew her find them
selves remembering and ever remem-
bering the old fashioned woman and
that she is a vanishing type.