The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-05-16
A REMINDER OF THE PAST.

past, and awakens in the breasts of the older reader who remembers country life as 1t existed In the old days. sweet Iy sad memories of the times that are gone, never to return. except in rare instances. Such a reminder comes from reading the following. which a subscriber at wadiey. Ala. sends The Roanoke Leader:
 Hill expressed to Seattle, Wash, a Worlds Fair.
 She Is a widow. having lost her hus- band In the civil war and is 73 years old. In the last twelve months she has planted the seed. done all the .cul- tivatiop, gathered the cotton, carded tt an old-time spinning wheel. dyed the thread. and wove the cloth on the war time loom. cut and pieced the quilt all being done by her own labor. With the quilt she expressed a sample of raw material, carded bats and rolls. the brooch of thread and the banked Mrs. Hin lives alone. Her daugh- ters (three in number) are married and have been from home several years. She makes an independent living on the farm. doing all the work. She miles. and carried her bundle She does not use glasses and is in excellent health for one of her age. Surely she Is entitled to premium. sa There are few homes in Alabama, we imagine. where that experience could be duplicated. We do not refer par ticuiariy to the hardships Mrs. Hill has been called on to endure, for in that she Is not entirely alone. The results of the long and bitter war brought among other things poverty and suffer ing and privation to many widows and children of the South. Many a good woman who had been accustomed to a life of comparative ease and lack of seif-dependency found herself. when peace came, a widow. probably with little children, and nothing for herself and them but what her own efforts could procure. It is one of the glories of Southern womanhood that in most cases of the kind the woman did not fail, but met the exigencies of the sit- uation braveiy and hopefully. and suc- ceeded fin sustaining herself and those depending on her. All the courage and endurance of Southerners was not ex- hibited on the fields of battle.
 What interests us especially in this account is the work of this aged wo- man at this latter day. Many of our city readers never saw one of the old fashioned spinning wheels which were part of the furnishings of all country homes before the war and afterwards, but are now. disappearing. Perhaps the city dwellers, or some of them, may have seen these implements of domestic industry on exhibition at a State Fair, or on some occasion of the kind, but not in actual use.
 And how few. except the strictly ru- raI people, have ever seen one of those old looms in usei We suppose If one were set up in a large city, and oper- ated by a woman who understands how to do it. 1t would be paying show. and would attract attention from crowds of curious visitors to whom it would be genuine novelty. The swiftly alternating movement of the shuttles as they were shot to and fro, each time leaving strand of thread behind them; the rhythmicaI beat of the batten as it added thread after thread to the web of cloth; the cons stant motion of the treadles pressed by Willing feet; all this would be in the | nature of novelty to the city folks. Even pair of cards in actual use would be quite . curious sight to many people.
 And yet all these things were the common and Indispensable parts of the country h0rnes of Alabama within the memory of those of us who were fa- mihar with the rural life of the past A home without it's cards, spinning wheel and loom in those days would have been Iooketson as sadly lacking in furnishings. Many aman and boy in those days wore no other clothing than that which had been, carded, spun, woved and sewed by the expert and willing hands Of the wife and mother Many Confederate soldier would have presented a sorry spectacle, and been sadly lacking in comfort had it not been for the warm and substantial garments made for him by the wife at home. Last, but by no means least in the list, many a good woman and handsome daughter wore homespun frocks to church or to other gather ihgs and were proud of them, as well they might be. for those frocks were evidences of what our woman would do and what they did do.
 But as we have said. all this is fast becoming only a memory to many of us. It is so easy now to buy the cloth already woven that the making of it Is fast becoming a lost art in most parts of the country. Perhaps there may yet be found few. like Mrs Hill, who have not forgotten how to do these things. and who still find delight fin keeping up the habits of the old days. There may be more users Of spinning wheels and looms in the country parts than We are aware of, and homemade elothing-home-ma in the fullest sense of the term-may not have en- tirely fallen into dIsuse. but we sus