The Detroit times. [volume] (Detroit, Mich.) 1903-1920, 1917-06-18
The Farmers Wife At
Last Protests and Her
Emancipation Is Due

Time was when the woman on the
farm sighed in her loneliness and the IN
sane asyIums were more than half filled
with farmers wives who had lost their
minds, it was said. on account of the
monotony Of their lives, plus excessive
toll
Things have changed since then.
Go into the country and you find
pianos and piano players, monographs.
telephones, electric lights. electric wash
ing machines, electric irons, and above
all, automobiles which fly about the coun-
try with the farmers wives.
Taking them to quilting bees and apple
parings? On, no. to card parties, suf-
frage meetings, clubs, Red Cross circles,
ladies' auxiliaries of this. that and the
other thing, just ike the varieties you
find in town.
But, according to her own statement
the automobile is becoming the undoing
of the farmers wife and she is sending
into the ether an 5. 0. 5. cry for help to
the unthinking public.
For. says Mrs. Farmer. unless my city
friends will stay away and give me a
little time from getting up extra meals
and dishwashing, l will not be able TO do
my bit in that most important work
making a garden which the government
is so keen about these days.
How can one plant, hoe and pull weeds
when the honk, honk of an automobile
coming into ones gates heralds the JOY
Gus approach of six or eight hungry
mouths?
They are just joy-riding for nothing at
all but the fun of the thing, with the
farm and good fill-up as their destina-
ton.
A fine arrangement for everyone but
the farmers wife, who has TO leave the
garden and spend half the day in get
ting~the meal and clearing up.
This protest is a significant thing for
Mrs. Farmer to make, tho no one may
appreciate it.
Ini is the emancipation of woman as
no suffrage activity we know of has
shown it, for Mrs. Farmer in the old
days, was above all things hospitable.
She wouldshave become a skeleton long
before she went to her grave from ex-
ploitation and overwork rather than let
any friend or acquaintance unto the third
and fourth generation think himself UNI
welcome.
To turn away the wayfarer was the
one unforgivable sin in her code of
ethics and a brand new pie and cake
were always on hand for these expected
emergencies.
But the worm win turn and so win
woman when too hard pressed and the
automobile, destroyer of space, boon to
the pleasure-loving as well as the most
revolutionary piece of mechanism in the
world has brought the farmers wife
to her full height and made her assert,
in unmistakable terms, her indepen-
denee
Had we any doubt of that indepen-
dence. we have but to look in our own
empty cupboards from which we live
hand-to-mouth existence and then exam
inc the well-stocked larder against next
winter) which her cellar will disclose.
To our early pioneer women, our farm
ers wives, We owe a debt Of gratitude
which we can never pay.
1t was they who had the courage, the
strength and the endurance TO go into
the wilds, help TO clear the forests and
rear large and virile family.
Their bravery and hardihood are
woven into the fabric Of our nation.
There are fine women today. many Of
them, but there are few who would
not quail before the toll, the loneliness,
the hardships which these women faced
with snlendid fearless ewes
All honor to the farmers wife and if,
at last. she has rebelled against the bur-
den put upon her by the thoughtlessness
Of city folk, we can but apologize and
promise better things.