Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1919-12-31
HOW they USED
TO DO THINGS
When Grandma Went to Town She
Priced, Tried and Tested and
Considered Values.
SHE KNEW HOW
MUCH SHE HAD TO SPEND.
She Went abOEt Her Purchasing as
She Would Go About Buying Il
Home.

Home.
When Grandmother went to town
to buy some things she went and
priced and tried and tested and con-
sidered values fully before she
shopped. She went to market. She
bought She took thread or two
out of the fabric and burned it. II
it blazed up. She went about her
purchasing as she would go about
buying home. 1t was a most seri-
ous matter with Grandmother
She knew how much she had to
spend and what she had to get with
it. The prices must be within her
means. She refused to listen to the
voice of the charmer when she de-
sired something more expensive than
she could afford. She made a day
she bought for the winter when she
bought, and not for the next de
! livery" Grandmother carried home
her bundles in the bottom of the
big sleigh box. She had no tele-
phone. Her purchases were person
ally conducted with the goods under
her eyes. And as to weights she
took her old-fashioned steel-yards
when she got home and verified the
0f hnf ,hA I.n{, tN1 l.n
man she had traded with. but as a
matter of business as she would
have a deed examined. She wanted
to know.
Somehow or other grandmother
and grandmother's children We're al
ways warmly clad and her house was
ia mighty good place to eat at. Still
that old lady never knew what a
1dSfron or-ttn cssts.wassg Nos &rasae
fast food at grandma s. Maybe oat-
Emeal or cornmeal mush or buck
when Cakes with sausage on a win
ter morning, but all cooked in the
house, sno predigested fodder at
Grandma's. She didn't buy beans
by the pound but by the half or full
bushel and she cooked them herself.
Rather primitive? Maybe, but aw-
fully good just the same. And then
corn was high at So cents hun
dred out of the field. and wages ran
from S1.25 for a twelve hour day
for common labor to So a day for a
skilled carpenter or mechanic. But
nobody starved at Grandmother's
nobody was cold. there were carpets
en- the floors under the high-backe,l
split-bottom chairs. 1t was Nigh.
ty comfortable home
How did she do it,. Looking back.
ward from 1919, to say, 1875, thG
wonder is. how did she do it? But
she did.
or course. there was grandfather
Grandfather smoked Gamecock to-
bacco in clay pipe in an evening as
he sat by the cook-stove with the
CiC'atcu ONCu. ne uluh I uioP III dhe
buy two-bits worth of cigars once
or twice a day. Or course, they had
their own milk and butter, but they
MIXED the cows and churned in or
der to have. The division of labor
hadn't reached to the point where
he got his butter from the creamery
and bought the hams of his owI
hogs after they had travelled alive
to far-away packing house ant
munity to keep their eyes open or
being shipped back as hams. Maybe
all that was primitive. but II deuser
ed the goods. They had butter anC
milk and ham and sausage and sucl
like, and their only kick was tha
, the price of those essential commodi
ties wasn't high enough.
Just the same they did it. They
lacked most of our modern 'conven
iences," most of which are luxuries
but they lived we'll and comfortably
i Perhaps II was because they pait
so much personal attention to theil
own particular business OF taking
care of themselves, making the mos
, of what they had and staying inside
what they were able to have, Maybe
! that was it.