The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1919-10-02
boston Globe1

Just four miles north of EXter, n.
H., lies the little town of Ncwfields,
once a prosperous manufacturing cen
ter, noted for its water heater and
machine shops, with 500 men on the
pay rolls. Now it has less than that
number of inhabitants, including men,
women and children.
In those days the town was called
South Newmarket. 1t boosted several
saloons, two hotels, corporation board
ing houses, a variety Of stores ad four
churches, supported by substaA !
congregations.
Today all that may be seen of the
hotels is the empty cellars over which
they once stood, for fire long ago
stores remain. One of the churches
has closed it's doors and the other
three struggle along with dwindllns
congregations.
The once crowded boarding houses,
the popular bar rooms and the livery
stable are all gone.
NeWfields today is unique in many
ways.
1t is essentially a woman's town.
The houses are mostly owned by WON
en-; in. fact, some women own sew
eral Both store buildings in the town
are owned by women. The Odd Eel
lows hall is owned by woman, also
the public library building. The bulk
of the taxes is therefore necessarily
paid by women.
Adamless Eden.
Newfields may be called an almost
Adamless Eden, for there are more
unmarried women in proportion to the
population than you may find in
days travel elsewhere. There are
young women, middle aged women,
aged women, pretty women, homely
women, all varieties OF the female
type; but there is is almost one cnar-
istic dominating them all; they are
educated, refined and wonderfully
capable women.
They are versatile women, these
jewellers in Newfields, they can write
essays on the higher thoughts of life;
they can learn letter perfect page upon
page of lodge or grange ritual; they
can plant and harvest large crops;
they can NOV their green lawns and
grow beautiful flowers; they can sew
and knit tremendously, and cook-well,
God bless you. their cooking is par
excellence, the kind that mother used
+ to make
Many of these women are or have
been school teachers; there are also
nurses, dressmakers. mil!iners, an
artist, a journalist, bookkeeper, and
just plain, every day housekeepers or
home-makers.
There are a few unmarried men in
Newfields, both bachelors and widow
ers, but the boys and men of the town
do not seek their mates at home. Let
new girl move into town and all the
boys will seek to become her steady,
but the girls who were born there and
grew up with the boys must look be-
yond their native town for mates.
Bachelors occupy attractive houses
of many rooms, living alone in single
bliss and seifishness. Spinsters and
widows live in great, roomy colonial
houses, all alone in the lonely spaci-
BUSINESS Of ten or twelve rooms.
No Reason to Worry.
And these women, who for the most
part own their own fine homes and
have money enough to keep them
comfortably all their lives, shrug their
shoulders as they read the divorce
columns and say, Il should worry"
With their large woodpiles, their
well-stocked preserve and fruit cellars,
their flocks of hens laying truly golden
eggs at 60 and 20 cents a dozen, their
productive gardens. their fine old
homes with nary a mortgage on them,
they are not worrying about matri-
mony.
| Women with limousines, a winter
home on Commonwealth avenue, a
beach cottage, a palatial home in New