The New York herald., 1921-06-05
Woman's Work Is Never Done.

Can a woman do the work Of a
twenty-one room house and do it well
without the help of a servant? Be-
cause Mrs. SAMUEL r. MCKELvIE, wife
of the Governor Of Nebraska, said
that she could, with few stated ex-
ceptions, and still have leisure for
recreation and study, and, further
more, that she had been doing 1t for
the last seventeen years, she raised
a storm of protest and discussion
which was confined not to Nebraska
but ragged along the Missouri valley
from Omaha to Jefferson City.
When Mrs. McKELvIE made her as
sertions regarding the dignity Of
labor in general and housework in
particular, fortifying them with a
considerable array of details from
her own experience in an interview
in the Kansas City Star, comments
began Immediately to pour In upon
her, most of them expressions of more
or less doubt and much sarcasm.
Housewives of Fremont, Nebraska,
declared that no woman could prop
erly look after her family and take
care of twenty-one room house with
out help. Mrs. McKELvIE invited
them to come to Lincoln as her guests
and she would prove her assertions.
They did not come. A mean man of
the town said that they were too busy
looking after their servants to go.
Then followed. more unfavorable
comment from Missouri. For the life
of her, Mrs. McKELvIE said, she could
not see why so many women should
make antagonistic remarks" since
the whole discussion did not change
the fact that she kept her twenty
one room house clean and her family
happy. Moreover, it was all rank
nonsense. She asks:
'wnl you tell me where the hun
dreds of women are-women of old
Missouri as / knew it--who got up
at o'clock. fed the chickens. mlked.
churned. packed lunches and got
seven or eight children off to school.
cooked a breakfast of hickory smoked
ham. eggs, potatoes. cakes biscuits
and coffee (while / fix toast on an
electric toaster and boil two one
minute eggs for one husband), the
women who put the clothes to soak
and had them on the line before
their husbands went to the field after
the chores were done. then cooked
two more square meals in the day
for the hired men and the family7"
Modern housekeeping. Mrs. Nickel
VIE says. is so simplified by labor
saving contrivances that half of the
problem lies in keeping things in or
der after they have been put in order.
A woman who needs to clean her rugs
once a day with an electric cleaner,
she says, is untidy or her family is
OF the careless type which believes
I'm living in a mess. Her critic who
wants the windows washed every day
she dismisses as foolish in her great
waste of energy" Mrs MoKELvIE
does not pose as an exemplary house.
keeper; she knows nothing. she says,
of domestic science. she has not time
to take the temperature Of the food
she prepares and she does not know
how many calories are in beans, but
she knows when they are good food.
She aims to keep the beds made
neatly, to have her home sanitary and
as beautiful as possible without much
expense. In her opinion an exces-
sively particular woman may be PER
feet housekeeper but not necessarily
a perfect home maker. RI she gives
big dinner and wishes to wear her
best gown she gets outside help III
I need TO devote dinner hour or an
evening to being the Governors
lady 7 get caterer TO peel the
onions"
Even at that she thinks she is not
doing half what many other women