What's normal? Depends

Local paper gave a snapshot of life in 1917

Old newspapers are great sources for discovering how people lived day-to-day in earlier eras. I picked a random date in the online newspaper archives hosted by the Volusia County Public Library to see what was going on: the March 16, 1917 edition of the Volusia County Record, "The People's Paper."

World War I was raging but the United States hadn't yet entered the conflict. (It would, less than a month later.) War news from abroad shared space with local updates about actions taken by the school board, county commission, and city commission. The latter two were heavily focused on roads and transportation.

Gems relating to domestic life were clustered on the then-called Women's Pages. They help us figure out, a century later, what was considered normal then. Almost all papers at the time had women's sections. They included tidbits about who was visiting whom, who'd vacationed and where, and who was recovering from illness. News about club meetings, gatherings, and outings shared one similarity that's long gone from society. Sewing, knitting, and other handwork was a regular feature of women's daytime get-togethers, no matter what else was on the agenda.

"Hints for the Seamstress" was one feature on the Women's Pages in the 1917 paper I reviewed. The hints, along with a handful of other items, were grouped under the heading of "What Women Like to Know."

If you'd like to know, here are the sewing hints:

• sit with both feet on the floor
• make sure light comes over the left shoulder
• don't let bright daylight splash onto the work itself
• avoid pinning work to the table or one's clothes
• keep a small tin of talcum powder within reach, and dust hands to keep the sewing work clean
• use the proper length of sewing thread - measure from shoulder to shoulder or from fingertip to elbow

I was a bit perplexed by the comments about avoiding bright sunlight and avoiding pinning the table or one's own clothes. But I was more befuddled by the next item the editors decided a woman would like to know: the ingredients of a sweeping compound.

Did women in 1917 wash floors less frequently than we do today? Why would you need a dry sweeping compound instead of a simple broom and dustpan? Especially a compound made from the following recipe:

Melt two ounces of paraffin wax and two quarts of paraffin oil over boiling water. Add six ounces of salt, five pounds clean sand, ten pounds sawdust and two ounces of oil of eucalyptus.

Where would you even store 15 pounds of sweeping compound? Closets were premium space in that era. Few people - at least not regular folk - had supply closets. 

Fewer still had walk-in closets, or whole rooms, in which to store clothing like the dress featured in the newspaper that day. It was strictly for "women with youthful figures," which actually meant young women. Age-appropriate attire was a way of life in 1917.

The dress shown in the newspaper photo was dubbed an afternoon frock. It was of navy silk jersey with a shawl collar and hand embroidery on the pockets. A row of buttons ran from waist to hem, which was ankle length. The frock's silk-fringe belt was considered a sign of spring.

It was definitely a dress best suited for a woman of slim build. She likely wouldn't have  guzzled the mulled cider made from the newspaper's recipe. The cook was directed to add "sufficient sugar" to three beaten eggs, then to slowly add boiled cider to the mixture. After stirring briskly, the whole mess went back into a saucepan to be heated almost to boiling. Then it was to be poured into serving glasses and dusted with nutmeg.

I can't get past the idea of combining eggs and cider for a mulled drink. To me, mulled cider is spiked with a hint of liquor. Or at least with wine. Which I might soon need after imagining what they were drinking in 1917.

Fr. Bresnahan, Part II

Detail of the Feb. 20, 1908 edition that included an article
about a card received from Fr. Bresnahan

Back in March, I wrote about Father Patrick J. Bresnahan's memoir, which recounts his travels through Catholic mission territory in early 1900s Florida. Just yesterday, I stumbled across two other mentions of Fr. Bresnahan's efforts. They were articles in two newspapers in Madison, a North Florida town cited in the priest's memoir as having more than its share of bigotry and prejudice against Catholics.

The first was in the Feb. 20, 1908 New Enterprise and concerned a card the newspaper received from Fr. Bresnahan. Being a former print journalist, I know that story placement in a newspaper isn't random. So I noticed the editors put the article about Fr. Bresnahan directly below a story that described how "an unknown negro was shot to death by a posse who were chasing him" because he was a habitual thief.

Fr. Bresnahan's article seems to chastise unknown harassers for disliking how people of color were allowed to worship in the Catholic church along with whites. This was during segregation, and I assume the two races sat in separate parts of the church. In keeping with the times, the priest used the word negro in his card.

To the newspaper's credit, it allowed Fr. Bresnahan's voice to be heard. The story appears to recount the priest's card verbatim. He wrote "for the benefit of the individual who penned the anonymous threat found at the door of the Catholic church last week ..."

The unnamed threat wasn't explained, and wasn't carried out. However, Fr. Bresnahan wanted the individual responsible to know that a Catholic priest "is not the hired minion of any social aggregation."  Likewise, a Catholic church was "not a social club meeting house but a temple of God." Everyone was welcome to hear the word of God and have the mysteries of God dispensed to them. "Every human soul has a right to these blessings, no matter what color its habitation may be." You rock, Fr. Bresnahan.

He goes on to write that he wasn't a politician, that all money he received in Madison went toward the local Catholic presence, and that he wasn't trying to make a white man colored or a colored man white. He bore his anonymous "friend" no malice "as life is too short for such nonsense." But he also noted that his mission was to appeal to man's higher nature, and that if the unnamed individual ever visited the Catholic church, he shouldn't be surprised "to see a place reserved for the colored people."

Townsfolk overall seem to have been receptive. Nine months later, Fr Bresnahan's missionary services were drawing crowds, as the Enterprise-Recorder reported Nov. 5, 1908. The beautiful music was cited as one reason. But, overall, the "people of Madison are beginning to know for themselves what the Catholic church really is, and the prejudice is therefore disappearing." It was predicted that by the end of services, everyone would understand that there was "one Truth, one Faith, one Baptism...," that Christ wasn't divided.

It's hard to say how deeply inroads were made. Fr. Bresnahan was preaching in the heart of Bible Belt Protestantism. I admire the priest's initiatives, and think we might consider emulating some of the talks he lined up for the week:

• Thursday, church rules and Confession; 
• Friday, the rosary and praying for the dead; 
• Saturday, devotion to the Blessed Virgin; 
• Sunday morning, necessity of charity; 
• Sunday afternoon, the threatening evil of socialism;  
• Sunday night, the secret of Catholic success. 

Sounds almost modern. It's also a refreshing reminder of the ever-present continuity of our ancient faith.

Heirloom quilts: fabric, thread tell time

I wrote this 1987 newspaper article about
the documentation of Florida quilts.

I'm coming up against deadline to finish a quilt square for the NASA star-themed quilt project. The entry deadline is Aug. 1, 2014. When digging in my closet for complementary scraps of red, white and blue fabric, I was sidetracked by an old journalism portfolio that hadn't been opened in a while. In it were newspaper clippings of articles waiting to be pasted into a scrapbook. Old articles. Not quite antiques, but ... close. 

One was a 1987 story I wrote about a Florida Quilt Heritage Discovery Day at the library in New Smyrna Beach, a coastal city in Central Florida.

So, what does that have to do with Florida frontier? My young reporter self was fascinated with the stories told that day about the quilts brought in for documentation. I shared as many as I could in the article. 

Most of the quilts were family heirlooms sewn in the 19th century and early 20th century. And even though they belonged to Floridians in 1987, the quilts almost all originated somewhere else.

The quilts were beautiful, tangible evidence of the past. They illustrated the way people brought personal treasures that mattered when they migrated to Florida, whether they made the trek in 1880 or 1980. 

Homemade quilts, stitched with love, warmed both body and soul of new Florida settlers in need of roots.

More than 60 quilts were documented that day, including the following. The 1987 owners' names and relationship to the quiltmakers are in parentheses:

• red, white and green Mariner's Compass quilt, made in 1847 by Mary Ann Wilson in Pennsylvania (great-granddaughter Mrs. Newell Adams of Daytona Beach);

• a quilt made in Ohio in 1888 by Alice Hutchins, who sewed into it her own image in silk (grandson Bill Hutchins of Edgewater); 

• Mennonite quilt made by Mary Roth in 1920s in Nebraska, that included part of her 1892 wedding dress (granddaughter Kathy Meck of New Smyrna Beach);

• feathered-star pattern quilt made by Fannie Lord Grimshaw in 1901 in New York, and exhibited at the New York State Fair in 1975 (daughter-in-law Harriet Grimshaw of Daytona Beach).

Fannie made a deliberate mistake in her quilt because she said, as her daughter-in-law related, only God is perfect. Imperfections, to me, make quilts authentic, real ... human. They often outlive their makers and subsequent owners. The Quilt Heritage Day took place 27 years ago. Some of the quilts' then-owners may no longer be alive. But the quilts likely still exist.

View the Florida Quilt Project digital collection at The Quilt Index website. The Quilt Index is an open access digital repository.