The so-called news is filled with tales of woe; we don't have time to spend with our children, I'm exhausted, working two jobs and still can't make ends meet, &c. Seems everyone thinks that our parents and grandparents had it all. It's refreshing to come across a writing describing those "good old days".
"I have invariably cherished with the most affectionate remembrance the place of my birth, the old village meeting house, without steeple or bell, where in its square family pew I sweltered in the summer and shivered through my Sunday-school sessions in winter, and the old school-house where the ferule (brass ornament attached to a rod to keep the end from splitting), the birchen rod and rattan did active duty, of which I deserved and received a liberal share. (In a later writing the author described how the teacher threw a ruler at his head. He dodged, and it struck the girl behind him in the face. The teacher quietly apologized and said she might apply that to some other time when she might deserve it.)
I am surprised to find that I can distinctly remember events which occurred before I was four years old. I can see, as if by yesterday, our hardworking mothers hetcheling (maybe OED has definition) their flax, carding their tow and wool, spinning, reeling, and weaving it into fabrics for bedding and clothing for all the family of both sexes. The same good mothers did the knitting, darning, mending, washing, ironing, cooking, soap and candle making, picked the geese, milked the cows, made butter and cheese, and did many other things for the support of the family.
We babies ---, when at home, were dressed in tow frocks, and the garments of our elders were not much superior, except on Sunday, when they wore their "go-to-meeting clothes" of homespun and linsey-woolsey.
Rain water was caught and used for washing, while that for drinking and cooking was drawn from wells with their "old oaken bucket" and long poles and well sweeps.
Fires was kept over night by banking up the brands in ashes in the fire-place, and if it went out one neighbor would visit another about daylight the next morning with a pair of tongs to borrow a coal of fire to kindle with. Our candles were tallow, home-made, with dark tow wicks. In summer nearly all retired to rest at early dark without lighting a candle except upon extraordinary occasions. Home-made soft-soap was used for washing hands, faces, and everything else. The children of families in ordinary circumstances ate their meals on trenchers (wooden plates). As I grew older our family and others got an extravagant streak, discarded the trenchers, and rose to the dignity of pewter plates and leaden spoons. Tin peddlers who traveled through the country with their wagons supplied these and other luxuries.
Our food consisted chiefly of boiled and baked beans, bean porridge, coarse rye bread, apple sauce, hasty pudding eaten in milk, of which we all had plenty. The elder portion of the family ate meat twice a day -- had plenty of vegetables, fish of their own catching, and occasionally big clams, which were cheap in those days, and shad in their season. These were brought ---by fish peddlers. Uncle Caleb Morgan of Wolfpits or Puppytown, was our only butcher. He peddled his meat through Bethel once a week. It consisted mostly of veal, lamb, mutton, or fresh pork, he seldom bringing more than one kind at a time. Probably he did not have beef oftener than once a month. Many families kept sheep, pigs, and poultry, and one or more cows. They had plenty of plain substantial food.
Our dinners several times each week consisted of "pot luck", which was corned beef, salt pork, and vegetables, all boiled together in the same big iron pot hanging from the crane, which was supplied with iron hooks and trammels and swung in and out of the huge fireplace, in the same pot with the salt pork, potatoes, turnips, parsnips, beets, carrots, cabbage, and sometimes onions, was placed an Indian pudding, consisting of plain Indian meal (corn meal) mixed in water, pretty thick, salted and poured into a home-made brown linen bag, which was tied at the top. When dinner was ready the Indian pudding was first taken from the pot, slipped out of the bag, and eaten with molasses. Then followed the "pot-luck." I confess I like to this day the old-fashioned "boiled dinner," but doubt whether I should relish a sweetened dessert before my meat. Rows of sausages called "links" hung in the garret, were dried, and lasted all winter.
I remember them well, and the treat it was when a boy, to have one of these links to take to school to eat. At noon we children would gather about the great fire-place, and having cut a long stick would push the sharpened end through the link, giving it a sort of cat-tail appearance. The link we would hold in the fire until it was cooked, and would then devour it with a keen relish.
The country doctor visited his patients on horseback, carrying his saddle-bags containing calomel, jalap (purgative drug from Mexican plant), Epsom salts, lancet, and a turnkey, those being the principal aids in relieving the sick. Nearly every person, sick or well, was bled every spring.
Teeth were pulled with a turnkey, and dreadful instrument it was in looks, and terrible in execution. I can remember that once I had a convenient toothache. Like many other boys I had occasions when school was distasteful to me, and hunting for birch or berries, or going after fish was more of a delight than the struggle after knowledge. This toothache struck in on a Monday morning in ample time to cover the school hour. I was in great pain, and held on to my jaw with a severe grip. My mother's sympathetic nature permitted me to stay at home with the pain. My father was of rather sterner stuff. He didn't discover I was out of school until the second day. When he found out I had the toothache, he wanted to see the tooth. I pointed out one, and he examined it carefully. He said it was a perfectly sound tooth, but he didn't doubt but it pained very much, and must be dreadful to bear, but he would have something done for it. He gave me a note to Dr. Tyle Taylor. Dr Tyle read the note, looked at the tooth, and then, getting down the dreadful turnkey, growled, "Sit down there, and I'll have that tooth out of there, or I'll yank your young head off." I did not wait for the remedy, but left for home at the top of my speed --- and have not had the toothache since."
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This is from The Life of P. T. Barnum. He is describing life and times at turn of the century (the 19th not the 20th) when he was born. Is it any wonder that life expectancy was so short. Most any infection could lead to "blood pinioning" and death. And, as he describes the Doctor's bag of tricks, it was quite limited, mostly laxatives to purge the body. And yet Barnum considered life in the 1860s as most comfortable, not with standing the war between the states that claimed many lives and made invalids of others. Now fast forward to today: We worry about Grandma's social security, whether Medicaid and medicare will be there to the benefit of the hoards of "boomers" as they retire to the good life, can we control overweighedness (a newly minted term to cover obesity to make it appear to be a disease) with drugs, &c. Is life in this year, 1996, all that bad? Stop Sniveling!!!
page 749 Struggles and Triumphs: or, the Life of P. T. Barnum, republished by A. A. Knopf in 1927.
For more on cures, treatments and the like see: Young, P.T. Barnum's Rules, Karolevitz, Cures, Directory
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