Transitions – A Little Little bit of Time Journey

I took a journey again in time final month to a Farm Museum in Wisconsin. And I used to be reminded of what my father-in-law used to say: “What good old days? I’d be dead three times over.”

It was fairly a journey touring to the nineteenth century—farms, barns, sheds and instruments that mirrored our Midwest beginnings. I’ve made many journeys to Detroit’s Greenfield Village and our personal Naper Settlement, however that little museum felt rawer and fewer polished.

It was formidable to see one-room homes with the mother and father sleeping on a mattress full of hay (and bedbugs) on one aspect, and the youngsters in a small mattress on the opposite aspect, with a cradle between. My father-in-law’s household lived in a two-bedroom home with eight youngsters in North Dakota. The outhouse was, effectively, OUT.

Women often had tough, dry palms from washing garments with cleaning soap created from lye and wooden ash. The “newer” washing machines required turning a wheel to get the job finished. Most ladies had one, possibly two, attire, and when wool acquired moist, it smelled.

The motion pictures and tv I noticed rising up often portrayed lovely ladies (except they had been presupposed to be terrified damsels in misery). Their hair and make-up had been good, their wardrobes fashionable. Think Miss Kitty on Gunsmoke or Grace Kelly in High Noon. The Hollywood Code required it.

The farm’s instruments and animals added one other dimension of worry and respect. My grandfather all the time advised us youngsters to avoid his mules – highly effective, imply animals. Pitchforks, scythes and grooming shears had been lethal however essential instruments. As a boy, my husband’s father took him to the farm and city he was raised in; and made a degree of mentioning males with hooks for palms.

When we left that Museum, my parting phrases had been, “I’m glad I’m living today.”

Transitions – Retirement: A Doorway to a New Journey