Historical Clippings Book - Fashion (HC-17) (451 pages)

Pioneer Mothers Didn't Need Pity By HELEN HUNTINGTON SMITH “Dreadful?” she said. ‘We were young. The weather was . beautiful and the grass was . her -buggy a journey of 700 miles over trails worn only by the hoofs of cattle, while The ‘dreadful experiences” . of the pioneer mother form a sacred cliche of literature. . . The western frontier was ‘‘a . great place for men and dogs, but hell on horses and wom. en.”’ The literature of the West, as far aS women are concerned, is one long lamentation. It is ‘‘a tale of toil that’s never done,” wrote Hamlin Garland; a picture of faded beauty, broken health, hope destroyed; of women pining. for the civilized niceties they have left behind; women driven insane by loneliness, monotony and wind. But this tearful portrait is punched full of holes by the case of Grandma Cooney. Mrs. M. A. Cooney of Helena, Mont., crossed the plains by Ox wagon in 1864, a very young wife with a small baby. Interviewed 60 years later, she informed a reporter briskly that she had worked too hard all her life to have time to worry. No, she couldn’t recall any hardships on the trail. No, she wasn’t afraid of Indians. wagon days held only pleasant memories. ‘NO DISHES TO WASH Grandma Cooney had passed from the scene before I came along, but the memory of her was green. Her nine children never even slowed her down. While they were putting in their appearances, she was doing the work of six women. “Prematurely aged?’ Always a terrific dancer, she outlasted her husband by Some years in that respect. Then there were the Bar_ rows who went West with a wagon train from Wisconsin “in 1879, taking several small children, “Tt must have been a dread‘ ful experience,’ someone ; crooned to Mrs. Barrow years ater, Covered . green. Mrs. X and I were the only women in the party and we never touched our hands" to dish water. It was the time * of my life.” Suspicion deepens that suc’ cessful pioneering was a matter of temperament and constitution. There was isolation,and droughts and plagues of grasshoppers. There was. hardly ever a floor in the: cabin at first. But goodness, that wasn’t bad! . NO PLEASURES No hardships and such wonderful Christmases, with homemade dolls, and dried up apples from the storekeeper’s barrel. No hardships; just things like bedbugs and rattlesnakes. On the cattle frontier, where ho amount of wealth.on the hoof could buy ease of life for a woman, beauty and gentle . birth did very nicely —with the aid of an enduring if ladylike toughness. Mrs. William B. Blocker was 88 years old when I called on her at her home in Austin, Tex. Her family had migrated from the ravaged South to Texas in 1867. At 20 she married Bill Blocker, one of three cowman brothers whose names fill a page of history. Through 20 years, their herds stirred the dust to . Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska, the Dakotas, Wyoming, and Montana. “Miss Betty” stayed on the ranch with her chil“dren. ‘There’ were men to-excess, but few women, and no “pleasures.” “ “T liked it. I didn’t think it was hard. I thought it was life’—and her eyes danced like a girl’s, Very few women in those days shared their husband’s adventures, but one did. Her name was Amanda Burks, For three months she drove her husband and a crew of cowboys ‘herded 1,000 longhorns ‘from the southern tip of Texas to Kansas. This: girl, who could drive like a Roman charioteer, plunged her team into swollen creeks, down steep banks, into rivers treacherous with quicksands; men shouted and signaled. directions, but the cattle came first. Lovely, wilowy Amanda. was as tough as a boot and as feminine as a magnolia blossom, and she was doing just what she wanted to do. SOME WERE BELLES Some of the girls who came West would have been belles anywhere, but when they reached remote Montana, the land of no wallflowers, all of them were belles. _ After marriage, it was a lonely life. The men of the cattle kingdom were forever away from home. Wife and children stayed behind, with a rifle handy, in case. Hideous tales of scalpings and burnings still resounded. When a dark face pressed against a Windowpane or a grotesque coppery form appeared at the door, gesturing and grimacing, it took a brave tenderfoot bride to discern that he was only begging for food, and a braver one to call him pathetic. Every frontier had its quota of the unsuited; the women who needed civilization and should: never have left it; the ones who hated horses; the ones who shuddered and turned pale at a meal cooked over a cow-chip fire. But failures seem to have been few. GRIM MOMENTS Yet life held grim moments. Babies were born and accidents happened with medical help many miles away. As a.

Pioneer Mothers Didn't Need Pity By HELEN HUNTINGTON SMITH “Dreadful?” she said. ‘We were young. The weather was . beautiful and the grass was . her -buggy a journey of 700 miles over trails worn only by the hoofs of cattle, while The ‘dreadful experiences” . of the pioneer mother form a sacred cliche of literature. . . The western frontier was ‘‘a . great place for men and dogs, but hell on horses and wom. en.”’ The literature of the West, as far aS women are concerned, is one long lamentation. It is ‘‘a tale of toil that’s never done,” wrote Hamlin Garland; a picture of faded beauty, broken health, hope destroyed; of women pining. for the civilized niceties they have left behind; women driven insane by loneliness, monotony and wind. But this tearful portrait is punched full of holes by the case of Grandma Cooney. Mrs. M. A. Cooney of Helena, Mont., crossed the plains by Ox wagon in 1864, a very young wife with a small baby. Interviewed 60 years later, she informed a reporter briskly that she had worked too hard all her life to have time to worry. No, she couldn’t recall any hardships on the trail. No, she wasn’t afraid of Indians. wagon days held only pleasant memories. ‘NO DISHES TO WASH Grandma Cooney had passed from the scene before I came along, but the memory of her was green. Her nine children never even slowed her down. While they were putting in their appearances, she was doing the work of six women. “Prematurely aged?’ Always a terrific dancer, she outlasted her husband by Some years in that respect. Then there were the Bar_ rows who went West with a wagon train from Wisconsin “in 1879, taking several small children, “Tt must have been a dread‘ ful experience,’ someone ; crooned to Mrs. Barrow years ater, Covered . green. Mrs. X and I were the only women in the party and we never touched our hands" to dish water. It was the time * of my life.” Suspicion deepens that suc’ cessful pioneering was a matter of temperament and constitution. There was isolation,and droughts and plagues of grasshoppers. There was. hardly ever a floor in the: cabin at first. But goodness, that wasn’t bad! . NO PLEASURES No hardships and such wonderful Christmases, with homemade dolls, and dried up apples from the storekeeper’s barrel. No hardships; just things like bedbugs and rattlesnakes.

On the cattle frontier, where ho amount of wealth.on the hoof could buy ease of life for a woman, beauty and gentle . birth did very nicely —with the aid of an enduring if ladylike toughness. Mrs. William B. Blocker was 88 years old when I called on her at her home in Austin, Tex. Her family had migrated from the ravaged South to Texas in 1867. At 20 she married Bill Blocker, one of three cowman brothers whose names fill a page of history. Through 20 years, their herds stirred the dust to . Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska, the Dakotas, Wyoming, and Montana. “Miss Betty” stayed on the ranch with her chil“dren. ‘There’ were men to-excess, but few women, and no “pleasures.” “ “T liked it. I didn’t think it was hard. I thought it was life’—and her eyes danced like a girl’s, Very few women in those days shared their husband’s adventures, but one did. Her name was Amanda Burks, For three months she drove her husband and a crew of cowboys ‘herded 1,000 longhorns ‘from the southern tip of Texas to Kansas. This: girl, who could drive like a Roman charioteer, plunged her team into swollen creeks, down steep banks, into rivers treacherous with quicksands; men shouted and signaled. directions, but the cattle came first. Lovely, wilowy Amanda. was as tough as a boot and as feminine as a magnolia blossom, and she was doing just what she wanted to do. SOME WERE BELLES Some of the girls who came West would have been belles anywhere, but when they reached remote Montana, the land of no wallflowers, all of them were belles. _ After marriage, it was a lonely life. The men of the cattle kingdom were forever away from home. Wife and children stayed behind, with a rifle handy, in case. Hideous tales of scalpings and burnings still resounded. When a dark face pressed against a Windowpane or a grotesque coppery form appeared at the door, gesturing and grimacing, it took a brave tenderfoot bride to discern that he was only begging for food, and a braver one to call him pathetic. Every frontier had its quota of the unsuited; the women who needed civilization and should: never have left it; the ones who hated horses; the ones who shuddered and turned pale at a meal cooked over a cow-chip fire. But failures seem to have been few. GRIM MOMENTS Yet life held grim moments. Babies were born and accidents happened with medical help many miles away. As a.