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- Photo: http://picasaweb.google.com/Ancestors101/AnnaSophiaClark/photo?authkey=tZeZNPkX5mU#5020947773169915394
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Anna Sophia Clark attended rural school and Ithaca Academy. Her favoritestudy was mathmatics . She lived in Caroline Center her whole life and atone time taught in the rural school ther e. She worked very hard as ahousewife, raising her three children, cooking for hiredsmen, an d doingher part in milking cows. She made her husband's shirts and socks aswell as her own a nd her children's clothes. She wove and braided rugsfor the home, made her own soap, and of course canned meat, vegetables,and fruit for the winter, as well as making butter, the surp lus of whichthey sold.
In temper she was very social and industrious. She was black-haired, thin, of small stature , but full of boundless energy.
Notes by Helen Snow Weil.
Home Sweet Home in the Nineteenth Century
by Karen Frisch
Copyright 2003 MyFamily.com Inc. All rights reserved.
Few of us picture the comforts of home without a TV, a well-stockedrefrigerator, and a comfor table sofa with an afghan for chilly evenings.Our ancestors' homes reflected a different life style. Their home sweethome often wasn't even theirs. Those in cities often rented space in a boardinghouse or tenement.
They would have loved it if food were as easily available as it is for ustoday. If they wer e lucky, summer's harvest of fruits and vegetableswould last through winter. Many women spen t hours preserving and canningin oppressive kitchens at summer's end without air conditioning .
A simple afghan wouldn't do. Their fireplace or stove had to be stokedcontinuously so the fam ily wouldn't be without heat on cold winternights. Wood or coal had to be hauled indoors fo r the stove. During thesecond half of the century the coal furnace in the cellar had to beten ded regularly for heat to be maintained.
Great-great-great-grandma didn't linger over her cold bath with thepitcher and washbasin sh e kept in her bedroom. The set included a cup tobrush her teeth and chamber pot to relieve he rself if she woke during thenight. It wasn't until a generation later or more that her daught er wasable to enjoy the luxury of a bathtub in her home.
Average families who had to be careful how much water they used, woulddrag a large tin tub in to the kitchen. The tub would be filled with waterheated on the stove or fireplace. All famil y members would take turnsbathing in it.
Late in the century many updated homes had a gaslight. Most had kerosenelamps, which were wel comed because they were so much safer than candles.It wasn't until the last decades of the 19 th century that people in someareas began to enjoy the conveniences like the telephone, the p honograph,and electricity.
Families had to economize on space. Before the days of walk-in closetsclothes were hung i n a wardrobe. Often, the walls of the home weredecorated with women's handiwork. From needlep oint to embroidery,hangings featured mottoes or floral designs stitched with desirablevirtues . The sentimental Victorian woman wove the hair of family membersinto framed pictures as wel l as jewelry.
Life for the pioneers who chose the frontier was far more rugged. Thesehardy, self-reliant in dividuals lived in more rustic conditions thantheir Eastern counterparts. The new towns of th e West had none of thecomforts of established Eastern cities. Homes had dirt floors or planki ngif they had any money. Sometimes the family slept together on a mattressof straw.
Many Western mothers were not only preserving fruits and vegetables butalso smoking and dryin g meat their husbands brought home. The store inrural Oklahoma where Great-great-great-grandm a shopped probably did notsell ready-made clothing but rather cotton and other fabrics she co uldpurchase to sew her family's wardrobe.
Unless the family was wealthy enough to hire outside help, children wereexpected to help wit h the household chores that were so plentiful duringtheir childhood. Boys were given the dirt y, more physical tasks such ascleaning ash from the wood stove, stoking the coal furnace, o r pumpingwater outdoors.
Girls were expected to perform the typically domestic tasks such astrimming the wicks and cle aning the chimneys of lamps. They also madebeds, aired the sheets, and cared for younger chil dren--tasks thatprepared them for their future roles as mothers.
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