New Year's Eve on the Prairie

I was initially drawn to my love of history because I was encouraged by the lives of pioneer women during a very difficult time in life. Learning about what they endured gave me perspective on my own trials. As we close out 2010 and ponder the New Year, I thought you might find a pioneer woman’s New Year’s musings of interest. I’ve interspersed the historic record with some personal musings [In brackets]

Emily Carpenter was 42 years old when, on August 12, 1872, she and her family (which included 3 boys and 4 girls ranging in age from 1 to 16 years old) left Bear Creek Valley in Wisconsin headed for Nebraska. The Carpenters two-wagon train included oxen Buck & Bright, Tom & Jerry, Dave & Dandy, and Duke & Derby, four cows, a gray pony named Badger, and Colonel—the dog. Moving wasn’t new to Emily. She’d already lived in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and two different counties in Wisconsin.[So much for the idea of pioneers living a hundred years on the home place!]

The Carpenters move came as a result of a letter from a homesteading friend in Nebraska. Seven children, their parents, and a brother-in-law began life “in a house of one room size 14 x 16 with attic.” [Oh … my … goodness. And I thought MY house was small for company!]That winter they “put up a story and half frame house with a combined kitchen, dining room and living room, a bedroom and pantry down stairs and one large room upstairs. [And that was the “big new house.”]”

Mrs. Carpenter served as a nurse/midwife in the neighborhood and “was noted for being able to go calmly from one case to another.” She lived on her homestead for 32 years. One of her daughters paid tribute this way: “If Ma could write a line -- her line in that big book up there -- I know about what she would write. Something like this: ‘arrived here safely after a few mishaps.’ These are the words she wrote in her journal when they arrived in Gibbon at the close of their trip from Wis. in the fall of 1872.”

As you contemplate the end of 2010 and the beginning of 2011, I thought you might find a few New Year’s Eve entries from a Nebraska pioneer woman’s diary of interest:

1885

Christmas tree New Years Day. We all went except E.W.C. and Lydia. The tree was very good but some were offended at the jokes. [The more things change, the more they stay the same!] The young folks watched the Old Year out and New in at Pool's ranch. They sang the old out the New in. Many that commenced the year with us have gone to their long home. Our hearts have been made sad many times during the past few months at parting with friends. I went to town once during the year. [Did you catch that? She went to town ONCE … all year.] Brought home some few things for Christmas.

1887

The last day of the old year. The day is cold and dreer. The storm is howling. No one is in today. All shivering around a cob fire. [Thank you, Father, for central heat … forgive me for complaining about the bill.] Yet we should not complain, for many would be glad of as good. [Give me a heart to thank you like Mrs. Carpenter’s.] Winter with his frosty breath is giving us a little of the Artic regions where he is supposed to hold his coast. The past year has brought many changes to our family. Hulda and Cyril married the past year. [Thank you for the new love you’ve given young couples this past year!] Steve's little boy has come to greet us all with his pleasant smiles. Randie's little girl with her dear little coaxing ways has stole our hearts away. [Thank you for grand-children and their pleasant smiles and dear little coaxing ways. What a joy it is to spoil them.] May the coming year be a happy one and may we all be spared to the close. [May I ever be mindful of the blessing of today and not take it for granted.]

1888

The last day of the year has come again. The day is nice and warm. . . . The evening finds only mother, E.W.C. and I at home. Mother has gone to her room. . . I sit here and think over the changes of the year. Dear little Fannie has gone, forever is still the little voice. Dear little one "gone before.". . . Uncle Aaron Sleeper has died during the year. [Thank you, Father, for the medical advances that have made children’s illnesses less life-threatening.] Five grand children have come to bless and cheer. May their lives be happy. Poor Mrs. Hunneybun was among the living a year ago and also Mrs. Whitakers, now they have joined the majority. Soon we shall join them a few years at the most. Soon we shall lay the burden down. Soon we shall rest from all the toil and care of earth. [My life is so much easier than it would have been in 1888. Thank you for tall the labor-saving inventions. Help me to complain less.] How blest if our work is only well done. From all our toil to find release. At the close of the year we are given to sober thoughts. Shall we be here at the close of the coming year, and if here will we be happy in the consciousness of a year well spent in good. Let us strive to be active in good work, slow to do or think evil to our neighbor, Make the golden mile our mile. [Amen, Lord!] So shall our days in contentment be passed, knowing we have done our best. Good-bye little book and old year. Laid by are you both. You pages are written full. We can not go back now to make any changes. Good-bye, good-bye.

1889

To night is the last of 1889 The year has sped away with the swiftness of an arrow shot from the bow. Friends dear are gone who were here at the beginning. They have turned their faces from us and have gone; others have crossed to the other shore, and O! how we miss them.

1895

The last day of 1895 has come. Soon the last day of our life. So many have gone during this year. Our little Agnes went and how our hearts ache. So young to bid all goodbye. No more will her feet on willing errands go. Never more on us to smile. The little hands are still that were so busy. yes, she has passed to the great beyond where others of our dear ones have gone. What would we not give to know if they have met and know each other there. In God's own time all will be manifest. A few more years at most will be lived, then too we shall join the many.

May we all begin the new year with Mrs. Carpenter’s sense of “making the most of the time” as Ephesians says … BLESSED NEW YEAR!

White Christmas

Remember featherbeds and pallets on the floor? Remember sleeping in you grandparents unheated upstairs and making a run for it in the morning to dress by the stove in your grandmother's kitchen? Remember being snowed in and loving it?

Much of the nostalgia I feel about having snow this time of year is probably a result of the modern era inventions that have made it so much easier to deal with the effects. Here's a heroic (at least I see him as a hero) storm story related by one Nebraska pioneer who was writing to his wife back home about his experiences in the west:

... now I can tell you of one of the most terrible storms I ever witnessed. It struck us at sunset Sunday evening with wind & rain ... Monday morning it turned to snow ... the storm lasted from sunset Sunday evening till near midnight Wednesday night making near 80 hours storm. When we would go out to try to do anything for the stock we could not see other more than from 5 to 10 ft & to be heard we had to shout at the top of the voice on account of the wind blowing such a gale ... there was a woman about a mile from here with 4 children whose husband was away from home and I knew she had but little wood if any so Wednesday afternoon I concluded to make the effort to reach her and see how they were getting along & I had to go right against the storm ... I would proceed abut 5 rd [rods] then turn and get a little breath then try it again in this way I succeeded in reaching the house & she was mighty glad to see me as they were out of wood and the ax buried under the snow. They had been in bed for 2 days only as she would break up something in the house to burn & cook something for the children to eat the oldest was only 7 years old. I dug the ax from under the snow hunted my way to a pig pen got a couple of poles and cut wood enough to do till next day then started home again ...

I'm thankful I don't have to worry about getting to the well and hauling in water, or breaking frozen water before I can wash up or make coffee in the morning. I often have the luxury of avoiding even going out when the weather is at its worst. Oh, I do my share of whining about shoveling and snowblowing when Nebraska winters rage, but overall, I have it fairly easy compared to my pioneer foremothers.

Have a safe and blessed Christmas, friends ... and a white one, too, if that's your heart's desire.

Stephanie G.

Syllabub at Belle Meade

Past this stone wall (how old is it? who built it? did slaves labor create it?, a long drive carries you towards a house in the distance that's reminiscent of Tara. Of course you're only a visitor and it's 2010, so you won't be approaching the house from this angle. Instead, you'll drive around to the side of the house, park, buy a ticket, and pass through the gift shop and by a restaurant and back outside where you encounter barn and carriage house, smokehouse, and doll house until ... finally ... you join other guests and wait. You look towards the road, trying to imagine what it must have been like to live here in the days when Belle Meade was a working horse farm five thousand acres large. Railroad tracks brought buyers and mares, and took yearlings to the big spring sale. Today, however, Belle Meade sits atop a hill in the middle of the greater Nashville area. In fact, it wouldn't be hard to drive right by without a glance. Turn back towards the house, and a docent dressed in period dress helps your imagination carry you back in time. She has an authentic and delightful southern accent and she adores history ... and you can tell.

The women of Belle Meade are, like the women of many historic sites, hard to find at first. I don't have a portrait of the woman I'd like to show you today, but her photograph is atop a sideboard in the main hall of this great house. She wears a wide white collar that comes to a point in the front, and the docent explains that, were you coming to visit back in the day, this African American woman would open the door and greet you before guiding you into whichever of the four rooms on the main floor were appropriate. That would, of course, depend on your station in life and who you were here to see. Were I transported back in time, I wouldn't have dared come to the front door of this place. I don't know where I would have been at Belle Meade, since my skin is white ... but my people were poor.

I try to imagine what it would have been like to spend time in these parlors ... but I can't. I have to admit, the finery makes me want to bolt.

The people who graced these rooms would have been horrified by my lack of ... just about everything. I would have needed to spend a lot of time with the book I bought in the gift shop titled Fashionable Dancer's Casket or the Ball Room Instructor a new and splendid work on Dancing, Etiquette, Deportment and the Toilet.

"In the selection of colors," the book advises, "a lady must consider her figure and her complexion. If slender and sylph-like, white or very light colors are generally supposed to be suitable; but if inclined to embonpoint (that would be me), they should be avoided, as they have the reputation of apparently adding to the bulk of the wearer." Some things never change. Women had to be concerned with their figures back then, too.

Up the sweeping staircase to the guest rooms (the family had a separate wing), you can imagine the ladies here, because mannequins have been dressed in period costume. Such tiny waists ... how did they breathe? Such elegance. Did they ever let their hair down and just relax? I can almost see Scarlett O'Hara clinging to one of these bed posts and ordering the woman who's picture I just saw in the downstairs hall to lace her up.

Well ... once laced up, I imagine the ladies had no trouble at all finding great satisfaction in a tablespoon or so of the syllabub waiting in the parlor downstairs. I thought I'd close the blog with a recipe from Amelia Simmons, an American orphan (yes, she had that on the book) who wrote, American Cookery: or, the art of dressing Viands, Fish, Poultry and Vegetables, and the best modes of making Puff-Pastes, Pies, Tarts, Puddings, Custards, and Preserves, and all kinds of CAKES, From the Imperial PLUMB to plain CAKE. Adapted to this country, and all grades of life. (WHEW ... now THERE's a title!)

To make a fine Syllabub from the Cow.

Sweeten a quart of cyder with double refined sugar, grate nutmeg into it, then milk your cow into your liquor, when you have thus added what quantity of milk you think proper, pour half a pint or more, in proportion to the quantity of syllabub you make, of the sweetest cream you can get all over it.

Let me know how it tastes................................and bon appetit!

--Stephanie G.