1920 Rules for Health and Beauty for Girls

Advice for girls by Maude Foote Crow

My mother was born in 1923. By the time she was a teenager in the late 1930s, some rules in this list might have already seemed a bit old-fashioned. Still, many of these rules are still sound advice today.

Bodily Carriage

• Hold the head erect.
• Keep the chest high.
• Hold the abdomen in.
• Rest the weight of the body on the balls of the feet.
• Keep this position constantly, by day and by night.
• When lying down, stretch out; do not curl up.

Old Tag Game: Three Deep

Did you play this, as a child?

Here's a game I remember playing at Vacation Bible School when I was growing up. I think we played it at VBS because that was one of the few times when we had enough kids together to make this game really fun!

In this game, the players are arranged in groups of two. All but one of the couples form a big circle facing toward the center, each couple with one player behind the other. There should be good wide spaces between the couples.

One of the two free players is chosen to chase the other. They run around outside the circle. If the one chased is tagged, he becomes the one to do the chasing. At any time, the one who is being pursued may run into the circle and take his place in front of one of the standing couples. This makes that group "three deep" and the third or outside player of the group must immediately leave it to be chased until he either is tagged or causes someone else to be chased by stopping in his turn in front of one of the couples.

If the game is played long enough and with frequent changes, everyone will have a chance to run.

It is not permitted to run across the circle, and the runner may only go into it at the point where he stops in front of a couple. Nor is it permissible for a third man to go directly to the couple immediately to the left or the right of the one he has left. He must run a bit at least. This game makes for alertness and speed in running and is good fun.

Source: Mabie, Hamilton Wright, Edward Everett Hale, and William Byron Forbush. The Young Folks Treasury Vol. X: Ideal Home Life. New York: The University Society, 1919. Print. This excerpt is from p. 159.

Black Residents of the West Fork Community

Barker's Mill area of southeastern Christian County, KY

 I wrote this about 2 years ago, when I was exploring the history of the Barker's Mill area of Christian County, KY. I'm not sure why I didn't post it at the time. Maybe I thought my readers were getting bored with Barkers Mill. Anyway, I came across it last night, and I thought it was sort of interesting.  For background, see these posts:

 Barker's Mill in Christian County, KY
Old Homes Around Barkers Mill
Exploring the Barkers Mill Community 
Chapel Hill Church in Christian County, KY

Originally, much of the labor on the large farms in the area of Barker's Mill was provided by slaves. After the Civil War, many black people continued to work and live on the farms where they had been slaves. This happened in many areas of Christian County, and indeed, throughout the entire South.

Farm laborers are plentiful in [Christian] county, largely furnished by the colored population, of which there are about fifteen thousand in the county, and I must say to their credit, they make the best every-day farm laborers we are able to get. The average price of farm labor per month with house and board is, for men, $11 to $12.50; without board, $15.

Source: The 1908 Handbook of Kentucky

In the 20th century, some black workers become sharecroppers, which was a step up from being farm hands. There were many white sharecroppers as well. Sharecroppers owned their own farm machinery, tools, and draft animals, and they were considered self-employed.

Tobacco was often grown on "the share plan", as it is called in period writings. The landowner provided a house, a garden spot, and grass for the sharecropper's animals. The sharecropper typically worked about ten acres of tobacco and a field of corn. At harvest, the crop was divided evenly with the landowner. With good soil and favorable weather, the sharecropper might make a modest profit.

In 1900, a school was established for black children near the Barker Mill, and it operated through 1952. A store served the farm workers of the area. It is interesting to read the history of the Barker's Mill (West Fork) Community, knowing that the area was populated by many black families as well as white families.

Sophie Joins the Menagerie

Dog/cat issues slowly resolving

In April, a little Basset hound showed up at my husband's workplace. It was obvious to my husband that she didn't have a home.

Of course, Dennis gave her a few meals. Soon, every time he went outside, the little dog was waiting for him, begging for his attention and affection.

When Dennis came home talking about her, I knew what was bound to happen. Sure enough, in a few days, he called me at work and told me that he had brought the little hound home.

Sophie, as we named her, has never met a human she didn't like. She does well enough as a watchdog, but she's definitely not a guard dog. When the propane-tank painters arrived a few days ago, Sophie barked loudly to announce their arrival.  I walked outside to see what was happening, and Sophie was already lying on the ground, getting her belly scratched by her new friends.

I can't even begin to explain what a change Sophie has made in our cats' lives. They had always gone in and out of the house whenever they wanted, as long as someone was there to open the door for them. Then one day, a dog-monster took up residence in their territory, barking and charging at them whenever they dared to peek out the door. It was traumatizing to them!

The dog/cat situation has improved somewhat.Sometimes Sophie still has the momentary urge to chase the cats, but then she recognizes them and stops. "Oh, it's you again," she seems to think. We read that it is hard for Basset hounds to refrain from chasing cats because they're bred to chase rabbits. Cats resemble rabbits in a Basset's eyes, I guess. At any rate, I'm glad that Sophie has learned that the cats are "house-rabbits" who shouldn't be molested, at least when the people are around.

The cats know that Sophie is asleep at night, so that is their favorite time to slip outside. In the daytime,  Skittles is brave enough to walk in front of Sophie and come into the house. Casper is still a "scaredy-cat" and must be carried through the door if Sophie is present. However, he is slowly growing in confidence. He now understands that he is safe in a human's arms, and he no longer tries to escape and run when Sophie approaches.

Sophie has several interests beyond barking, getting petted, and chasing rabbits. She also likes to take break-of-day walks with Dennis, rearrange her bedding, take naps, and score doggie treats. In other words, she's nearly worthless. :) Her favorite human is Dennis, and she leaps around excitedly and talks eloquently to him when he comes home from work.

At present, Sophie's operations are conducted from a large wooden crate, laid sideways on the porch. This fall, when it's not so hot to work in the shed, I will build her a proper, insulated dog house. I've been studying doghouse plans on the internet.

The Hayfield Water Jug

Cool water in a hot place

My dad prepared thoroughly for the haying season. He overhauled all the tractors and hay-making machinery and got each component into the best working order possible. He stockpiled sickle sections and guards, rake teeth, sweep teeth, belts, hoses, tractor gas, oil and grease, hydraulic fluid, and so on. In the back of one of the pickups, he mounted the gas tank for fueling the tractors. He also mounted the wooden carrier that held the big Igloo water cooler where a thirsty hay hand could get a drink.

I didn't participate in the pre-season work in my father's machine shop, but I did make a new hayfield water jug every year. In the hayfield, I worked separately, away from the group that was putting up the cured hay. I was on the mowing machine at the edge of the uncut grass. I needed a personal water jug so I didn't have to travel far to get a drink.

Here's how I made my hayfield jug. I raided Mama's collection of jars and acquired a big glass vinegar or cider bottle. Then, I raided her cloth scraps and acquired some rags and pieces of old jeans.  I wrapped several layers of rags around the bottle, fitting the cloth to the curves, and I tacked the layers in place with enough stitches to hold them together.

Then, I enclosed the bottle in a layer of denim that I cut from the old jeans. I made some  tucks and folds so the denim would fit the bottle's shape, and I sewed it in place as neatly, tightly, and firmly as I could.

I didn't invent this method of making a hayfield jug. I watched my mother make them when I was a little child.

Every day, before I went to the hayfield, I filled my jug with cold water, and I also saturated its cloth shell. When I got to the hayfield, I found a shady place to stash it. The evaporation of the moisture from the cloth wrapper helped keep the water in the jug cool.

In the hayfield on a summer day, the hay crew got hot and dirty. We didn't have air-conditioned cabs on our tractors. The only shade was from our hats. Dust and pollen and chaff stuck to our sweat-dampened skin  and clothing. Sometimes we got off our machinery and worked up an extra sweat by moving hay around by hand or fixing something that was broken. The hottest work of all,  in my experience, was to lie in the prickly grass stubble under my windrower and pull a hot, wet, sappy clog of hay out of the crimper.

Sunbaked, gummy with sweat and dust, my arms green with grass juice after a crimper episode -- then, how sweet it was to pull my still-damp jug from its shady nook and drink deeply. If cool water ran down my face and soaked my shirt as I tipped the jug, it was a well-earned bonus.

By the end of the hay season, the denim cover of the water jug showed hard use. It had been damp to some degree all summer. It had lain on the ground and rolled around on the grimy floor of the pickup truck, day after day. The stitching had come loose in places, releasing odd folds of cloth, and threads had raveled where the cut edges of the denim were exposed. It didn't matter. By then, the water jug had served its purpose.

I would make a new jug next summer, as we prepared again to go to the hayfield.

Thanks for reading this memory of my childhood in the Nebraska Sandhills.

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Related:
Hayfields I Have Known
The Hayfield
Newport, Nebraska: Hay Town
Bull Stories
Horse-drawn Hay Rake
Horse-drawn Hay Sweep-Rake