Mami T-- Part 9

Women in those days did not wear pants or shorts; they wore long dresses with large bib aprons. When she arrived at the creek she would take off her apron and turn it around and tie the sash in front, and then bend over and reach through her legs and grasp the tail of the apron and bring it through and up and tucked it into the sash tied at her waist. Instant shorts!

Daddy told us that she was very frugal and hated to waste anything, especially time. As she walked along on her journey to and from the settlement she would usually knit.

A Spinning Wheel

She raised sheep on her farm as well as chickens, hogs, and milk cows.  And she had the mules for plowing the field. She saved the wool needed for her family when the sheep were sheared; then she sold the rest. She had a spinning wheel for spinning her own yarn.

In addition to farming she still had to cook the meals which were cooked on a wood burning stove or fireplace. She also had to do laundry by hand, harvest and prepare, can and preserve the food. She made her own lye soap which was the cleaning product of that time, and it was usually made from left over grease and lye or pot ash made from ashes.

I don’t remember the recipe or the process, but I know my Mother made it every so often in the old cast iron wash-pot when I was a little girl. And I would imagine that Mami T made it much in the same way.

There were cows to milk, chickens and livestock to feed, gather the eggs, chop the wood and bring it in, this was a chore she did herself till Tony was big enough to wield an axe.

And when the weather got cold the hogs were butchered, and the meat had to be processed and hung in the smokehouse to be cured.  The work was a never ending process, day in and day out, every day, and it was year after year.

I am quite sure she arranged her work schedule according to the seasons and the weather at the time. I know from daddies stories that when she plowed in the field she had to harness the mules, and she took the children to the field with her.

Emily was placed on a quilt pallet nearby and William H. (Tony) watched and tended her while Mami T plowed and Rody walked behind her and dropped the seeds as she plowed the rows. The others helped as soon as they were big enough to help.

A Woman Plowing

A Sun Bonnet

In my mind’s eye I can see her plowing in the fields, dressed in the long dress and a bib apron, and she is wearing a sun bonnet and brogans. Most southern women who worked in the fields with their husband’s; and most did; also made these bonnets to wear; to shade their eyes, and protect their hair and skin, especially the skin on the back of their necks; from becoming sun-burned.

Brogan

For those of you who might not know what brogans are; they are high-top shoes made of good leather, which lace up with either leather or string or possibly twine. They are heavy-duty shoes that wear like iron. There was no such thing as sneakers in those days!