----------------------------------------------- ------------- Day-ly Genealogy Blogposts: April 2009
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Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Hanging Clothes Fun Friday 24th Apr 2009

You have to be a certain age to appreciate this.

THE BASIC RULES FOR CLOTHESLINES:
(if you don't know what clotheslines are,
Better skip this)

1. You had to wash the clothes line before hanging any clothes-walk the entire lengths of each line with a damp cloth around the lines.

2. You had to hang the clothes in a certain order, and always hang "whites"; With "whites," and hang them first.

3. You never hung a shirt by the shoulders - always by the tail! What Would the neighbors think?

4. Wash day on a Monday! . . . Never hang clothes on the weekend, or Sunday, for Heaven's sake!

5. Hang the sheets and towels on the outside lines so you could hide your "unmentionables" in the middle (perverts & busybodies, y'know!)

6. It didn't matter if it was sub zero weather . . . Clothes would "freeze-dry."

7. Always gather the clothes pins when taking down dry clothes! Pins left On the lines were "tacky!"

8. If you were efficient, you would line the clothes up so that each item did Not need two clothes pins, but shared one of the clothes pins with the next Washed item.

9. Clothes off of the line before dinner time, neatly folded in the clothes basket, and ready to be ironed.

10. IRONED?! Well, that's a whole other subject!

A POEM

A clothesline was a news forecast
To neighbors passing by.
There were no secrets you could keep
When clothes were hung to dry.
It also was a friendly link
For neighbors always knew
If company had stopped on by
To spend a night or two.
For then you'd see the "fancy sheets"
And towels upon the line;
You'd see the "company table cloths"
With intricate designs.
The line announced a baby's birth
From folks who lived inside -
As brand new infant clothes were hung,
So carefully with pride!
The ages of the children could
So readily be known
By watching how the sizes changed,
You'd know how much they'd grown!
It also told when illness struck,
As extra sheets were hung;
Then nightclothes, and a bathrobe, too,
Haphazardly were strung.
It also said, "Gone on vacation now"
When lines hung limp and bare.
It told, "We're back!" when full lines sagged
With not an inch to spare!

New folks in town were scorned upon
If wash was dingy and gray,
As neighbors carefully raised their brows,
And looked the other way . . .

But clotheslines now are of the past,
For dryers make work much less.
Now what goes on inside a home
Is anybody's guess!

I really miss that way of life.
It was a friendly sign
When neighbors knew each other best
By what hung on the line!

Note: If anyone knows who wrote this or where it originated from I would love to give credit. It came in my email. Hope got a smile!

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Wordless Wednesday: Birdie Secor & Katherine

The lady is Bertha "Birdie" (Secor) Kratochvil and Katherine Kratochvil dau of Clarabelle Inez (Secor) and Edward Kratochvil. Birdie married Arthur Kratochvil. Katherine married Melvin Hines in Grand Traverse County, Michigan.

Tombstone Tuesday: Carol Newmarch

Baby Carol Newmarch

Somber Sunday Mrs. Brenzinger & Child

The Alton Weekly Courier, Alton, Illnois
Friday 1 October 1852
Frightful Accident
A German woman, Brenzinger, and her child, about three years old, were dangerously injured this morning, about half past nine o'clock, by a Morris and Essex Railroad horse car, at the foot of Centre Street. The horses were going at full gallop in order to drag the car around the curve up the hill, when the woman with the child in her arms attempted to go over on the cross-walk.

Not seeing the approaching car, and probably not understanding the warning which was given her, she walked directly against the horse, which the driver had endeavored to stop in time, but the headway of the car drove them onward, and they knocked the woman down. The child was thrown under the car, and the front truck passed over the lower part of the abdomen and the legs, bruising the former and probably inflicting internal injuries, and laying the latter bare to the bone nearly the whole length, but making no fractures. The woman, it is thought by the bystanders, was not run over, but received her wounds from the horses, and from being dragged on the ground, her dress having caught between the brake and the wheels.

Her injuries consist in the fracture of two of the spinal processes, and of one arm at the elbow, with bruises upon the body, and probably if either can survive, they certainly cannot recover.

Since the above was in type, the little child died.
Newark Advertiser