My Birthday

Back then, we did not have radio or television. Those came in later.   We made our own music and our own fun.  There were no health clubs back then.  People stayed fit doing chores such as sweeping, churning butter, chopping wood, preparing food.   We had a pedal-powered butter churn that was a lot like a health club recumbent exercise machine of today, except it made butter.   It was unheard of  that you would go to a special place and do exercise that was not helpful work.

Back then, all the good girls read books.  When you were done with a book, you passed it in a round robin to all the other young ladies.  If you bought one book a year, you could get a hundred books in the round robin.   Marriageable girls were expected to be good readers and know many things.  Penmanship was also very important.   If you had a good hand, it was thought you could win a good suitor by writing him nice notes.  It was the equivalent of today's email or chat rooms.  A girl with poor penmanship would often have another girl write her love notes for her.   If a boy wrote back and included a piece of candy, it meant he liked you as a friend, but not as a potential mate.  Every girl dreaded being sent candy by a boy she fancied.   The candy was supposed to make you feel better, while making the message clear.  Oh no, a dreaded peppermint stick. Today, this is called being "friend-zoned." Back then, people called it "being candied."

Girls back then began to get married at about age 16.  The race was on to nab the best boys.  Most girls were married off by age 19.  Those not married by age 20 were considered spinsters.  There were always some women who were not meant for marriage.   They usually ran the local school or museum.  Some were veterinarians.   Every town had a museum with a collection of local history artifacts collected by the spinsters.  These ladies also often played songs on sets of bells.  If there were orphans in a town, they would be sent to the spinsters, who would take care of them until a family was found.  The spinsters also provided advice and help if a woman was having trouble with her husband.  The spinsters would make tea for the troubled wife, read to her from the Bible, feed her soup, and send her back to her husband.  Many men gave donations to the spinsters for all this help to the community. This was called giving to the Ladies' Jar.  We kids joked that the spinsters used the Ladies Jar to buy whiskey.  This might have been true.  At Christmas, the spinsters put on a bell-ringing show and served whiskey-drenched fruit cake to all of us.

The boys who were considered best to marry were the ones that were smart, who had a way to earn money, and who looked nice and were courtly.  The boy had to ask permission of the girl's father to court her.  If the father did not like the boy, that boy was not going to get anywhere near the daughter.  If a boy persisted, the father might bring out a rifle and fire a warning shot.  Too much persistence and the girl's pa might mistake the boy for a deer during hunting season, if you catch my drift.  But, most boys and most girls back then were raised to be likable and responsible.  People had a sense of being part of a family and community and they lived up to the expectations.

The world was different then, and much the same in many ways.  In the intervening years, science and technology have moved on, but the human spirit remains much the same.