REMEMBERING THE WAYS OF THE OLD COUNTRY WOMEN

When I grew up in Old Salem, we seemed to have our share of old country women that lived in the neighborhood.

Most of them were precious souls but there were a few that you had to watch out for.

They could be as mean as snakes.

Maybe this story will bring back lots of memories of the old folks.

First of all, their habits were a lot different from the average modern woman - most of them dipped their snuff and the thing you had to watch out for was not to knock over that spit cup.

This was a paper cup or a tin can that they spit their snuff into.

The funny thing about these ladies was that they would run any poor woman into the ground that smoked cigarettes; they called them flappers.

Didn’t they realize that it was snuff in a different form?

The large meal was in the middle of the day and was called dinner.

After dinner the food was put in the center of the table and a clean white cloth was spread over it until supper.

If there wasn’t much food left for supper, they would cook fresh cornbread and the family would crumble it into a glass of buttermilk for their evening meal.

These women were tough and if a man dared to sit down to a meal with a hat on, they wouldn’t ask him to remove it, they would just walk up behind him and knock it off.

Daily, they used two things that I’m not even sure the average home has much use for these days: fly swatters and rat traps.

The last time I heard of mice in someone’s home was when they brought the artificial Christmas tree from the barn, and it had a nest of mice in it.

In these old country women’s living rooms, any new furniture had plastic covers when it was shipped, and they would leave those covers on to keep the furniture clean.

Anytime you sat down, you’d hear the plastic on the furniture crackle beneath you.

Plastic covers were also left on the lampshades to keep them clean.

Before you could buy plastic bags, these old country women would rinse out the bags that bread was sold in and use them for keeping their food fresh - this was in the days before anyone had heard of Tupperware.

Two things that these women relied on were funeral home fans and drug store calendars.

Those fans were essential before air conditioning; you could walk into any church, and everyone was fanning away with those funeral fans.

Sitting on their ironing board would be a RC cola bottle with a cork sprinkling head stuck in it - this was used to sprinkle water on clothes to make them easier to iron; everything had to be ironed because most of it was made from cotton.

The only room fresheners they had were flowers in the house.

Gardenias were the best because they had such a strong, sweet smell, and banana scrub was another sweet-smelling room freshener.

At Christmas time, they would put their orange peelings into a boiler along with cinnamon, cloves and water and sit it on the back of their wood stove; it would keep it just warm enough to send the holiday smell all through the house.

The women did the best they could to give their daughters nice weddings.

The flowers in the church were out of their yards with some added by the neighbors.

Most of the dresses were home made, and the boys and men wore suits; those suits sure got swapped around the neighborhood when someone had a special occasion to attend.

The reception was in the fellowship hall of the church and if the church didn’t have one, it was at the bride’s home.

Most of the time the menu was wedding cake and punch.

No one took out a loan to give their daughter a fancy wedding, because mega-weddings were unheard of…except for the rich.

I hope you have enjoyed these old memories.

'till next time keep on the sunny side - gwynnkidd@gmail.com

REMEMBERING THE WAYS OF THE OLD COUNTRY WOMEN

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REMEMBERING THE WAYS OF THE OLD COUNTRY WOMEN

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Gadsden County – Legals – 9/1

A March Into The Future – 32nd annual Tallahassee AIDS Walk to march into September

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