Frontier Life

Let’s take a trip back to yesteryear from a mother of 9 living on the Texas frontier, born in 1860 and who wrote in 1936 about her childhood and early life. “We always seemed to have plenty of leisure time in those days; ( 1860's to1900 on the Texas frontier). boys and girls would visit and spend several days at the two houses. There never was any great hurry to be going. Now (1936) we have every convenience to make housekeeping easy and light, running water, both hot and cold, gas and electricity, telephones with which to order everything delivered to our doors, automobiles with paved roads to run them over and if we are in a great hurry we can take an airplane, yet we have so little time for visiting. We rush, rush, rush here and rush there, and I do not see that we accomplish an extraordinary amount. Do not think for a minute that I am one who thinks the old times are best for I do not. I think we are living the ‘Golden Age’ but I do wonder where the time goes; it flies faster than a weaver’s shuttle.” “I made a lot of the children’s things including cloth scrap-books of pink and blue glazed cambric with pinked edges in which the little ones ( this mother eventually had 9 children) enjoyed pasting pictures, canton ( silk) flannel animals of various kinds, goats, elephants, mice, horses and others. Six year old Joe was very pleased with a brown canton (silk) silk pony all saddled and bridled, with shoe buttons for eye and old-fashioned straight clothes pins, put in with knob end down, for legs. He loved horses from the time he could walk. The children were happy with their simple presents.”