September 8, 2014

A New Twist on a Clean Sweep

We're gearing up to attend the Minnesota Renaissance Festival and this year we'll be clad in period dress of the Medieval Age.  I'm not particularly sure how I feel about that but it'll be an adventure, indeed and I'm always up for that.  

I thought about that while perusing Robert B. Forrest's rare and valued local history book, "Early Western Murray County History," just the other day.  Forrest published his book in 1947 and it is filled with delightful bits concerning the fledgling days of this very county. 

Read on:

Women Cleaned up the Town in the Good Old Days

  "The women took it on themselves in the old days to clean up the towns and villages, not in a moral sense but by keeping the sidewalks clean.  Every woman wore long skirts and when we say long, we mean just that.  No righteous woman would ever think of going down the village streets unless the hem of her skirt swept the dust from the streets and wooden sidewalks.  Some were even so timid that they sewed heavy iron washers in the hem of the skirt to keep it down.  Everything was left to the imagination.  One fellow told the writer that he never knew his wife had ankles until they were married. T here has been a noticeable change in recent years."

I'll say!!  While I've always suspected I was born into the wrong century, I'm not fully certain that I could abide the strictures placed upon women in those days.  It definitely would put a damper on day to day living, specially during the heat so common in these parts.

I can tell you one thing:  that never stopped my grandmother and her mother before her, and all of the wonderful women down the line.  They were strong, capable ladies despite the fact that the societal tenets decreed they dress in long, constricting and cumbersome dresses or other fashions. Maybe they knew something that the rest did not...

These days the roadways are kept clean by the enormous street sweepers and dust on the sidewalks is kept to a minimum.  So it would seem.  But take a closer look sometime and you might see the buildup of crud and grime on the streets where we live. 

After all, where are those ladies with the long, sweeping skirts sashaying down the walks keeping them spotless? They've moved on to greener pastures I suppose.