The instructions for cleaning all of these articles of clothing or for helping body problems made me tired just reading about them. How on earth did those women ever have time for just fun?

“Do not go near a monkey”. BCOTW!

“Wipe dry, and let dry thoroughly, then rub freely with the inside of a banana peel.” Do not go near a monkey.

I was intrigued by the differences in beat, stir, cut and fold. I probably could have asked my lovely wife, but it’s more fun to learn it here…

I had to look up several words. Spermaceti, fat from a sperm whale’s head. Chilblains, a kind of skin injury to the extremities due in part to wet and cold. I’ve heard of Egyptian cotton but never specifically Turkish towels. My grandfather had two brushes like the military brushes, that that my mom wanted after he passed away. I didn’t know they had a name and that two handed hair brushing was a common thing.

The caution with several of the instructions to avoid flame was interesting. Using lead to blacken the stove top mixed with turpentine, oil, yellow soap and some coffee, wow. So much poison and inflammable in one article, it is staggering.

There does seem to have been a definite shift in the kinds of questions answered. I can’t guess whether that was an editorial decision, or whether this represents a shift in the kinds of questions the girls asked (hard to imagine, though, that a new crop of girls wouldn’t be asking the same how-far-can-I-go-with-a-boy questions of the previous years). The column ended in 1918. Maybe this is why — the questions became less about the blushing and giggling and more about the prosaic details of housekeeping.

Ha! Well said.

So many domestic inquiries here. Is it me or hasn’t Sister Hurst opined more on questions of doctrine/theology and morals in earlier posts? Did her column move gradually away from that over time?