The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, February 24, 1919, Page 12

1% coming new hat! il & up town here as I often have in North !.% coats, hoods, furs, : ete., 4 * 7 %, vh Wl T L DAKOTA OES being a farmer’s wife leave its mark on one? Does it leave such an impress on a woman that one can tell at a glance that she is a | farmer's wife? I've asked myself this i question many times in the last few weeks. Why? Well, I've been a farmer’s wife my- . self for nearly 15 years and just re- . cently moved to town in a strange place. No one here knew we had been : farmers, else the above question would probably not be puzzling me now. A few weeks ago some old friends of ours moved to this place and bought ‘a farm. The lady visited with me while her husband was getting settled ..and during that time we met quite a few of the townspeople. Shortly after ¢ they moved out to the farm one of the 1" ladies—a merchant’s wife—said to ‘! me: “Where is your charming friend, * who was with you last week?” I replied that they had moved onto " the farm. “Farm,” she echoed, “well, I should . never have taken her for a farmer’s wife”—accent of scorn on the “farm- . er,” please. I was amused and meant to ask her what she thought of me, but we were 1 . interrupted just then and I might have ' forgotten. the circumstance, but the same question was asked me by one of the merchants a few days later. He also was astonished to find that my friend was a farmer’s wife. “But why,” I inquired, “are they different than other women? Can you tell who is a farmer’s wife and ‘" who isn’t, when you see a bunch of i1 | women together?” | “Sure,” he laughed, “they never i have any style to ’em and most of ’em look so old and discouraged.” “Do they indeed?” said I (indigna- tion rising). “Well, sir, I’ve been one for 15 years, just how' old and dis- * couraged do you think I look?” . Say, it was too funny—I really had to laugh at that poor man for he ‘1% would have given ‘most anything to % have unsaid it, and the more he tried to apologize—well, he was like the Irishman—every time he eopened his mouth he put his foot in it! Of course he never would have dreamed that I was a farmer’s wife, i either. Witness the magic of my be- P’'m sure had I gone : Dakota, swathed in there would % have been no mis- takes made, and 1 might never have known how utterly “different” we looked! Now, no less ' than three different . people have told me that the farm- ers’ wives really do ook “différent,” and I am getting | interested, for if I ' can be a farmer’s %, | women so unfavorably? Or is it be- cause every one who knew me up there, knew I was a farmer’s wife, and so. didn’t tell me how we looked? I won- der. e Well, Lo say the least it doesn’t speak very well for the occupation, does it? Say, fellow farmers’ wives, let’s look into this! Are we looking old and dis- couraged, run down at the heel, out of style (a woman might as well be dead, they say), gone to seed in general, so that even the merchants in a dinky lit- tle one-horse town can spot us any- where? If we are, why so? Can’t we have the best of fresh. air, sunshine, good pure food? Three of the main essentials to beauty—and exercise—all kinds of it. Ah! there’s the rub—too much exercise most of the time! What is the greatest thing most women have against farm life? Too much hard work. Too little leisure— almest no play, and then the loneliness of it! Those were some of the things they told me when I made inquiries about these “different” looking women. Of course, they all admit there are exceptions, but they only prove the rule. Too much hard work leaves a woman no time to care for her person, and the farmer’s wife works all day long and tumbles into bed at night too utterly tired out to bathe, massage her face or any one of the numerous little things which a city woman does to retain a measure of her youthful beauty. Then too, they say, the hard work and not mixing enough with other people cause her to lose her poise and personality. She becomes ill at ease in the society of other peo- ple. MAKING UP FOR LOST TIME Oh, piffle! We North Dakota women have lived for months on ranches without seeing another woman, but let me tell you when we did we hadn’t lost any of our “eharming personal- ity.” We simply fell to and made up for lost time! Don’t think for a min- ute that I believe the majority of farm women are like these town people think they are. But I do think the majority, especially those prone to look on the dark side of life, do not put in enough time on themselves. The farm woman is entitled to as good an education, home and other com- forts and enjoy- ments of life as any % / . '/I/ II////' 7 % % Ao woman on earth. She surely earns it, but the fact remains that there are farmers themselves who don’t think so. Let me repeat a true incident which a friend told me of yesterday— the same charming friend who would grace any home, but is only a farmer’s wife! ; FARMERS’ WIVES DO NEED SENSE Some farmers were at their home, and one of them asked if they were - sending their oldest daughter to high school. They replied that they were, and an old farmer said: “Well, I don’t see any sense_in that. She’ll probably just marry a farmer and what good will it do her then to have an education?” “Well,” ‘said her mother, “I'd just as soon she married a farmer as any one, but not one who thought a farm- er’'s wife didn’t need to have any sense!” Think of it. Of course, that was a very ignorant old. man who made that remark, and to show you that the ma- jority of Wisconsin farmers don’t feel that way, I will just say that our high school! and normal here are full of farmers’ girls. . It does make a vast difference, too, in the looks of any woman, what atti- tude she takes toward life. Some women seem to feel aggrieved because they have children and must do the work that a family calls for. You can not be blue and despondent and - look happy and prosperous. I know a woman who has had chil- dren, buried two of them and her first husband. As a pioneer’s wife she has worked hard and lived in a shack, but now in a fine modern home. Yet she is one of the youngest looking, jolliest women it has ever been my good for- tune to meet. Seme young woman, at her home one day, bemoaned herself because of her awful burden of caring for three small children! Mrs. M., Jaughing, asked her how she would like to raise 13. > “Oh, T'd .go wild; I nearly do Are Farmers’ Wives “Different”? -If So, Why? BY MRS. SAM DEAN OF NORTH now,” she answered. Then some one asked the lady of the house how she had managed to keep so young ‘and_ cheerful with all she had gone through. Her answer came quickly. “I have always looked on the bright side of life.- I loved my husband and children and I raised my babies as a matter of course. I enjoyed every one of them. When trouble came I tried to keep in mind a little motto: ‘This, too, shall pass away.” It always did, and I never met trouble half way, for I long ago discovered that most of the things we worry about never come to pass, and I never spent time grieving over mistakes we made, although we tried to avoid them, and not make the same ones twice. “I never enjoyed this nice home any more than I did our first little home, a sod house on a claim. I did not worry because we had nothing then and had to live in a sod house. I had my man and two babies and I knew it would not be long until we had better. Don’t worry,” she added, “don’t work be- yond your strength and look on the bright side if. you want to grow old gracefully and enjoy all of life’s jour- ney.”’ : ‘Wasn'’t that fine philosophy ? CONVENIENCES IN THE HOME The modern conveniences can today be had in the country and they do much to make the home more pleasant as well as more sanitary. A" water system, for instance, that makes it possible to have water by merely turn- ing a faucet, cuts out a lot of hard work, and also results in more water being used. The water supply 1nakes possiblé the bathroom and indoor toilet. A furnace keeps the whole house warm and all the muss is kept in the basement. Then again any kind of fuel can be burned in most furnaces. The electric light is another great con- venience, but it does not save as much work and add so much to health as the water and furnace. One sick spell may cost enough for jnstalling a water system or furnace. One funeral will certainly cost as much. o 1 Man has taken much of the drudg- ery out of farm work by using labor- saving machines, and the mod- ern conveniences now available for the farm home will take much of the drudgery out of woman’s work - as well as add much to the health and comfort of all mem- bers of the family. —Agricultural Ex- tension Department North.Dakota - Agricultural lege. The agitation in England to admit women to the house of lords will not butter any parsnips -for the great mass of working women of that country. Yet it is typical of Col- - - A North Dakota farmhouse and the farm family—the home of E. K. Savre, a prominent League booster fiving near Lisbon. This picture may make the anti-farmer interests think that they have been too good to the farmer because Mr. Savre by hard work (and Mrs. Savre probably too) has been able to secure a good house and an automobile. But these are ne more than all persens living in the country should have. The farmer needs the automobile for what the - kept press’ and the old politicians mean by a “great re- ¢ wife in North Da- .:{ | kota for 15 years i i and they can’t tell {11 § it, do I want to be il business and for family recreation; the farmer’s wife needs the comfortable house with the modern con- form.”. They like 111 { one here -in Wis- veniences. More farmers would have these comveniemces if they did not have to work half a day to get the people il 1§ consin, where it. for themselves and the other half fer the special interests, or to put it another way, if excited - about ‘su- | iseems to brand the social services, needed by the farmers could be made efficient. - * perficial issues. - -