Little Egypt Heritage Articles Stories of Southern Illinois © Bill Oliver 26 February 2006 Vol 5 Issue: #08 ISBN: pending Osiyo, Good Evening Ladies and Gentlemen of Little Egypt, I’ve been reading newspapers again. Old/er ones; fifty or more years old. A fad among young ladies [teens] of the late 19th century was the making of a “Cosy Corner”. It had a “corner” shelf in a corner of the young lady’s room with a box or trunk placed underneath it. The box served at least two purposes; one to serve as a clothes chest and the other to serve as a seat. The owner would upholster it in some bright material, such as silkaline. Silkaline is a soft cotton fabric with a smooth lustrous finish making it look like the finish of silk. A number of sofa cushions would be placed on the “seat”. The shelf above it would also be draped with fabric, probably silkaline also, and would display photographs. Hanging on the walls either side of the shelf would be hand made passe partout pictures. Passe par-tout is a border or mat used to frame or mount a picture or the gummed paper used for that purpose. These were usually pictures carefully cut out of magazines mounted behind glass and bordered with the passe partout which made rather a neat frame. Grandma Oliver mentioned these, but told that there was no privacy in her home with so many girls. She did say though that they had their “scrap book of life”. These were also hand made from sheets of paper of some type. Grams said they were “Cradle to Grave Books”, depicting phases of the life of the young ladies. They would pour through magazines to find just the right picture to illustrate each event. When visiting each other these scrap books would be brought out and talked about. Letting one’s imagination play over this, they must have been quite the social item. In small towns and outskirts of larger cities, streets were not paved. In any wind there would be dust blown forward and back again. Two horse dray teams would pull street sprinklers wetting down the streets to keep the dust down. My Nebraska kin, living near the border of Kansas, would remark about a south dust blowing wind, “Just another Kansas dust storm.” When the wind would shift from the north, they’d say, “It’s blowing Kansas back home.” Stories of dust storms in Nebraska rivaled stories of the blizzards. Further reading stirred memories. Did you ever sit and listen to the sound of the dam somewhere in your town on a moonlit night? Have you heard the whistle of a train coming through town? How about the toll of church bells on a Sunday morning? Did they fire a cannon on the fourth of July? Can you hear the cooing of doves around the courthouse? One of my favorite sounds was that made by the hammer on an anvil – that double tap, then a pause while you waited for the sound of the hammer making a heavy blow. It was just as rhythmic as the organ music floating out of a church window. Then there is the chirp of the cricket on the still summer’s eve. The croak of frogs after a heavy rain. Uncle Tim had a “bob” sled. In the winter he would hitch up a pair of Belgiums, fill the sled with straw for warmth [plus, a few of Auntie Em’s quilts] and all the youngsters, and take them for rides. Gliding over the snow on moonlit nights we would sing and tell stories and laugh, with sleigh bells singing out the rhythm of the horses’ gait. The old hand drawn hose cart you might have seen in some museum is really quite crude when thinking of what we use today. It had two large high wheels and carried a huge reel of hose. A lug attached to one wheel would ring a bell each time the wheel turned round – the signal for its right of passage – signaling for pedestrians and horse drawn vehicles to clear the way. The cart was moved along by six or more firemen pulling on ropes attached to each side of a tongue. The pullers had to be “fleet of foot” and keep the lines taut or the cart would run right over them from those pushing from the rear. Every hear of a “Merry Widow” hat? It came into being, according to a note in one newspaper, with the popularity of the “Merry Widow Waltz”. It was an extremely large cart wheel hat made of straw and had yards of veiling draped over it in beekeeper’s fashion. Can you imagine the difficulty in keeping “your hat on” in Nebraska winds, or the manuvering skill it took to pass through a narrow doorway? The hobbled skirts made of heavy floor length material were so narrow at the bottom [hobbled] that it was nigh to impossible to walk easily. Can you imagine that young ladies would need to be lifted on and off street cars because they couldn’t “step” up or down? You have heard of the “shot heard ‘round the world”. Have you heard about the shot fired by General George Washington which began one of the most brilliant maneuvers in military history? Well, the big gun was loaded and primed and as the gunner stepped back, George Washington, who had been waiting, holding a smouldering fuse, now put it to the touch-hole, firing the first round into an enemy’s headquarters at Yorktown. General Washington had left Layfayete to hold Cornwallis on the peninsula of York at all costs. The gesture was made toward New York which completely deceived Clinton. Before the Briton discovered the ruse, Washington was well on his way to the south. He broke up a base of operations, left the vicinity of a overwhelming force, and entered a new field of operations, more than four hundred miles away. In so doing and engaging in the single enterprise of Yorktown he performed so well that once he touched off the opening cannon round, the surrender of Yorktown was only a few days away. Of course, the French fleet miraculously arrived on time also. The English language and editors; the editor sits at a desk six of the seven days of a week, fifty-two weeks of the year and “edits”. Here taken from old newspapers are some things that needed editing. “Mrs. Jones of Cactus Creek, let a can-opener slip last week and cut herself in the pantry.” “A mischievous lad of Plketown threw a stone and struck Mr. Pike in the alley last Thursday.” John Doe climbed on the roof of his house last week and fell, striking himself on the back porch.” “ While Harold Green was escorting Miss Violet Wise from the church social Saturday night, a savage dog attacked them and bit Mr. Green several times on the public square.” “Isaiah Trimmer, of Running Creek was playing with a cat Friday and it scratched him on the veranda.” “Mr. Fong, while harnessing a broncho last Saturday, was kicked just south of the corn-crib”. Did you know that Frank James, brother of Jesse James, died of Apoplexy on his farm in Missouri? Things haven’t changed much. From the Glenwood, Minnesota Herald, ca 1925: The motor cars are now all so well constructed in every way that they are practically fool proof. That means that all nuts are properly placed and properly tightened. That should do away with accidents entirely except that no one has learned how to keep the nut back of the steering wheel from getting tight. And, the final word is that man comes into his world without his consent and leaves it against his will. e-la-Di-e-das-Di ha-wi nv-wa-do-hi-ya nv-wa-to-hi-ya-da. (May you walk in peace and harmony) and Wado, Bill -=- PostScript: Other sites worth visiting: http://www.deannedurrett.com/codetalkers.html PostScript: = = = = http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/SOIL http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/ILMASSAC http://www.usgennet.org/usa/ne/state/BillsArticles/LittleEgypt/intro.html