Dear Judy, your lady is no kin of mine, nevertheless I began reading your story/her story and decided to copy it out. Rather intriguing. My Grandma Cogar was a teacher in the hills of WV and I wondered if she might have experienced any of these problems. I think I will file it in her file as "What could have been". Thanks again Margrie Morrow -----Original Message----- From: Judith Loebel [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, November 22, 2005 9:19 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [WILLIAMS] Williams Thanksgiving Dear List, My "Williams Wish List" would be to have JULIET MERRIT RIPLEY WILLIAMS to dinner. Not a relative, I have her diary and have been researching her for many years now. Born into a wealthy family they wandered off from New York where her father was a Congressman to Michigan, then pretty much the "howling wilderness". She taught school and then married a timber broker, Stewart Beach Williams. She had one son, Gardener Stewart Williams, and adopted Bert Williams. After Stewarts death she returned to New York in 1903. Now, as to those being easier times! From Juliets diary I know that for the whole year of 1904 she did not leave the tiny- and I do mean TINY-- hamlet of White Creek New York. She once did get to take a buggy ride into the surrounding hills, but for a day out that she and friends had planned for quite some time the horse they rented dropped dead before it got to the house. She had indoor plumbing- sort of. The water system consisted of a series of pipes from a communal spring in the hills, which fed a barrel in her home. When the barrel overflowed one very cold winter night she had what she called a "skating pond" until spring! This meant that walking on her kitchen and woodshed floor and cellar steps was treacherous. Juliet was 66 that year and weighed 100 pounds. She spent an enormous amount of time "regulating" things- ie cleaning. She also re-made a lot of her clothes. Warmth and comfort were in short supply- altho she had a phone she appears not to have had a furnace. She used the huge Revolutionary era fireplace and slept in a chair so as to be able to feed the fire. She kept her cats in a basket under the chair, and her plants under the blankets so they did not freeze. In the winter she lived in pretty much two rooms, the fireplace room and the kitchen. This was in a large house with many rooms! Food was not scarce but it was monotonous. About the only fresh fruit she seemed able to get was pineapple! She carried on a voluminous correspondence with all sorts of people- I bet she would have loved e-mail! A thrilling event was when a young friend came and showed off his "Wheel"- an early car! Entertainment was more exciting that you would think- there seemed to be local things going on at Church and Grange almost all the time, and there were lectures and concerts at local homes and Halls. That is, if you could get to them! A friend wanted her to visit a sick relative and advised that she do so before the "Roads broke up." This puzzled me until I realized that the dreaded Mud Season had a different meaning for these folks- we just get stuck in it and track it all over the place- they were forced to stay home as the wagons and horses could not get thru it! When the road was frozen you could at least travel on it- they used huge rollers to pack down the snow to make it easy for sleds to run- you can see one of these at the Museum in Blue Mountain Lake. Things just took longer too- if my neighbors animals get loose I can call them up- when the sheep and cows got loose then she had to go and track down the farmer in the field on his new Tractor-- a new-fangled combustion engine. She had to walk to one of the two stores in town- one still in operation- for whatever she needed that she could not get from neighbors or the local Creamery. She took her milk can to be filled and also butter crocks. Other things were reused also, when she built a new kitchen she bought a stove from another old farm. Clothes were endlessly redone, new collars added, and her neice actually rooted around in the attic and came up with Revolutionary War era linen and made a dress out of it. However the neice was often delivered by the Mail- off the train at the junction a few miles away and onto the Mail wagon! I don't know if it was easier exactly but it sure was different than what we have become used to. They were more widely traveled that we might think, and certainly they had the benefit of a lot of time to read- if you didn't mind oil lamps! I guess we should be happy that we don't have to go out and shoot the turkey-- and pluck it, gut it, bake the bread for the stuffing, cut down the tree, split the wood, stoke the stove-- I spent a fair amount of time doing this and it is hard work! Haul the water- after some one dug the well! Grow and harvest all the veggies- how many of us would have a clue how much you would need to get thru the winter muchless how to make sure it all kept fresh? This time of year was actually a pretty flush time- all the crops were in and the livestock was either hung in the smoke house or salted down-- but the Spring was called the Starving Time as the supplies came to an end and the last of the winters stores were used up or rotted. Thanks Giving indeed! judith ==== WILLIAMS Mailing List ==== List web page: http://lists.rootsweb.com/index/surname/w/williams.html Genealogy Links - http://www2.netdoor.com/~cch/GEN-links.htm ============================== Search the US Census Collection. Over 140 million records added in the last 12 months. Largest online collection in the world. Learn more: http://www.ancestry.com/s13965/rd.ashx