Every now and then, based on tidbits of information I read, I get the notion that life was once much more simple. In my mind’s eye, I imagine a little girl going to the country store in her hometown and exchanging eggs that her mother gathered from the hens, just that morning, and receiving a yard of cloth. Life in New England, in New Hampshire, in specific, in the “old days” was based on honesty. Everyone in society knew their “place” and that included what denomination of religion one favored. Dress was pretty standard, during Victorian times, and girls and women enjoyed Shakespeare Clubs and learning about Botany. Schooling was available for bright girls and one resident of New Hampshire traveled to Pennsylvania to reside at a Quaker college and earn her medical degree. The most she ever charged for a visit was six dollars, although most consultations cost only fifty cents, one dollar or three dollars.
When I want to let my mind wander, I think of the Walton Family on television. Everyone was so helpful to each other and family members seemed to have a deep caring for one another. Contrast that to today’s flip and sarcastic teenagers and family members who “go their own way,” full of recriminations for their elders for not “doing enough.” I like to think of the movie, “Anne of Green Gables,” with its innocent, wide-eyed girl who is always getting into hot water without half trying. She means well, and so does her stern surrogate mother.
Even when I was about twelve, I was amazed at my brother’s girlfriend who would buy coloring books for her step-siblings. They would be thrilled and delighted, and I was amazed at the level of appreciation, something that would be totally absent today in a society that has everything and values nothing.
Tonight, I am thinking again about Ellen Webster and the biography I wrote of her life within a greater perspective of nineteenth and early twentieth century life in Hebron and Franklin, NH. Every Christmas, Ellen’s father, a landowner who farmed and logged his land, would cut down two Christmas trees for the church. They would be decorated in a very simple manner. “Simple” is a good word and one of which I am becoming more fond by the moment. Yes, I like to ponder times past and consider scenes such as those out of Currier & Ives books, idyllic sleigh rides when all seemed right with the world.
Patricia Cummings
