My 19th Century Homemaking Inspirations

When I need some Homemaking inspiration, I look to two book series to pull me out of the duldrums of housekeeping; the Anne of Green Gables series and the Little House series (which for some reason I always call the Mary and Laura books). For the last few days I have reread the Little House Series. Especially as I read the earlier books, where Laura will describe in detail the small ins and outs of pioneer life, as her Ma makes cheese, and braids hats, and has each day of the week assigned to a specific task, plus the monumental work of obtaining the food for and then homecooking three meals a day with the technology of two centuries ago.

After reading a few chapters of this, I can cheerily go to washing my dishes in a sink with running hot water, and then fold some laundry that came out of my electric washer and dryer. Of course, as the books progressed, I started reading in longer and longer stretches, and the choredoing became more hurried, but overall my approach to home management is bettered when I spend some time in the world of Ma Ingalls. She truly is my hero. While living in England, I often thought of Ma, and I felt somewhat how she must have felt, because we lived in the country by ourselves, and as it was dark and cold all winter long, I marveled at how well Ma stood going months without seeing other women, and how happy the family is about it all. The Little House books are a great lesson to me in being happy regardless of circumstances. Sure, I've heard some people say that their life wasn't exactly like that, but that's fine with me. After all, my other domestic inspiration is Anne Shirley, and she's 100% fictional.

Today I read These Happy Golden Years, which used to be my favorite, but now I like the early books, since I relate to Ma the most (And I've always felt a little bit Meh about Almonzo and Laura's courtship. It all seems so underwhelming). Then with great trepidation I picked up The First Four Years, because I've only read it once, and in my memory I didn't like it much.

I have a good memory. I ended up lightly skimming the book. I just couldn't take it. They have no money, they're poor newly weds, and Almonzo keeps on spending money, to buy gifts for Laura. A pony here. A saddle there. A new house here (that he went into $500 of debt to pay for, and didn't tell her until after they'd been married a year. If someone tried to pull that on me, heads would have flown [this is in no way a condemnation of Avram. Avram is great at money. He never spends it, and I do the budget, and it works great.] {although he does get an allowance, I'm not Scrooge.}). A Grandfather clock there. Not to mention farm tools galore. Periodically Laura will worry a lot about money, but then she thinks to herself that this is Almonazo's job, and he isn't worrying, so she doesn't have to.

Hello, wakeup call here! I don't know if it was the time period (mid 1880s), or some backwards Christian thinking, but clearly her husband is bad with money, so why is he the only one in charge of it? I can see why this was only ever a draft found among Laura's papers after she died - it honestly makes Almonzo look pretty bad.

Sure, they have a lot of other problems too, like a wildfire that destroys their house, a baby dying, diphtheria, their crops being destroyed by the weather every year, but all this only means the more that they should be careful with their money! It makes me have a great urge to go and balance my checkbook until I feel better.

In summation, if you ever need to feel inspired to be a better housekeeper, who never just gives her work a "lick and a promise" read the early little house books. If you like to be depressed about irresponsible living, read The First Four Years.