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Tempo~~~oman 4 Sect~~~in 6 a1 ChiaoTiue udaMrh2,18
t~x" ,. "KDomestic preserves
Artistry of daily life can
make a world of differenceBy Robin Herndobler
Recently my 13-year-old
daughter read "A Jury of
Her Peers," a fine short
story by Susan Glaspell in d
which a farm wife is arrested
for the murder of her nusoand. It
appears she has strangled him with
a rope while he slept. As the story
opens, the county attorney, the
sheriff, his wife and another
woman have arrived at the remote
farmhouse, the men to search for
motives and clues, the women to
gather clothing ftr the imprisoned
wife.
At one point aie story one oi
the In""inarks disparagingly on
.untidy condition of the kitch-
en, a sink filled with dirty pots, a
half-wiped table, a ramshackle
stove, evoking a continuing medi-
tation by the women on male in-
trusion into this woman's domain.
The women resent the man's judg-
ment on the absent victim's
housekeeping skills and ponder at
length the implications of the state
of the kitchen.
My daughter had considerable
difficulty understanding why these
women were upset by the men
rifling around in the kitchen of the
accused as well as by their jibes at
--., 5,c Aw~n re jftincompence
im r '_v , ._
Rachel's father and I share
cooking and housekeeping respon-dobm i1-erndobier is a professor of
English at Loop College, specializ-
ing in wonyn's studies and litera-
ture by women,Continued from page 1
cornbread baking in the oven. She
turned and handed the ring to me
and she was going to cry, and she
said, "Here, take this. It's the
nicest thing I ever had-besides
James, of course."
When ny sister was 6 and I was
8, we would often spend our Sat-
urday afternoons with a woman
we came to nickname Mrs. Flash,
after the jewelry adornments she
always wore. She had no children
and was lonely. Visiting her was
wd ewetreisrucdte dtobe haveifke
ladies.
The old woman would sip her
gin and talk about the years when
she was young. My sister and I
would sit on the brocade love seat
across from her and stare at her
and try to pretend that we were
interested. We could not even
imagine that she had ever been
young. Her hair was the color of
faded straw, and she was a cros-
shatch of wrinkles. She would al-
ways serve us lunch, things we did
not like: hot water with milk and
three teaspoons of sugar [silver
tea, she called it], sandwiches of
watercress and cucumbers, short-
bread cookies. We hated her.
Mrs. Flash drank her gin from a
cut-crystal glass, too much gin but
never enough to appear to be
drunk. Until recently my sister
thought that she had merely con-
sumed a lot of water.
The woman liked us and took it
upon herself to instruct us in the
ways of a woman's life. She used
her own as illustration. She told us
of jazz clubs in the Harlem of the
'20s, of cocktail parties in Hol-
lywood where she rubbed elbows
with literary figures and movie
tars. She often spoke of hand-
aome men who took her to dinner
nd danced with her until the sun
came up. There was hardly a thing
she hadn't done. She credited her
success to her uncanny knack with
clothing. She said that she careful-
ly considered what she would wear
on each and every occasion. When
possible, she would reconnoiter
the place where she was to spend
the evening and assess the glow of
the light bulbs, the color of the
walls and upholstery, the many
variables that would tamper with
or assist her appearance. She also
studied jewelry, not as an art or a
4 1sibilities, as do so many working
couples these days, and so she is
as used to seeing a man as a
woman in the kitchen. Her ques-
tion-"Why should a woman re-
zent qoan's appearance in the
kitchen"--remiucu me i. lau
not lived in the era of the
woman's kitchen, the woman's
domain, when the kitchen was her
seat of power, her throne of opera-
tion.
In the old days of more clearly
defined gender roles, a proper
woman took considerable pride in
her kitchen n nf . 1pedf-
"111-%, Vamcuhrdy its cleanliness
["You could eat off her floors"],
as well as a delight in what result-
ed from her labor in it, wonderful
smells followed by substantial
meals served to a family seated
around the proverbial well-laden
table. My grandmother was such a
woman, reputed by all to be a su-
perior cook and an impeccable
housekeeper; of course, she was a
full-time homemaker.
My mother, who always worked
both in and out of our many
homes, though she regarded herself
as only a "tasty" cook, also con-
sidered her own housekeeping
skills superior, and every Saturday
w, ceane4unti yqtxg Washing,
catching up for the work-week ne-
glect, she having been at the office,
I at school.
Despite the pressure of leading
two lives, my mother attempted to
maintain housekeeping standards
set by her mother. Her stories re-
vealed her pride, how once a
friend had told her she knew my
mother's apartment from all
others even before entering the
building because it had the clean-
est windows on the block. I still
love washing windows and, like
Joyce Carol Oates, do my own. A
sparkling window can occasion a
peak experience.
And like my mother and hers
before; small details of household
beautification please me, an at-
tractive vase positioned exactly,
color and shape carefully integrat-
ed. After my father died, when I
was 14 and my brother was 12,
ni.ony Lwas scatice but beauty was
My mother saved every syrup
bottle and painted each graceful
shape to coordinate with the color
scheme of the room, creating love-
ly plant holders to sit on her pol-science of metal and gems but as a
way to accent whatever it was that
she wore. She confided that a
movie mogul had asked her to
head his vast wardrobe depart-
ment.
Mrs. Flash once felt that we
were not properly attentive and
gave us concrete examples. She
showed us her 9 jelry collection.
It was kept in chest the size of a
small dresser. ie touched this or
thatapiece with the tip of her fin-
ger and said that the items were
gifts from this husband or that
lover. There was a lesson, she de-
clared, to be learned from the his-
tory of her jewelry.
She gave us each a hag of
- 3e e oei nng, diamonds, sap-
phires, even an emerald. A silver
Mrs. Flash showed us
her jewelry collection.
She said that the items
were gifts from this
husband or that lover.
There was a lesson, she
declared, to be learned
from the history of her
jewelry.
cigarette case engraved, "To Molly I
McGee from the Boys at the The- t
atre." That night my sister showed I
her loot to our father and de-
scribed for him how the older
woman's lovers and husbands had
given her the things because they
liked the clothing that she wore. I
was called into the room and p
asked to tell of our visits. We y
never went to see her again.n
Pieces of the jewelry were left inh
the dirt behind the garage, lost at
the summer cottage, stolen by
playmates. But my sister still has a It
sterling pendant set with sapphires a
and diamonds, and I have my jew- r
elry box. The box is silver and was w
made in France in 1908. It was in y
the drawer, too, and inside it were a
some faded three-cent stamps and w
a coin purse.
The coin purse is unusual. It has h
a lid of thin silver over heavy b
brass. The silver is worn thin on h:
the edges where countless times fo
fingers have grasped it; in these by
places the brass shows through, h
giving it the appearance of being of
4ilustration by Torn Bachtell
ished sills.
She was nearly always working
on some project, stripping and re-
finishing a built-in oak buffet in
our dinning room, making new
drapes or slipcovers, painting
some old scrap of cast-off furni-
ture, all this while holding a series
of jobs, each more challenging
than its predecessor.
She was no ordinary career
woman. In 1952, having com-
pleted only two years of college
[most of it in cpeech and theater],
she was the first wUan to com-
S'let . ;aiding course in statis-T
eifquality control for her gov-
ernimpint dftlce.
She was as proud of that
achievement as she was of her
carefully arranged plants and stat-
uary. She had a strong sense of
how her domain should be kept,
whether kitchen or office.
Clearly, for centuries the only
sphere of control open to mosi
women was the kitchen and its re-
lated environments, dining rooms
when they existed, sometimes bed-
room, birthing rooms, women's
rooms; and take pride in them we
did and keep them separate from
men we tried. Our pride was our
life, a condition of self-respect, a
prerequisite for status in the
world.
A woman canned, baked and
stewed herself into reputation, her-
alded by other women for the fla-
vor of her mince, the flakiness of
her piecrust, and while the men
ate and enjoyed and grew substan-
tiat if fatWte tn t-1
arounrwomen's work" amusing,
perplexing, especially when mea-
sured against the demands of the
real world of men, adventure, ex-
ploration,war, commerce, labor,
"real" work.made from opposing metals, one
hot, the other of ice, The lid is
accented with a relief design that
looks like part of the muddled
crest of some royal family; this,
though somewhat odd, is in
keeping with its Queen Victoria
air of excess. The lid has been re-
paired, and there are a few thick
spots of silver solder, worn smooth
with use. I, at first, imagined its
ox xnaj owner to have been
flruga wornan who felt taa h'
so useful aid so lovely sh ow :not
be ca I aside e;:k
The body of the p urse is a black,
tightly crocheted bag. The work is
impeccable, done with small hooks
ones designed formaknag s
il, u agnns is flawless in its sym-
metry. There are minuscule steel
beads sewn to the bag. They form
a large star and minor geometic
attendants. The purse rests easily
in the palm of a small hand.
The purse belonged to the
grandmother of a woman I knew.
It was given to me as a gift. I re-
marked to my generous friend that
the purse was so small it could
hold very little money. "Oh," she
said, "my grandmother never had
20 or 30 cents of her own in her
entire life."
Hers was wealthy family. But the
grandmother, matriarch of all she
saw, had to ask her husband to
approve each and every purchase.
Things were charged at the local
stores, sparing her the sight and
bother of money. She stood fret-
ting behind her husband as he
looked at her request slips-she
wrote on individual pieces of
paper each item she wished to
buy. It was easier for him that
way.
"Yes, dear, I will have this re-
pairedi she would say. "But do
you think that soon I might get a
new one?" She wrung her dainty r
hands and waited patiently.
In that dresser were other things
oo: wooden buttons carved to
ook like brogan boots [hobnails
nd laces and all] from another of
my aunts, my Aunt Dolphiene,
whom I admired when I waste
young because I thought she lived
life of danng and elegance. A
wooden cat, the gift of a small boyc
-ho told me that someday he'd r
ave a house on the moon, but t
hind the garage where he'd keep
is rocket there would be a trailer s
or me to live in. A drawing done f
y another boy, a drawing of me. I
ive long eyelashes and wear lots c
'jewelry. I hold a champagne b
a'In "A Jurv of her Peers," the
cold of the unheated, aliandoned
murder dwelling has caused the
farm wife's jellies so lately put up
to break, and the sticky mess
oozes over cabinet and shelf, a
focus for more disparagement
from the men. The women
bemoan the loss of the fruit of so
much labor, hard work under the
worst conditions, poor equipment
making the work harder than need
be, the loveless, childless
household providing small recom-
pense, they believe, and resolve
not to tell the Pn1or and to take
her the one remaining umix
jar as they remeff+' 'lhes pide i,
jcs and her sorrow in
ier empty marriage. The men,
confused, wonder how she might
care about her jelly when she may
be indicted for murder. The
women know.
Of course, it would be hard for a
teenaged girl to know what she has
not experienced, feminine control
of our part of the world, womanly
pride in the arts that kept us all,
men and women, healthy, well-
clothed, alive for centuries and
still sustain us when we're fortu-
nate enough to have homemade
goods, edible or otherwise.
The issues of control, of power,
of pride in self, are primary here,
and it is indeed important that we
acknowledge and explore the fruit
of women's labors, traditional as
well as contemporary, and recog-
nize the essentia) nature of much
of "women's work." If, as a peo-
ap Preserves and:CrPating beauty1
than we do building bombs and
engineering take-overs, we might
develop the degree of sensitivity
requisite to a livable world, but
sensitivity, ah, that, as they say, is
"women' work." I 1.1.-Il- I" T~"women's"wor." ""
glass. The boy wanted to marry
me. He was 8.
A coffee cup, blue Chinese pat-
tern with obligatory weeping wil-
low, left behind by a fellow who
wanted to be my beau. A white
bedspread from a man who hoped
that I would learn a thing or two
from the sweet-edged regret
brought constantly mind by tie
presence of th.th.
A-4 the brooc vas there. It
.hough never seen it be-
eIt caught me unaware, and I
was swept with the memory of my
aunt. There were the scents and
sound of holiday meals. I thought
of her wedding. She and the hand-
i--z, - ad -ed and proved
that love is a possibility. Love that
lasts and brings with it ; house
that has a grape arbor and lots of
children. My mother tells tales of
my aunt from when the two of
them were young, and lookim, at
the brooch I remembered tie pho-
tos of my aunt when she-ooked
like all the glamorous -omen of
the '40s movies, My Oster said,
"The other womanif ever there
was." We all lausied madly at the
thought of thw.
I remembered and was unable to
stop thinking of the day my cous-
in was buried. The cousin I
loved-that everyone loved--and
the look on my aunt's face
mesmerized me and will stay on
the borders of my mind forever.
He lived in the colors of paintings,
and when he died, well, it was as
tonishing, a thing the rest of us
cannot recover from
When I was 11,I went to tell
my aunt that I had changed my
plans: I would not, after all, play
guard for the Harlem Globetrot-
ters when I grew up. She smiled
and said that other things would
come my way. I thank her to this
day for not laughing; but then she
never laughed at me, or at any of
us.
I put the brooch in the pocket
of my skirt and went to make a
cup of coffee. The sun was coming
up, and a light shone through the
trees and cast a pale buttermilk
glow into my kitchen, and I took
a spoon of coffee from a blue-lid-
ded bowl that my aunt had given
me years ago. I went and sat in
the old Morris chair and looked
out at the wooded yard. The
steam from the coffee misted my
face and all but hid my tears.
After a little while I called my
cousin and told him that I would
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David, Marjorie. [Clipping: They also served], clipping, March 22, 1987; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth888128/m1/2/: accessed May 21, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting National WASP WWII Museum.