"Change, anticipation recalled as highlights of her spring" from the March 10, 1977 Door County Advocate
By GRACE SAMUELSON
Change, anticipation recalled as highlights of her spring
By GRACE SAMUELSON
Whether March comes in like a lamb or a lion we here in Wisconsin knew that the day marked on the calendar for spring's arrival won't work the magic of balmy weather. Still, tired as we are of winter's extremes, we have high hopes and all signs of spring are welcome.
Back in my grade school days those signs were welcome, too. March was an ornery month, the sun higher in the sky, snow melting and here and there a crocus peeping out; then blustery winds and sudden snow squalls. A little early for kites and hopscotch and jump ropes but some of the boys were sure to show up with their bags of marbles and a sheltered corner by the school steps might find a group of girls playing jacks.
Your overshoes had sprung a leak by this time so when you waded through roadside puddles from the melting snow your shoes got wet and at night you'd have to stuff them with newspaper and put them on the stove mat to dry out.
As you made your way to school through the slush on the sidewalks you listened for the trickle of water running under the ice alongside the road, and the sound brought an assurance of spring.
The maple trees in our back yard showed signs of dripping sap. We licked the fingers we dipped into the tiny stream, relishing the sweet taste. We would have liked to gather sap like our cousins in the country but Mama explained how many gallons of sap it took to boil down and make one pint of maple syrup. Papa bought a gallon jug of the syrup every spring. Mama used to tell us what fun they'd had at sugaring off parties when she was young, and we envied her those good times.
We had a saying that there usually was a blizzard around St. Patrick's Day and sure enough it usually came. Winter made its last fling. Sometimes the storm was severe enough to keep us from school and we used our holiday to make scrapbooks or write letters.
We bundled up and did the chores, carrying in extra scuffles of coal and pails of water, kindling and wood for the range, so Papa wouldn't have to do it when he got home.
We watched for his coming, in his heavy black overcoat, sealskin cap and knit scarf covering nose and mouth. It was a long, hard struggle, coming home after dark, over the old bridge and the uphill blocks from town. He always said, "It's good to be home, I'll tell you, the storm flags are flying tonight." The storm drew us close together and we savored the delicious smells of hearty food and the remembrance of summer in Mama's criss-cross black raspberry pie.
After the blizzard we would wake to a world of beauty and sometimes destruction, where the fury of the storm had torn down trees, broken huge branches and piled drifts high as the upstairs windows of the house.
The tree limbs, fence posts and window ledges wore a frosting of white; the remnants of our snow-man had been draped in new garb. Since there were only two or three cars in town (automobiles we called them then) and those were set up on blocks in the barns or woodsheds that served as garages, we didn't have to shovel driveways. But we all turned to, and dug paths to the road.
All neighborhood fathers worked every day of the week except Sunday and they had to be on their way long before seven. They had stopped flooding Market Square around the end of February so there was no more skating with the chance of warming up in the library, with our skates parked inside the door. But the snow gave us another lease on sliding, and out came our Flexible Flyers.
In the neighbor boys' yards now forts built up again and snowballs flew, and "fox and geese" rings were outlined in free spaces. Here and there, where the wind had swept the sheltered place clean, we'd find ruffles of dirty old snow covered with frills of gauzy white.
If the blizzard hit while we were at school we never tried to go the seven blocks home at noon, even though we had an hour and a half for lunch. It was such a treat to run down to Schmidt's bakery, just a block from school, to buy the goodies that our home-baked foods didn't include — the jelly doughnuts, jam-filled sweet rolls, and crullers — we called them "crawlers''.
If we had a penny or so earned from running errands we plowed through drifted sidewalks the two and a half blocks to L. M. Washburn's grocery and dawdled over the wonderful choice in the candy counter. Jawbreakers, "dumbbells," little-mixed, jelly beans, stick candy with a gold ring on it. And licorice sticks, horehound candy, rock candy, peppermint and wintergreen drops, taffy kisses, maple sugar hearts, lemon drops — what decisions!
Ash Wednesday had come and gone and now Mama made hot cross buns every Wednesday. Then there was whole wheat raisin bread, and the corn meal bread we always called brown bread. Mornings, Mama and Papa had buckwheat cakes most every day. We girls didn't like the tangy flavor of the buckwheat and the sour-dough starter with which they were made. The gray granite pitcher with the makings stood in the cool cellarway and was taken out when Mama got up, to be mixed with more flour and buckwheat for the pancakes.
We always paid special attention to St. Patrick's Day because there was Irish in our ancestry. Usually we had corned beef and cabbage for supper that night, with "red flannel" hash to follow next day. We made it a point to wear something green to school — a green bow at our collar, or a kelly green hair ribbon. Sometimes there were socials at school or church — the magazines of the day printed special menus and games and patterns for decorations suitable for the "luck of the Irish." Mama always sang "When Irish Eyes are Smiling" and "Wearing of the Green" and one memorable time we watched Papa do a bit of an Irish jig!
The house wasn't quite as drafty and cold now that the back of the winter was broken. So we were allowed to wash our hair every two weeks, as long as we stayed in front of the coal stove rubbing it till it was dry. You rinsed your hair with lemon juice if you were blond — if your hair was dark you used vinegar in the rinse. Then, after it dried, you braided it way to the end, to make it wavy, or if you wanted Mary Pickford curls you put it up on rags.
I had a long bob with hair ribbon fastened on top till I was eight or so; then it was braided half-way down, a rubber band and hair ribbon tied there. Later I wore the braids in cradles, ribbons on each side.
A gift of new hair ribbons was to be cherished. Washburns carried an assortment. When we were given the wide "water-silk" or bordered kind they were saved for special days or programs. By the time we got to high school the girls were wearing puffs at each side. You either snarled (teased, they say today) your hair underneath and then rolled it up, or stuffed a “rat" made of combings inside.
Most everyone had a hair-receiver on her dresser, for the combings, and I remember Mama had a switch made of hers one time. I can't recall her ever wearing it — her dark brown wavy hair was heavy, and she didn't need the switch to form the big bun at the back.
Some women wore their braids in a coronet, and some twisted theirs into a psyche knot. Kid curlers (usually covered with a dust-cap) relieved straight hair, or they used a curling iron heated in the chimney of the oil lamp; later there were electric curling irons, water wave combs and clips, and when beauty parlors blossomed out, the torturous permanent wave machines, or marcel irons.
When Irene Castle cut her hair she liberated the women whose heavy "crowning glory" gave them continual headaches. But it took quite a few years before bobbed hair wasn't considered "fast." Then the boys wore pompadours or the slicked back patent-leather look.
At the corner of each grade school desk — that is, from fourth grade up — there was a depression into which a small glass receptacle of ink was placed. It was the monitor's duty to fill the ink wells periodically. We used steel pens fastened into penholders — no fountain pens allowed.
The ink well was a handy little place for dipping the ends of braids of the girl sitting ahead of you. My blond braids were generally celebrating St. Pat's day — green tipped hair. I was teased a lot, but I'll always remember with gratitude the day one of the neighbor boys kept calling it me "Irish" and "Ammie" Knudson told me — "That's all right, Grace — it takes the Irish to beat the Dutch." Dutch or not, that boy's teasing never bothered me again.
By mid-March Mama had a good start on her spring housecleaning. We knew that on Saturdays we'd be called on to help beat the rugs with the old wire carpet beater and lug things in and out for airing. The smell of ammonia, boiled linseed oil, and vinegar pervaded the house. Some years Mr. Stroh and his men would come to paper or paint the walls. Papa usually varnished the woodwork and around the rugs, but Mama washed walls and did the curtain stretching. We hated house cleaning. The whole house was torn up for a couple of weeks but we considered it a necessary evil.
The rhubarb, dandelion greens or asparagus that we always relished so in spring weren't ready yet but we could wait. Meanwhile we could prepare for Easter, with its traditions and its promise of renewal. Winter was waning.
The poet told us that the roots of the deep red roses would keep alive in the snow. We could even spot a few crocuses braving the weather. We thought of the tulip and daffodil bulbs we'd dug deep in the ground last fall and in our minds' eye pictured that colorful bed in bloom. Spring would come. And March doesn't last forever.
Courtesy of the Door County Library Newspaper Archive
["crowning glory" is part of the title of a 1926 one-act play which deals with hair: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Woman_s_Crowning_Glory/jMNPAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1
The phrase isn't an exact quote from 1 Corinthians 11:15, but could reference it.]
Articles by Grace Samuelson:
https://doorcounty.substack.com/t/grace-samuelson