Running a Household

02/15/07

Household duties were varied, and were no less arduous than those on the farm. Candles were used for lighting, and had to be made in moulds from beef tallow and wicking. The wicking was obtained by carding and spinning cotton on the hand cards and spinning wheel of the home. Coal-oil lamps came into use in the early sixties, but many continued to use candles after that time. Sweeping was done with home-made brooms, made from home grown broom corn.

Articles of furniture were often side by some member of the family. Bedsteads were corded with strips of rawhide. Frequently also were the bottoms of chairs. Few people had stoves or clocks. Nails were difficult to obtain and both in the building of houses and the making of furniture, wooden pins and strips of rawhide took their place. When rawhide was used, it was first soaked and then bound around the timbers or pieces of wood to be kept in place. As it dried it tightened and held the pieces together firmly.

"A fat larder makes a good cook," runs the old saying; but it was the problem of the pioneer house-wives to be good cooks without the fat larder, and they usually succeeded. They had no soda, baking powder, or yeast cakes, but found a substitute in the saleratus on the lake bottoms, which they scraped up, dissolved in water, and allowed to settle. After the water had been drained off, the saleratus was used to make sour milk biscuits, much to the satisfaction of their husbands. They sometimes got sweet water saleratus, but not often. Salt rising bread was frequently made.

As a substitute for sugar, molasses was often made from the common red beet. The beets were first cleaned, then sliced in thin layers and boiled in large kettles. After boiling some time, the liquid was strained through a cloth, and again boiled, this time to a syrup. Later, sugar cane was extensively grown, and molasses was made therefrom at the mill. Delicious preserves were made from the juice of watermelons with musk melon for filling. Squashes were often cut and dried for winter use.

It was a number of years before the pioneers had any fruit other than ground cherries and service berries. The women and girls gathered the berries in the fields and the hillsides and made preserves from them.

The Story of Samuel Moore and Eunice Sibley Bliss, Originally Compiled by Connie Annetta Sorensen Rausch Sept. 1985, Found at: Daughters of the Utah Pioneers, Salt Lake City, Utah

.Wood was the only fuel used for many years. The cottonwoods growing along the banks of the streams, being within easy reach, often kept the hearth fires burning; and many cords of quaking aspen poles and some logs were hauled from the canyons.

The home sociables or the pioneers were enjoyable affairs, "We could meet at some place, generally the home of some young married couple who liked our Frolic, where we played games, told riddles and stories, and sang songs." Almost everyone sang, although we didn't know anything about note or music, and nearly everyone whistled."

When wash-day came the clothes were rubbed on the old fashioned board with home made soap. The tubs and buckets were of wood, made by the local copper. If one had a very large family this chore took hours of back breaking toil and hands became red and knuckles sore. The clothes were hung out on bushes, then fences, and finally clothes lines, in all kinds of weather from blistering heat to very cold. The ironing was done on a wood table, or a wooden plank placed on the backs of two chairs. Eventually real live ironing boards came into being. No modern, thermostatically controlled electric irons were to be had. Theirs were very heavy, solid irons that were heated on a stove and hence were either too hot or too cold! Of course there were no "Perma-press" fabrics then either. The heavy cotton had to be ironed for each use. Then of course there were always a few "special" things that had to be starched to be stiff. To wash the clothes water would have to be carried from quite a distance sometimes and often it was heated over open fires outside! No running water (hot or cold) was to be found in the homes of "yester-year".

The making of soap required that the housewife should save all fat grease scraps; and as no concentrated lye was to be had it was necessary also that she have a leaching box in which to keep wood ashes. When she desired to make soap, she would pour water over the ashes and leach out the Lye. To the grease and lye was added water and the mixture was boiled in a large brass kettle hung on a tripod, or placed on rocks out of doors. The product was soft soap.

Carding, spinning and weaving were customary occupations in Pioneer days. Cotton was brought from the Southern States, but flax and wool were produced in Utah. From these raw products the women manufactured blankets, flannels, linseys, towels, table-covers, coverlets, shawls, rag carpets, and other textiles. yarns and gods were colored with dyes made from squaw-bush, sage brush, rabbit brush, alder bark, peach leaves, and other vegetation, together with some substances imported from the East. When Holdaway and Morton's carding mill was put in operation on what is known as the Forsyth farm, north of Provo River, in 1851 most of the carding was done by them, much to the relief of the overworked housewives.

Knitting was both a useful and popular pastime. It was pursued in the evenings and at social gatherings.

The Story of Samuel Moore and Eunice Sibley Bliss, Originally Compiled by Connie Annetta Sorensen Rausch Sept. 1985, Found at: Daughters of the Utah Pioneers, Salt Lake City, Utah

This site was last updated 01/31/07