Iowa Heritage Illustrated

English

Iowa Heritage Illustrated, vol.77 no.2, Summer 1996

Trumbo, Jean

Orson Hyde's Frontier Guardian: A Mormon Editor Chronicles the Westward Movement through Kanesville, Iowa

Ohrn, Steven

When the Work is Done: From Making a Living to Passing Time

Rinhart, Floyd

The Prairies A-Blaze': Iowa Wide Awakes Carry Torches for Lincoln

Iowa Heritage Illustrated, vol.77 no.3, Fall 1996

Briggs, Mary Wear

by Mary Wear Briggs
*
*
n a spring day in 1994, I had come to a small 
Shelby County cemetery by Portsmouth, Iowa, to 
visit my family's graves. Nearby, in Old Saint Mary's 
Church, the bells announcing the noon Angelus be­
gan to ring. How fitting for my grandparents who 
had left Ireland in the 1840s during the potato fam­
ine, clinging to their Catholic religion and their "ould 
sod" customs. My mother grew up familiar with the 
ways of old Ireland, and I had occasionally glimpsed 
that Irish heritage. Her parents had spoken Gaelic to 
each other, and Mom continued to use some of their 
expressions. "All ye spalpeens [hobgoblins] get to 
bed now," she would warn us. But my most vivid im­
pressions of her paint a portrait of a strong Iowa farm 
woman who found beauty—and occasional danger— 
in everyday farm life.
Standing in the cemetery that day, I visualized 
my mother and her sisters as I knew them long ago, 
dressed in sensible shoes and cotton hose, their long 
aprons protecting calico dresses. Most clearly of all, I 
remembered their colorful sunbonnets.
y mom, Nora Powers Wear, her sister Mol lie, 
and most of my other aunts wore sunbonnets all their 
lives, believing that tanned skin was unladylike.
Mom made her sunbonnets of flowered percale, with 
a fluffy, full crown, a starch-stiffened brim, and a 
ruffled edge that encircled her face. Each year she 
traded sunbonnet patterns with neighbors and rela­
tives to find just the right fit and style—perhaps a 
brim with cardboard "bones" to keep it stiff, or an ex­
tended ruffle in the back to protect her neck during 
long hours in the garden. She never gardened with­
out her bonnet; I can still see it bobbing along the 
rows as she sowed nasturtiums and zinnias, hoed 
beans or harvested beets.
On a farm in Harrison County, Grandma and 
Grandpa Powers had raised my mom and her five 
siblings to love music and learning. In their house, 
Irish lace curtains crisscrossed the windows, and 
books filled the tall secretarv in the front room and
J
shelves upstairs. In that atmosphere, my mother de-
N o r a  Powers (front right), at the I 904 St. Louis World’s 
Fair, four years before she married Frank Wear (who 
stands behind her). Mollie and Jack
Powers accompanied them. Nora’s needlework ranged 
from this monogrammed silk handkerchief, to everyday 
sunbonnets made of material like the print fabric.
veloped a belief in education for women and worked 
hard to obtain one for herself. At age 16, she rode 
eight miles sidesaddle to Shelby to take organ les­
sons, and she attended Woodbine Normal School to 
train as a teacher. Later, with her teaching money she 
bought her own piano.
Mom also attended St. Catherine's Academy in 
Omaha, where she learned dressmaking. She chose 
the latest designs from Women's Home Companion and 
other magazines. Her instructors taught her to use a 
set of cardboard patterns, adjusting them for the 
needed measurements and the various necklines and 
sleeves. Although the long dresses and ruffled 
blouses worn in that day were no small feat to make, 
she became a meticulous seamstress.
arried in 1908, Mom soon set up her own 
household with Pop. Like Grandma, she hung Irish 
lace curtains in her windows and continued to wear 
sunbonnets and make dresses from cardboard dress 
patterns. In fact, I remember well the inflatable 
dressform that stood in our upstairs bedroom. One 
day when I was three or four, my siblings and I were 
playing in that room. I became intrigued with stick­
ing pins in the model. When I realized it was deflat­
ing, I quietly sought refuge in the barn. Discovering 
my mischief, Mom soon rushed outside to search for 
me—and she didn't take time to put on her bonnet.
Hiding in the lower haymow, I peeked through a 
crack. As 1 watched her quick, determined steps to­
ward the barn, Mother's small, 90-pound body ap­
peared large and frightening. She soon spied me. Al­
though she very seldom became angry and never 
punished us physically, on this occasion she picked 
up a small stick (later, she told me it was only a reed 
of straw). As I ran ahead of her across the barnyard to 
the house, I felt its sting, and I cried my heart out. Yet 
1 don't believe my fear of the weapon was as great as 
the knowledge that I had disappointed my mother 
and ruined something she prized.
Mother also prized books. From the time we were 
little, she read aloud to us. When the Saturday 
Evening Post arrived in the mail, we often persuaded 
her to read to us right on the back steps, before the 
magazine was even brought into the house. But usu­
ally story time was in the evening. In the glow of the 
aladdin lamp, she would read tales by Jack London 
and Zane Grey or chapters from Hans Brinker and the 
Silver Skates, Little Women, Girl of the Limberlost, or 
The Last of the Mohicans. Even my father would
ALL ITEMS LOANEO BY THE AUTHOR ANO PH O TO G R A PH ED  BY R W LUTZ <lOWA CITY) Fall 1996 119
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A  ngels amid clouds adorn Old St. 
Mary’s Church, in Portsmouth, Iowa, 
where the author and her family a t ­
tended Christmas morning services.
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set aside his paper and listen.
Every Christmas each of us re­
ceived several books from our 
parents and grandmother. But we 
could not unwrap these books, or 
play with our toys, or even enjoy 
one piece of candy from our 
plump stockings, until after 
church. In those days we fasted 
before taking Communion, and
Mom kept a close eye on us as she ----  ,
tried to hurry us into our church 
clothes on Christmas morning.
Bundled into our Model T, we bounced along in 
the dark, in and out of the frozen ruts leading to Old 
Saint Mary's Church for 5:00 a.m. Mass. The sharp 
cold numbed our mittened fingers and frosted our 
faces. Gusts of wind blew through the cracks of the 
auto's snap-on side curtains.
After the icy trip, we appreciated the warmth and 
serenity of the church. Dozens of altar candles 
blinked and fluttered in the dark interior. The scent of 
pine boughs and incense tickled our noses. Painted 
on the ceiling above the altar, ethereal angels floated 
on fluffy clouds and blew on long, golden horns.
Soon the quiet spell was broken by the heavy, echo­
ing blare of the German brass ensemble playing 
"O Tannenbaum." The choir followed with the Ger­
man words to "Silent Night."
We had plenty of opportunity to absorb the 
church atmosphere on those Christmas mornings. 
Even with Mom's frantic endeavors to get us dressed 
and into the Model T, we were frequently late to the 
5:00 a.m. Mass. So after all the effort of getting us 
there, she often decided that wre should stay for the 
other two Masses, at 6:00 and 7:00 a.m. This way, she 
reasoned, we were triply blessed on Christmas morn- 
ing.
After church in the springtime, she would don 
her sunbonnet and walk with us down to Leland's 
Grove, to where the wildflowers grew in abundance 
on the banks and under the trees, so thick that we 
had to be careful not to walk on them. Dutchman's 
breeches, adder tongue, bloodroot, honeysuckle, jack- 
in-the-pulpit—Mom could identify them all. We gath­
ered the roots of some, and she made her own wild- 
flower bed in the windbreak behind our house. For
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COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR
years 1 would watch for those early blooms as a sign 
of spring.
Mom loved roses, too, and she exchanged roots of 
old favorites with our relatives. An old yellow rose 
bush graced our front yard, and delicate English 
moss roses and highly perfumed pinks and reds 
edged the garden. Pop built a rose arbor in the front 
yard with several Dorothy Perkins climbing roses on 
each side. I realize now that this was his way of tell­
ing Mom that he loved her.
lthough Mom found pleasure in flowers and 
>ooks, she probably found little pleasure in doing 
housework in a home with few conveniences. When I 
tried to help her cook, the black Home Comfort 
cookstove behaved like a cantankerous volcano, 
spewing fire or going out at a whim. Too few corn­
cobs, and the fire would die out; too many, and I 
would burn the bread. But Mom had mastered the 
stove, and it served her well. On dreaded ironing day, 
the stove heated the flatirons for her. Farther back, 
milk warmed in a crock, in the slow process of mak­
ing cottage cheese. The teakettle sang, ready with hot 
water for vegetables, tea, or coffee. Bread rose, four 
loaves at a time, on the reservoir. Toast browned in 
the oven for soup. The warm area behind the stove 
became an incubator for newborn lambs, weak pig­
lets, or baby chicks caught in the rain. On cold winter 
days, this quiet, warm space became my secret hiding 
place for reading.
The plumbing in our house was simple. A small 
silver pump next to the sink brought rainwater from
120 Ioiva Heritage Illustrated
the cistern. We kept this water warm in the reservoir 
on the end of the cookstove, for washing our hair, 
bathing, shaving, and scrubbing dirty hands. Drink­
ing and cooking water was carried in from the nearby 
well. We called our outhouse "the little house out 
back," and, of course, trekked out there even in zero 
temperatures, blizzards, or heavy rain. Every night 
right before bed, Mom walked us all out to the out­
house—and managed to give these treks educational 
value. She took a great interest in the night sky, so on 
clear nights we studied the stars. She could locate 
several constellations and always pointed out the 
paths of Jupiter, Mars, and Venus. Many times we 
witnessed the mysterious, flickering dance of aurora 
borealis.
Later, when I was older, my friends were amazed 
I had seen the northern lights so frequently. These 
friends also missed the meteor showers, as well as 
the hoot of the owls and the snap of their beaks as 
they swooped low over our heads, trying to scare us 
away from their fuzzy babies. They missed watching 
the bats and nighthawks zigzagging through the sky, 
snapping up mosquitoes. For a time I couldn't under­
stand why my friends had not seen all these won­
ders, not realizing that they had probably grown up 
with indoor plumbing.
Pop was a sky-watcher, too. Like all farmers, my 
parents anxiously watched for storms and knew the 
signs for hail and high winds. Rosy or yellow sun­
sets, sun dogs or rings around the moon—all were 
signs of changing weather, and my parents knew 
how to read them. In the evening, when mackerel 
clouds streaked the sky from horizon to horizon,
Mom would say: "Mackerel sky and a mare's tail, 
make big ships carry low sail."
On stormy nights, I was sometimes awakened by 
water dropping on my face. Quietly, the white- 
gowned figure of my mother would move around 
our bedroom sprinkling holy water. The water and 
her presence quieted any fears from thunderclaps 
and lightning flashes, and 1 drifted back to sleep.
•X. n 1916, shortly after my mother and father had 
bought our farm, my father built a washhouse. Most 
of our neighbors washed their clothes in sheds with 
dirt floors, and propelled the washers by hand. But 
our washhouse was far superior. It had a cement 
floor and rooms for coal and corncobs. Along one 
wall, Pop placed a cookstove for heating the wash 
water and for canning. The cream separator sat on
the west side. Pop's gasoline engine occupied a cor­
ner on the north. The engine pumped the well water 
when no wind blew to turn the windmill; it ground 
the grain for the flock of chicks Mom raised each 
year; and it powered the glory of the washhouse—a 
brand-new, double-tub Dexter washing machine. Pop 
had paid $35 for it and beamed with pride when he 
brought it home for Mom. It reigned in the center of 
the washhouse and helped ease Mom's work load for 
years.
One summer day in the 1930s, I was helping 
Mom with the wash. After she ran the clothes 
through the wash and rinse waters, I lugged them to 
the long clotheslines in the backyard and hung them 
to dry. The Dexter washer, older by now, needed re­
pairs. But it was the Great Depression, and Pop had 
little money for fixing it and none for replacing it.
As I returned from the lines, I thought I heard a 
weak cry. Nearing the washhouse, I heard my name 
called in a very light, high-pitched whisper. I hurried 
in. The wringer had caught Mom's sleeve, and then 
the front of her dress. It was torn to shreds, and her 
body, grotesquely twisted, was held tight to the 
wringer by her collar. The shutoff button had broken 
and she could not reach the levers. She was slowly 
choking to death.
In a strained whisper she told me to turn off the 
motor by touching a certain loose wire to a particular 
bolt. The motor stopped.
For weeks a raw, red strip showed around her 
neck. I'm sure the shutoff on the tub and motor were 
promptly fixed, but from then on, my brother Francis 
stayed in from the field on washdays. He carried the 
water, ran the tub, and helped Mom hang the clothes 
on the line.
The drought and depression of the 1930s sapped 
the vitality from Pop and Mom, just as it did from 
our land and livestock. To plant crops year after year, 
only to watch them shrivel and die, became heart­
breaking. In the late 1930s Pop lost the farm, but with 
my brother Francis's help they accumulated enough 
money to buy an acreage. Mom finally knew an 
easier life, with running water, a furnace, and elec­
tricity. In the spring and summer my parents could 
usually be found behind their house tending their 
large garden, Mom still wearing a sunbonnet. ❖
M ary Wear Briggs lives in Missouri Valley, Iowa. A retired 
teacher: she enjoys writing about her childhood in western Iowa.
Fall 1996 121


Sunbonnets

Iowa Heritage Illustrated, vol.77 no.1, Spring 1996

Juhl, Paul C

The Brigade of Beuaty in Advertising Costumes': Merchants' Carnivals in Iowa

Swaim, Ginalie

On the Battle Field, In the Hospital, In the Parlor At the Fair

i  S H st (Io w a  e r r o
Bronson Alcott Visits Mt. Pleasant
Among the guests whom William 
and Cordelia Throop Cole enter­
tained in their parlor at Cedarcroft 
was Amos Bronson Alcott, the 
transcendentalist philosopher, au­
thor, and educator from New En­
gland. Like many writers and lec­
turers, Alcott visited communities in the West, but 
many of his lectures were "Conversations" with small 
groups gathered in a parlor, complete with cake and 
coffee.
Between 1870 and 1881, he visited Iowa, specifi­
cally Davenport, Dubuque, Fort Dodge, Iowa City, 
Muscatine, Burlington, Des Moines, Mt. Pleasant, 
Ames, and Cedar Rapids. He spoke on culture, charac­
ter, religion, literature, liberal thought, and New En­
gland authors, especially Ralph Waldo Emerson, his 
friend and neighbor in Concord.
He was often introduced as Louisa May Alcott's 
father and asked to make a few remarks about the 
popular author. He did this gladly, writing home that 
he was "riding in Louisa's chariot, and adored as the 
grandfather of Little Women."
In November 1872, Louisa wrote in her diarv: "Got 
Father off for the West, all neat and comfortable. I en­
joyed every penny spent, and had a happy time pack­
ing his new trunk with warm flannels, neat shirts, 
gloves, etc., and seeing the dear man go off in a new 
suit. ... We both laughed over the pathetic old times."
Having embraced New England liberal thought, 
Cordelia Throop Cole hosted Alcott in 1873,1878, and 
1881. Here is one of his letters to her.
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Bronson Alcott Visits Mt. Pleasant

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