Folk are "Just Folks"

by Mrs. A.J. Wilder

Why Shouldn't Town and Country Women Work and Play Together?

"The Athenians" is a woman's club just lately organized in Hartville, for purposes of study and self-improvement. Hartville was already well supplied with social organizations. There was an embroidery club, also a whist club, and the usual church aid societies and secret orders which count for so much in country towns. Still there were a few busy woman who felt something was lacking. They could not be satisfied altogether with social affairs. They wanted to cultivate their minds and increase their knowledge, so they organized the little study club and have laid out a year's course of study.

The membership of the club is limited to twenty. If one of the twenty drops out then someone may be elected to take the vacant place. Two negative ballots exclude anyone from membership. There are no dues. "The Athenians" is, I think, a little unique for a town club, as the membership is open to town and country women alike and there are several country members. Well, why not? "The Colonel's lady and Judy O'Grady are sisters under the skin." (Mind I have not said whether Judy O'Grady is a town or country woman. She is just as likely, if not a little more likely, to be found in one place as the other.)

Surely the most vital subjects in which women are interested are the same in town and country, while the treasures of literature and the accumulated knowledge of the world are for all alike. Then why not study them together and learn to know each other better? Getting acquainted with folks makes things pleasanter all around. How can we like people if we do not know them? It does us good to be with people whose occupation and surroundings are different from ours. If their opinions differ from ours, it will broaden our minds to get their point of view and we will likely find that they are right in part at least, while it may be that a mutual understanding will lead to a modification of both opinions.

While busily at work one afternoon I heard the purr of a motor and going to the door to investigate, I was met by the smiling faces of Mr. and Mrs. Frink and Mr. and Mrs. Curtis of Hartville. Mrs. Curtis and Mrs. Frink have taken an active part in organizing "The Athenians" and they had come over to tell me of my election to membership in that club. What should be done when there is unexpected company and one is totally unprepared and besides must be at once hostess, cook and maid? The situation is always easily handled in a story. The lovely hostess can perform all kinds of conjuring tricks with a cold bone and a bit of left over vegetable, producing a delicious repast with no trouble whatever and never a smut on her beautiful gown. In real life it sometimes is different, and during the first of that pleasant afternoon my thoughts would stray to the cook's duties. When the time came, however, it was very simple. While I made some biscuit, Mrs. Frink fried some home cured ham and fresh eggs, and Mrs. Curtis set the table. The Man Of The Place opened a jar of preserves and we all had a jolly, country supper together before the Hartville people started on the drive home. It is such a pleasure to have many friends and to have them dropping in at unexpected times that I have decided when it lies between friendships and feasting and something must be crowded out, the feasting may go every time.

At a recent meeting of "The Athenians" some very interesting papers, prepared by the members, were read. Quoting from the paper read by Mrs. George Hunter: "The first societies of women were religious and charitable. These were followed by patriotic societies and organizations of other kinds. At present there exists in the United States a great number of clubs for women which may be considered as falling under three general heads-- educational, social, and practical. The clubs which may be classified as practical include charitable organizations, societies for civic improvement or for the furthering of schools, libraries, and such organizations as have for their object the securing, by legislation, of improved conditions for working women and children. In 1890 the General Federation of Women's Clubs was formed. There were in the United States at the last enumeration more than 200,000 women belonging to clubs. Get the number? Two hundred thousand! Quite a little army this.

A very interesting paper and one that causes serious thought was that prepared by Mrs. Howe Steel on "The Vocation of Woman." "Woman," says Mrs. Steel, "has found out that with education and freedom, pursuits of all kinds are open to her and by following these pursuits she can preserve her personal liberty, avoid the grave responsibilities, the almost inevitable sorrows and anxieties which belong to family life. She can choose her friends and change them. She can travel and gratify her tastes and satisfy her personal ambitions. The result is that she frequently is failing to discharge satisfactorily some of the most imperative demands the nation makes upon her. I think it was Longfellow who said: 'Homekeeping hearts are happiest.' Dr. Gilbert said, 'Thru women alone can our faintest dreams become a reality. Woman is the creator of the future souls unborn. Tho she may be cramped, enslaved and hindered, tho she may never be able to speak her ideal, or touch the work she longs to accomplish, yet in the prayer of her soul is the prophecy of her destiny.'

Here's to woman the source of all our bliss,

There's a foretaste of Heaven in her kiss.

From the queen upon her throne to the maiden in her dairy,

They are all alike in this.

In "Soldiers of the Soil," a story by Rose Wilder Lane, a real country woman says: "It is my opinion there are lots more happy homes in the country than there are in the city. If everybody lived in the country you wouldn't hear all this talk about divorce." I wonder how true that is I and if true, or if not true, what are the reasons for it? I suppose there are statistics on the subject. There are on most things, but you know "there are three kinds of lies-- lies, d----- lies and statistics," so why bother about them? The reasons given by the women quoted where that while the women in the country worked, to help out the family income, her work was at home, while if the woman in the city worked she must leave her home to do so; that, working together, man and wife were drawn together, while working apart they drifted apart.

There may be fewer divorces in the country without it necessarily following that there are more happy homes. It seems to me that the deadly monotony of working with, and playing with, the same person in the same place for days and weeks and months and years would be more apt to drive a person to divorce or suicide than if they were separated during the working day and could meet when it was over with different experiences to speak about and to add variety to their companionship. To be sure, in the city a woman can live in one apartment as well as another so long as her pay envelope comes to hand regularly, while in the country when a woman leaves her home she leaves her job too. Perhaps this has more effect in lessening divorce in the country than the happy home idea. We carry our own environment with us to a certain extent and are quite likely to stand or fall by the same principles wherever we may live.

Mrs. A. J. Wilder. "Folk are 'Just Folks'." Missouri Ruralist (May 5, 1916): 12. The article is accompanied by a photograph taken at Rocky Ridge Farm, with the caption: "A Glimpse of the 'Little Dining Room' Between Living Room and Kitchen at Rocky Ridge Farm. Looking From the Living Room."

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