The Jubilee
Excerpt from Alice Mendenhall - Pioneer Days
Folks for miles around came to see the first train come in, came to the “Jubilee” as it was called. On the farm they were getting ready to go to the jubilee, also.
These were the palmy days for the farmer. His life was not yet cluttered up with silos, tractors, milking machines, separators, Federal Farm banks, Iowa land booms, bank failures, farm relief, McNary Haugen bills.
His wife was up early, too – shoos the flies out, for screens were unknown; browns the coffee in the skillet and grinds it by hand; fries potatoes for breakfast, for Quaker oats and cereals are unknown. It is a cold morning and she lays her husband’s red flannel underwear out – she has “done-up” his shirt herself with tub and washboard and soft soap she had made from the lye dripping from the ash hopper, and the spare grease from butchering. She irons it with a hot handled iron, a hard task, for the shirt opens in the back and the bosom had to be as stiff as a board to shine like polished marble.
Her husband puts on his heavy black suit that men wear for Sunday, summer and winter, his Sunday boots, his heavy gold watch chain, combs his long hair, brushes his long whiskers, puts on his stiff hat, takes a chew of plug tobacco, and while he is waiting for his wife, sits down to read what the new editor of “The News” has to say about President Hayes, and the forty-fifth congress. Among the advertisements in “The News” is Schipfer’s special: men’s suits $15 to $20 – now $12.50; men’s overcoats $13.50 – now $5.50; ladies’ muslin nightgown 19 cents; corset covers, trimmed with lace or embroidery 10 cents.
Now away go the farmer and his wife to the jubilee in the spring wagon. Shafers’ livery stable did a big business that day for it was 30 years before an automobile came to town.
