Club Minutes: Mutual Improvement Association, 1912-1916

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Sunnyside. 7-3-1914

The Association met at Sunnyside 7-3-1914, only 4 members being absent. Visitors were Mrs. Bringherst, Miss Stewart and Mrs. Taylor of Wil. Mary Anna Ruse and Marian Bentley of Balto., Hannah B. Stabler, Ellen Stabler, Lillie B. Stabler, Mariana Miller, Mrs. Jones and Rebecca T. Miller, besides several others who waited on us in the dining room.

The sentiment for the day was as follows:

“The art of life consists in taking each event which befalls us with a contented mind confident of good. This makes us grow younger as we grow older, for youth and joy come from the soul to the body more than from the body to the soul. With this method and art and temper of life, we live though we may be dying. We rejoice always though in the midst of sorrow; and possess all things, though destitute of everything.” James Freeman Clarke.

The question of admitting another member was not decided as Estelle T. Moore said she thought Corrie M. Brooke would accept her invitation to join, noted last month. We were pleased to welcome Edith Hallowell, India Downey and Elma P. Chandlee all in attendance for the first time since their election to “The Immortals”.

By request India Downey gave her recipe for making what we have been told is an admirable apple butter. She uses 1 bbl cider, 2 bu. apples. 10 lbs sugar. Boils cider down about half, adds sliced fruit, and cooks a day or two, we think, then adds sugar, boils a while longer and we suppose fills up her jars and sleeps the sleep of the weary, as this fine sauce has to be stirred from morn till dewy eve.

Sarah T. Miller contributed a pithy sentence, “If you name is to live at all, it “is much more to live in people’s hearts than in their brains.”

Sarah F. Willson gave some remarkable figures we should rather try to believe than disprove. It was declared if one were offered all the land in the United Kingdom, or an equal length and width of calico, the latter would be worth millions of pounds sterling more.

E. C. Davis read “The Lament of the Apple Tree”.

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“Oh, I was once an apple tree, And I grew and grew as the Lord made me, But the professors down at M. A. C. know better how things ought to be. So they cut off my limbs and branches too, And scraped my bark, and I tell you I looked as much like an apple tree As a monkey looks like a bumble bee. I’m ashamed to stand where folks can see What the professors did from the M. A. C. What’s good for trees ought to be good for man, And I’d like to try the professor’s plan. I’d like to take Professor Shears And trim him up in spite of his tears; I’d cut off his ears, and shorten his nose, I’d shave his head and trim his toes, And I’d set him up for the boys to see Just how a professor ought to be.”

Ellen Stabler, who never “forgets her piece”, had a selection from “The Calendar of Friendship”. Happy is the house that shelters a friend; it might well be built like a festal bower, or an arch, to entertain him a single day. Happier if he know the solemnity of that relation and honor its law. All the world could not buy you a friend, nor pay you for the loss of one.” The next article by Mary E. Gilpin was some very interesting facts about Harriet Martinson, the first English writer to discover and admire the American Girl, consequently it was most fitting that Wellesley College should have possessed such a fine statue of the versatile and delightful lady of the old school. Once a year the Wellesley girls had a frolic while they “scrubbed Harriet” as they termed it, making the statue clean from cap to toe. It is to be hope some wealthy friend of Wellesley will present a duplicate as Harriet, together with Elaine and Niobe were all consumed in the recent disastrous fire.

Elma Chandlee brought a bright sketch of Josiah Wedgewood, the 13th child of poor parents, who trough lame and dreadfully pock-marked, won the love of a charming girl and eventually achieved fame and fortune from his important discoveries in the making of pottery which he raised to a fine art,

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by his perseverance and genius. While still a lad he committed the whole of Thomson’s “Season’s to memory, and few have so completely mastered a trade and surmounted obstacles, as did this truly remarkable man.

Rebecca T. Miller’s article informed us that 15 machines and 63 persons can transform the necessary materials into a pair of high-grade shoes for man in just 34 min. But to assemble unaided the said materials, for even 1 pair, would require the lifetime of an ordinary individual as he would have to visit S. A., Africa, The East Indies, China, Greece, Scotland, New Zealand, Cuba, Portugal, Egypt, Sidom Pa., North Carolina, Michigan, Texas, Mass, Kansas, Ohio, N. Y., Conn., Kentucky, Tenn., and Miss. We find Calif., Yucatan, and Australia, were omitted but there are 23 different places without them.

Alice Tyson’s statistics with regard to the Moving Picture Business was another revelation. The vast number of people said to be in attendance, “all around the clock”, in some part of the world (civilized) is almost beyond computation, and the making of the films requires tens of thousands of actors. Calif. skies are especially favorable for out-door scenes and an enormous business is done in and near Pasadena. An enterprising Clergyman there has some improving show every Sunday eve. in his church. Perhaps the greatest indirect benefit of this popular amusement is that is has become a powerful rival of the saloon, in enabling the father of a family to treat them all for the price of a few drinks with his chums.

Mrs. Taylor said she had been interested in a memoir of the late Martha Ferris of Wil., referred to in previous minutes, and she related an incident connected with the fracture of her mother’s limb necessitating confinement to bed for more than three mos. Although Miss Ferris was some 80 yrs. of age at the time and had to walk 6 or 7 squares to Mrs. Taylor’s home, she went there every aft. for 14 wks. to take care of the sufferer for a couple of hours, sending the daughter

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to rest for the time being.

Estelle T. Moore gave a rhyming tribute to that many-sided man, “The Farmer”.

“He watered the horses and fed them hay And bedded them down in a careful way. Then fed the chickens and shut them up, And started away with the collie pup To bring the cows to the milking shed, And he milked them before the pigs he fed. He found one horse was cast in a stall, And he doctored another that had wind-gall. Then he mended the pump and went indoors But that was not work: it was only chores”.

Ellen Farquhar’s contribution was several clippings, the first being “A Call for Fanatics”, of whom the first and greatest was thought to be Jesus of Nazareth, and the second His Chief Apostle, Paul. Europe lay in the sleep of death until [?], Luther, Zwingli, and John Calvin came, all fanatics of the deepest dye, crazy to their contemporaries. The article, a strong presentation of facts, concluded with, - “Perhaps if some great fanatics should arise and attack our modern lust for pleasure, our sham religious life our ___ respectability, our sin underneath our fine clothes, there might be a real revival of religion which would not only save our souls, but purge our business, our social life, our politics, our international relations of the rottenness and corruption at their heart”.

A sharp criticism of the present fashions followed, containing a good deal of truth in its arrangement, - “In his heart of hearts every man knows how ugly is the ‘mode’ of to-day; and I believe most women know it also. Every artistic rule is contravened by the abominable confections that glare at one crudely from the windows of fashionable emporiums. Style, shape, decency, all are meaningless words in application to these dresses. Clothes, so far as woman is concerned, are calculated to constrict her limbs, impede her motion, conceal the beauties of her body, emphasize its defects and violate every right canon of decoration and proportion. They cut her figure at the wrong place, stuff her

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out where she has least need of bulging, skimp her where she is scantiest, and generally make a satanic endeavor to turn her into an expensive scare-crow. The fashion plates of to-day! Faugh!”

The Sec’y suggested that each member bring a photograph or picture of the “sensible modes of long ago” to the next meeting of our society.

Louisa T. Brooke wanted the children of this neighborhood and elsewhere, taught to swim, which was evidently the desire of all present. She also called attention to the great ravages of noxious insects in the destruction of plant life, from hot house plants to the largest forest trees, - none are exempt from some dangerous pest that flies or crawls. or hatches out upon them.

Harriet I Lea read an incident in the early married life of Henry Ward Beecher, who, too poor to purchase carpets for his little home, bought a bale of cotton which his thrifty wife had woven into a stout fabric which she nailed down in the attic and proceeded to paint garlands of roses upon until the effect was said to be “too pretty to walk on” by a visitor who was about to enter their parlor. HIL.’s 2nd selection was a couplet that the Sec’y once knew perfectly, but fears it is not now quoted exactly right, -

“A crowd of troubles passed him by While he with courage waited He said, ‘Where do you troubles fly When you are thus belated?’

We go in search of those who mourn And tread life’s paths dejected. Who rue the day that they were born, - We go where we’re expected.”

Eliz. T. Stabler gave a graphic sketch of her recent trip to Catalina Island. The wonderful Aquarium, Moonstone Beach where Abalone and other beautiful semi-jewels may be picked up at any time, the mountains all cacti in the southern slope, and good pasture on the northern, the wild goats fast becoming few in numbers, and the large fleet of boats, conveying tourists to view the submarine gardens, one