OH, Suzanna: Stuff Settlers Said "The Hearth of the Home"

(Yesterday, October 29^th 2012 Hurricane Sandy hit the Atlantic Coast of the U.S. As I pray for the safety and relief of the millions affected I am in awe of the haven we have here inland in Indiana. We are kind of the secret to the heartland of America. There are many things that Indiana has to offer that the first settlers also enjoyed. That enormous character of the settlers still lingers on here over 200 years later. Tenacity and the willingness to live a bit different than most will net you great rewards. The spirit that is woven into the people that live along the often times turbulent Atlantic Coast is the same spirit that drove them westward to explore and make new lives here in what was the “New West” of the early 1800’s. The American people have not lost what made us great, it just has to be brought to the fore.)

The following is a recreation of an earlier post lost:

Today as I sit in my warm 21^st Century kitchen with electricity to power the microwave to heat my now cold cup of coffee (brewed in an electric automatic drip coffee maker), keep my milk for the coffee cold in the electric fridge, power lights to see with on this cold dark autumn afternoon so that I can “talk a spell” with you on the internet on my lap top it only takes my beloved wood stove to turn my mind to things back the way they used to be. There is something about the heat from a wood stove. It REALLY penetrates every muscle and bone to warm the center of your being. Our wood stove happens to be in the kitchen. Now, folks seem to situate the heat stove or fireplace in the living room. I get a thorough sense for how important the hearth of the home becomes on a blustery cold day like today. It kind of makes me feel like Pooh Bear in his warm abode….

http://www.forthoodsentinel.com/story.php?id=8794

So much of everyday life centered on the home during settler times. Cooking and cleaning were enormously time consuming. Home keeping duties were fitted into the small slots between food prep and cleaning up. Naturally, a child’s first experiences in language and culture were at Mother’s apron strings in the kitchen.

Teaching a child to do his or her chores in “apple pie order” was very important. A crowded home and open flame in the hearth needed order and neatness. Apple pie order gave an example of how diligent and tidy your work was to be. When baking an apple pie the settler women would slice the apples in uniform sizes and shapes to ensure even baking and pleasing texture. The level of expertise in baking skills was easily displayed in the pinching of the crusts together. Even pretty little pinches literally stitched the two crusts together when they baked. Attention to detail to achieve a useful and pleasing product was the height of efficiency.

Another display of skill created the term “upper crust” to describe the best of something. Cooks would routinely use cheap rye flour for everyday bread items. Wheat flour was saved for special occasions or when they were trying to impress a visitor (a perspective husband perhaps?) The less expensive rye crust was used for the bottom, since the filling would mask the inferior quality of the rye, but the top, or upper wheat flour crust was meticulously sculpted into beautiful scenes or floral designs.

http://logcabincooking.com/tag/lattice-crust/

Speaking of visitors there is a well-used term today that is a holdover from that early time here in Indiana. So desolate and deserted were many of the heavily forested areas of the Indiana frontier that any one passing through would be almost a welcome visitor. Coming unannounced though would mean you were at the mercy of the pot for dinner. “Pot luck” was the term used for what dinner would be for these unannounced visitors. You were lucky if it were tasty and fresh. You were unlucky if it were a stew that had been stretched to the limits of the cook and the larder. East Central Indiana had many passing visitors through the progressing years. First were the ever pushing settlers, then the waterway travelers on the rivers and canals, then the road travelers on the paths and pikes and then the National Road travelers that so greatly increased prosperity to the enterprising farms along the way.  Today, pot luck is a dinner where all attendees bring a dish to share with the whole gathering. Luckily our only worry today is if everyone brings instant mashed potatoes!

http://www.eduborail.org/NPS-1/Image-1-NPS-1.aspx

As a middle aged mother of a young daughter, I sometimes feel like I have “gone to pot!” I sometimes feel used up and not up to the challenge as I was when younger. A lot of times we say we have gone to pot meaning we have gained weight and are not as active as we once were. The settlers used the term in candle making! Candles were made by dipping the wick quickly and repeatedly in the wax melted into a pot over the fire. When the candle pieces were too small to light anymore they were put into a melting pot for the next dipping session. “Gone to pot” meant that it had been used up and was not much use until it was melted again. I certainly can relate to that!

http://www.harfordhistory.net/encampfotos.htm

Children of quite young age were put to work around the homestead to help and to keep them busy and under an adult’s watchful eye. As we walk on this journey into past we will see that cooking, farming, husbandry, sewing/weaving, industry were all things that were not foreign to these children and usually they were well equipped to handle the demands of their world by the time they ventured out into it. The closeness of the family was nurtured by the necessity of the hearth to everyday life. Without any other interruptions the family focused more on each other and what made them distinctively a family than what we do today.

What does your family make the hearth of the home?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_the_Three_Bears

-Suzanna

Introduction to "OH, Suzanna"

The following was the introductory article in the series I have named "OH, Suzanna!" It was accidentally deleted, but recreated here. Please enjoy.

OH, SUZANNA!

HI! 

I like the title of this column because mostly, its how my mother has referred to me for almost all of my life. "Oh, Suzanna, how could you? Oh, Suzanna do you ever stop for one minute?  Oh, Suzanna I just don't know what to do with you! Oh, Suzanna do you ever just shut your mouth?" There is also the added spice of the taunts that my brothers and every other smart alec in my life tried: singing the old folk song to me. "Oh Suzanna, don't you cry for me!" To which I would quickly interrupt with the retort: "OH! Don't worry, I WON'T!" At any rate, it so completely describes the state of being me that it just seems natural to name my column "Oh, Suzanna!"

Ok, let me get down to brass tacks. 

Wait a minute.....

What does that really mean anyway? Getting down to brass tacks. Does anyone even have any brass tacks lying around anymore? If you do you had better go pick them up, you could hurt yourself. I think my grandmother's plastic covered sofas from the 1960's had brass tacks, I can't be sure though because of the memory of the textured plastic covers still gives me PTSD. Sigh.....

OH, Suzanna you did it AGAIN! Off the track and derailed that thought.

Anyway, what I was trying to get to before I so rudely interrupted myself was: Where did all these funny little expression come from that we use? As a part of my quest to bring the Whitewater Valley culture to the masses I guess I have to introduce the idea of settler culture. So to begin with I will connect the present to the past with some expressions we use today that the settlers either created or used in their day and where the expression supposedly originated. I will call this article “Stuff Settlers Said.”

Enjoy!

-Suzanna Johnson

SAVE SAVE SAVE the Essentials

Here is a picture of the site of my childhood learning, Orange School in Fayette County School District, Fayette County, Indiana. Orange school is one of two schools that were closed just over a year ago in the district. It was home to many students that to this day hold its memory dear in their hearts. It was one of the last quiet country schools of our time. Go Tigers!

http://fayette.k12.in.us/orange/

Learning From Your Own History

Since I am always on the subject of history I want to teach you all a lesson on not repeating previous mistakes.  I am an expert on this – repeating previous mistakes. All you have to do is NOT do what I do!

I posted an excellent piece on this blog October 20^th. Or, I THOUGHT I had. It was patiently waiting in my drafts till I clicked the radio button clearly marked POST. Later, I went into my posts history to clear up some empty drafts that were cluttering up the place. I just THOUGHT they were empty drafts. One was the introductory piece and the other was my favorite on Mills. My internet connection had slowed and I therefore thought I was looking at two empty pages of draft entries, now I know that was not the case.

After I caught my mistake I thought “No worries I ALWAYS save a copy of all my writings.” (I mean I have a handwritten copy of my very first term paper I wrote tucked away in a box in a shelf ….you get the picture.)

I checked all my document entries, I checked all my removable storage devices, I even checked my college ruled notebook on the computer desk, then all the notebooks in the house, my research files, my briefcase, etc. Somehow, I have come to the conclusion that I have multiple personalities – because there is NO WAY in a thousand suns I – Suzanna – would EVER toss something out – ask my family!

I know you are thinking “OK, you are a nut job, but how does this fit into the category of not repeating mistakes?”

Let me tell you:

In 1983 I first laid my hands on a personal computer in a small computers class in 9^th grade. Our instructor dutifully taught us the most important thing in virtual reality: ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS save save save! Literally! Back then the rule of thumb was to save 3 times in a row. To this day when I compose a document I STILL hit save save save. It makes me feel better, clever, and that I have done the needed thing. So how can a dedicated anal retentive, obsessive compulsive filer and accountant totally mess this up?

I went back to that very first term paper and saw the beginnings of a pattern. In big red letters on the back page reserved for the teacher’s comments was this: 

Miss Johnson, by the fourth grade there are certain things that should just be a rule of thumb – this paper lacks several of these. Specifically: your name, the date, MY NAME, MY CLASS, and the last page of your bibliography (I saw your entire bibliography during the rough draft stage so I know you did it.) OBVIOUSLY you still need to learn to pay attention to pesky details known as the ESSENTIALS if you are ever to expect to pass this class and excel in life. This is why you are getting a C+ instead of the A- that the body of work deserves. –Mr. C

I started from that point obsessively reviewing my work. Correcting and checking, double checking and correcting the corrections. I changed my habits and patterns to reflect a more methodical worker – steady and slow wins the race, right? Fast forward to 2012. I am now middle aged and the mother of two. Somewhere along the way I figured out that real life and writing term papers for teachers are just not the same. Now, everyone having clean underwear, food, a roof over their head, homework done on time, bedtime over with and somewhere in all that fitting in hugs and kisses are the most important things of my day.

So – I have learned to think for myself and decide what are the ESSENTIALS of my life. NOT being perfect is the number one essential. I save save save the memories attached to what I value most – MY FAMILY. So somewhere in all my thousand things I try to do I tossed, deleted, did not move to removable storage, did not save save save and just went on to the next important thing….

All this is to say that I will be catching up on those missed posts and this week’s current one also.

What can you learn from your own history this week?

-Suzanna

OH, Suzanna! Stuff Settlers Said: From the Farm

This time we look to the farm for figures of speech the settlers would have used.  Quite honestly, most of the old sayings come from the farm, or are agrarian in origin. The industrial revolution – moving our culture from the farm to the factory- really did not pick up pace in the U.S until the 1840’s. That is not that long ago when you think in terms of shifting a whole world culture and economy that had been predominant throughout history.

http://goldenagepaintings.blogspot.com/2010/10/edgar-hunt-cockerel-hens-and-chicks.html

Chicken and sheep were the most common livestock on any farm. Their relative small size, food and shelter needs made them ideal to the needs of the farm and those that lived on it. So much so that a woman coming into a marriage with chickens in particular, and other various livestock, was regarded as being well prepared to undertake her duties on the farm and a great asset to her husband.

We have all heard about grandma and grandpa fussing about their “nest egg” for retirement. We understand that means their savings, but how did that come about? Since chickens were so essential, farmers took great pains to ensure that they produced the most eggs. The practice of placing wooden whitewash painted eggs in the nest to encourage a stubborn layer became more and more common. When the nest eggs, as these were called, were not needed they were saved away for later use when they would be needed.

“Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched!” Of course this means do not rely upon a thing or situation until it is before you doing what it is supposed to. If you have any experience raising chickens you will know that not all eggs hatch into a viable chick. If we counted every egg that was laid as a good egg, we would be relying on something not possible all the time. This also brings up the saying “He’s a good egg!” Saying someone is a good egg is saying that they are of worth and going to produce good things. Someone who is said to be a bad egg is someone who is looked at as worthless or bad, rotten to the core.

The next one is a bit gruesome. Have you ever said you were running around “like a chicken with its head cut off”? Again, if you have raised chickens you know the most common way to slaughter the chicken for meat is to cut its head off. For a short time after the chicken’s nervous system still works and controls its movements. The result is what looks like the chicken trying to run away- there is no planned route and it is wild and fast. So when we get keyed up trying to do many things at once and kind of lose our plan we look like that chicken with its head cut off running around the barn yard in no particular direction.

Remember the last time you got caught in a cold draft or a cool chilly breeze? Probably you got “goose bumps”. It is a nervous response to warm and protect our skin. When geese or chickens are plucked after slaughter their skin swells where the feathers were pulled out from the follicle. Sometimes this is also called goose pimples.

http://www.buchanancountyhistory.com/oneroomschool.php

My maternal grandmother was a retired teacher by the time I was born, but that did not stop her inclination to teach at all. Now she had grandchildren to direct and shape! She started teaching when the one room school house was still the norm. She had seen so much and was so wise! This next saying was one thing that I could never get a definite response from her on. Did she want me to dig deeper, or did she just not know?!

“You are the apple of my eye!” In Old English, the word aeppel means eye as well as the fruit apple. Many people thought the pupil of the eye looked like an apple. So they called the pupil the apple of the eye. The pupil is the most important factor of lighting the inside of the eye and allowing vision. This is the most prominent feature of the eye at times, and an apple is a very important fruit to the farm. It just follows that when you want someone to know they are important and special to you that you consider them to be the apple of your eye. Now…what I asked Grandma was this: Why do a teacher’s pupils bring her apples? Was this a custom of payment for the teacher? After all, the first teachers in the United States were contracted by individuals to teach their children. A small group of people would provide for his or her payment, lodging and food. Or was this in order to gain special favor of the teacher, and become “the apple of her eye”? (That is how we depict this action these days!) I think Grandma thought I was being cheeky and just did not bother to answer this one. I will have to investigate this further.

This past summer was a rough one. The heat and lack of rain made every day seem like “the dog days” of summer. Where did this saying come from? I had been told many things growing up. “Oh this is when it is so hot you just lay around like a lazy ole dog.” was the usual reply! Well, that is certainly true, but actually it goes very far back. The ancient Egyptians noticed that the Nile would flood the morning that Sirius would rise in the East right before dawn. The Greeks called it Dog Days but the Romans named it the Dog Star or the Greater Star-Sirius. They also thought the God Sirius was enraged and so caused the humid and maddening weather. All through time cultures have seen this as a time during summer that humans and animals became enraged and crazed most easily. (Could this be where we get the term “crazy hot”?) Seeing as how all down through history cultures have reacted to this forecasting star in such ways, it is understandable how we still react with dread at the mention of the term “The Dog Days of Summer”

. http://earthsky.org/brightest-stars/sirius-the-brightest-star

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_days

http://www.likeacat.com/Dog-Symbolism_ep_71-1.html

When I was younger I heard this next one a lot from older men my father spoke with at the old country store beside the Whitewater River in Nulltown, Indiana. “Well, did you hear ole John bought the farm? Yep, last night at milking time. Just fell over right behind Blue Bell.” For those of you who do not understand he meant to say: “Our friend John just passed away yesterday while milking his cows.”  You may ask why he had to be so crude and put it that way. “Bought the Farm” Well, in his day and before it was more of a term of endearment, acknowledging that he finally was in his dream place. Long ago this was a way of saying a soldier had died in battle. Many soldiers had expressed the wish to just be done with the work at hand so they could go back home, buy a farm, and get on with living the good life. When a soldier died or “bought the farm”, he had found peace from war and peace from life in general. Now, it is not a very polite way of saying someone has passed away.

{When I was in junior high school and was assigned to read “Across Five Aprils” we were taught some common sayings of the time and especially pertaining to war and the Civil War. My teacher brought up the term “bought the farm” and I was assigned to find out where that came from. Yes, blame this whole Stuff Settlers Said thing on dear old Mr. Hopkins over 30 years ago! Well in my vast knowledge that a seventh grader had….I asked my retired school teacher grandma. Well, she did not just hand out information- you had to work HARD for it! She also made me research terms pertaining to buying a farm. This led me to mortgage. What I found made grandma proud, Mr. Hopkins glad that I was learning to self-teach, and made the class think I was just BUTTERING UP the teach…. We get the term mortgage from the old French: mort ~ dead, gage ~ to pledge. Sir Edward Coke said that if the mortgagor dies before paying in full the property "is taken from him for ever, and so dead to him upon condition, &c. And if he doth pay the money, then the pledge is dead as to the [mortgagee]." 

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/mortgage

This means that if he dies before it is paid in full – there will be nothing for an inheritance from the property; it will go to the mortgagee. I knew instantly that the soldier would worry his whole life through till that mortgage was paid off. I did not realize that most were able to save money and purchase the property outright and in some cases a payment of military service was in the form of land. There were also homesteading land grants also. A mortgage was obtained usually only in cases of extreme economic hardship. Now, we have insurances that will ensure if you pass away before paying in full, it will pay the mortgage and the inheritance will be ensured also.}

http://www.thereadingnook.com/civil_war/

Now do you understanding why my mother is always saying “OH, Suzanna!?”

http://www.hopesteadhillfarm.com/ewes-views/

The next two sayings come from raising sheep. This should be simple enough.

Have you ever heard of the family where it seems everyone are doctors, lawyers, professors, politicians, etc. and then over here on the side is one sibling who is perfectly content to live drawing pictures of Batman and skateboarding all over the place? Yeah, well, that’s the “black sheep” of the family. The black sheep is the one who stands out, different than the rest. Most sheep on a farm were white, but occasionally there was a black sheep born in the flock. That was natural. It was not a bad thing just that it was different than the rest. I happen to like the black sheep better than the rest, they are interesting.

See? You thought I was going to get down to the business of settler sayings and then “in two shakes of a lamb’s tail” I got all weird again didn't I?  (See lambs shake their tails really really fast, so “in two shakes of a lamb’s tail” would be VERY fast…..yeah)

Most Americans love their “spuds”, or potatoes. French fries, hash browns, tater tots, baked, fried, boiled, roasted, mashed, and smashed, whatever! Just give us some! Now where on EARTH did this one come from? Blame the English again, the MIDDLE English speaking English…. There was a very common digging hand tool called a spudde. Among northern cultures tubers, mostly potatoes of all kinds are the food staple that kept starvation’s knock away from the door. The spudde was the tool of choice and so potatoes picked up the name. There are those that say the name came from an energetic group of Victorian progressives calling themselves: the Society for the Prevention of Unwholesome Diets, or S.P.U.D. There have been over the eras groups that have absurdly singled out a certain food that is named as the downfall of a culture. The Italians had macaroni: said it was the reason peasants were lazy, poor, and would not work. So macaroni was outlawed. Seriously. Dietitians concede now using the glycemic index foods like pasta and potatoes have a greater tendency to mess with the blood sugar metabolism….but the cause of peasants littering the bourgeoisie’s paths? I really do not think so…..

http://trialx.org/2012/08/14/a-simple-recipe-for-cooking-buttered-new-potatoes/

“Ah, don’t worry about him, he’s just small potatoes!” Small potatoes…here in Indiana we just love them. They are more delicate in flavor and take like a minute to cook up. We call them new potatoes and they line the shelves at the grocery store! In older times, however, they were regarded as not valuable to the human diet and were fed to the livestock for filler. (We like OUR filler!) So small potatoes became to mean something not worth the time to mess with.

My mother was saying just the other day: Oh, Suzanna! “I am stumped!” Why they have not just locked you up by now is beyond me. I know you drive ME crazy!

If you can’t tell from Mother’s comment “to be stumped” means to be confused or baffled, something that defies all rationality. Kind of like trying to pull a stump from the ground and no matter what you try it just does not budge. Some settlers even tried to blast them with gun powder to blow them apart. Only half the time did this work enough to remove the stump. Here in Indiana clearing stumps was a most serious hurdle to the growth of the state. In most accounts from the time a traveler could go through most of the state and never see the light of day because the forest was so thick. Because my family owned a farm, harvested trees for wood, and I witnessed the removal of stumps I know what a feat this must have been for men (and yes, women) who only had the help of their own hands, the ox or draft horse, a few hand tools, and maybe some gunpowder. I marvel when I look at the traces, pikes, roads, canal ways, and rail ways that came into being during the early days of Indiana’s growth. Even now great monsters of modern machinery are needed to construct a road, bridge or shore up river banks and road sides. What determination was needed to persevere in the wilderness that was Indiana? 

In the video below you can see that even blasting a stump does not ensure total success:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwuz52FgSwI&feature=related

http://www.flickr.com/photos/uscapitol/6472845455/


I have a great fondness for things of the farm. I suppose growing up on one has done that to me. Although, the rhythms and cycles of the work and life has always made sense to me, it seems that I have spent a great deal of my life trying to make a go of it in a more urban setting. It is easy when you look at how life progresses to see how we move away from what was once familiar. I guess that is the way it is with society in general. When we begin to look at the language of the time period we get a small window into the daily life of settlers. My, how things have changed - some very much for the better, while other things are questionable in their progression.
Until next time ~ Suzanna

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfv9FDnMcaI&feature=related

Riddley Riddley Ree I see something you don't see!

....And the color of it is exciting! This blog has been viewed 2 times by people in Germany and 1 time by someone in Turkey. I am almost certain it was by mistake, unless it was former classmates in the military. Anyway, this is the coolest thing since I got my first pen pal letter in the mail from across the world about 30 years ago! They accidentally know I exist now! WOW!

OH, Suzanna! Stuff Settlers Said

Getting down to brass tacks....

As with most things, settlers had to make their own clothes. Most of this was from wool or linen. Wool came from the sheep, and linen came from flax that was grown. There was a popular homespun also known as linsey woolsey- obviously a mixture of the two fibers. Sometimes they were fortunate to be near enough to a merchant to purchase the very coveted COTTON cloth! This purchase was huge because of the often times lack of cash or coin in the "wilderness" of the times - that could be the dark deep woods of southern and eastern Indiana, the vast prairie lands north, or the muck of the south western swampy Ohio river area.

Spinning wool into thread was one of the first steps of making wool cloth. A spinster was the one who operated the spinning wheel and kept the family in thread for all uses. Most often the spinster was an older daughter or an unmarried female in the family. This work also was ideal to allowing for child care. So usually a teen aged daughter would be called upon to watch the younger children churn the butter in the churn as she spun wool into thread, and the youngest would play at her feet. When all the daughters were either too young for this duty or had grown, gotten married and left the family nest to make their own, this duty fell upon the ever present unmarried female relative that families supported. Before public aid this was one of the only ways, in addition to school teaching, that an unmarried woman was allowed to be acceptably employed, or of use to society. So, naturally over time a grown woman who was still in the position of spinster in a family quickly became pitied as an unmarriable woman with no hope of ever acquiring the status of "the woman of the house". As the ever broadening push west continued, and the aftermath of the Civil War left many widows and young women with no hope of a husband to provide for them and the family, spinning became a marketable skill in the communities that grew. But even now, hundreds of years later the image that comes to mind when "spinster" is mentioned is the lone woman, unwanted in marriage. (How far HAVE we come along baby?)

http://toto.lib.unca.edu/web_exhibits/museum_studies/anderson/anderson_cori_essay_files/image004.jpg

The next step in cloth making was the weaving together of threads. Weaving is merely the meshing of those threads in different directions to make cloth. The crosswise threads are weft, while the lengthwise threads are the warp. A tool called the "shuttle" carries the thread back and forth along the weft to cross the warp. The accomplished weaver will literally throw the shuttle back and forth from one hand to the other to speed the process along. This fast movement of thread back and forth became known as shuttling. It was not long before the term was applied to people movers of all types. Some examples include: shuttle service, shuttle train, shuttle bus, and even the space shuttle fits this category!

Linsey woolsey being woven with shuttles
http://fiberjoy.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/blues-3-shuttles.jpg

Anyone that has attended a live comedy performance has probably heard a "heckler" in action. This is where an audience member will give the comedian or performer a hard time about their performance as it is going on. Today this is considered rude and a disturbance. Back in the days of Vaudeville this was viewed as an added component that would fine tune and clear out the snags in a performer's routine. It was certainly not a welcome experience for the performer! Well, where did the term heckler come from? It's from the device used in making linen. Flax is the fiber grown to make linen. Linen is not as widely used today, but up until about the WWII era linen was one of the more choice fabrics for summer wear, clothing for baby, or for use in such things as bandages and cheese cloth. A heckle is a board with nails sticking up so that the flax could be pulled through the nails and thus clearing out the broken pieces and tangles. To heckle means to tease. Teasing out the fibers in flax quickly became teasing out the snags in a comedic or theatrical performance.

http://www.maritimeheritageeast.org.uk/archive/heckle-or-hatchel-ref-200343/image/maxi

We all know someone who is very opinionated and obstinate in holding onto those opinions. A person whose opinions are said to be "dyed in the wool" is being called stubborn. The only hope of them changing is with the wear that time brings in life. Sometimes cloth is dyed after it is woven, but color being dyed in the wool will last much much longer. Usually wool would be boiled in a pot that held a solution of liquid that would steep the color into the very fibers. Berries, roots, bark, blossoms, leaves, tea, and coffee grounds all were used to dye color into wool. Since this time of year is just about election time a good example would be a saying such as: "Old Sam is a dyed in the wool conservative." This person is saying that Sam has had conservative ideas so long it seems he was made that way down to his very fibers! Now that is a strong stand!

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj31wx6M7skHlVMyNl4WzDvseMJwU-s3Yag7XcAGaCgx-2QdX241WToSyLXK7BUH9qvYZMqCkmjFLD_JNO_IgARqHnDpwMk_TYnN-K5VUpiB4LGtQmy6PAgegdPFigFLZtWbLQE-mfwA4ap/s400/Dying+the+wool.jpg

The last saying today involves the general store and cotton fabric. With the advent of the cotton gin and the other industrial age machines coming into farming and manufacturing processes early into the 1800's many newer items were available to those that had the means to purchase them. The most notable for our purposes would be cotton fabric. Cotton manufactured was a much finer grade than rough spun wool, linen or linsey woolsey. As now, every advance in technology made it better and less expensive. The difference for the general store merchant or trading post dealer and the technology giant Apple of today is that most of the consumers did not have much cash real (or electronic!) back in those days. Bartering was a real and viable way of doing day to day business. This made each transaction a bit confusing and complicated. Each person in the deal had to feel that their goods were being measured appropriately against the other's goods. Remember: it was only after the late 1800's that standardized measurements were in wide use throughout the United States. The merchant would hammer into the counter top brass tacks in order to establish a standard for the transactions across his counter top. Brass tacks were very durable and so would hold up to the abuse of everyday trade. No matter if you were purchasing wire, hemp rope, chain, or cotton cloth you knew you were getting the full measure in length. So, with the haggling over prices in the bartering process through it was time to "get down to brass tacks" or get to the business at hand - measure the length of good to be purchased. So when your teacher or your boss ever says "Let's just get down to brass tacks!" they mean to say: "Let's just stop discussing this and get on with the work!"

Now, it's time for me to get on with the work outside rescuing my precious stash of walnuts from the crazed squirrels!

OH, SUZANNA!
To get us started on "Stuff Settlers Say" I thought I would take us to the kitchen first. As I have been putting my garden to rest for the winter ahead I have had the pleasure of experiencing some things that brought these kitchen expressions to mind.
One of the most familiar of sayings from this little collection is "cut and dried." Now you have to understand that in settler days if you wanted herbs or seasonings you most likely had to come up with them on your own. Meaning: growing, drying and preserving them in your modest kitchen. Cutting and drying your herbs was the best way to preserve the flavor of the plants. Also, it was a process that was likely the least demanding of chores. I mean really, harvesting, tying up the plants and hanging them to dry was a simple procedure in a life infused with difficult tasks. So naturally if we say "That business deal is cut and dried", we mean that it is a done deal, accepted and cannot be changed. Saying "Grandpa's opinions on the candidates for the election are cut and dried" is meaning to say that his opinions are pretty simple and firmly formed, and it would be mighty hard to get Grandpa to change his mind.

Pictured above starting clockwise from the upper left hand corner are: cayenne peppers, dried and crushed; dried celery; dried oyster mushrooms; dehydrated green beans; and in the center dried northern beans. 

Drying produce and herbs is still practiced here in the Whitewater Valley 200 years after some of the first settlers arrived and established a trading post in Connersville, Indiana. Many of the dried goods that were for trade it is most certain were provided by business deals with area Native Americans.
Knowing where your language comes from helps to create a bond with practices shared by different cultures and people of different eras.
Now, think of how this term "cut and dried" enters your conversation in your daily life.

-Suzanna