Hilarious Housekeeping Hints from the 1800's By: Julie lence

Amazon.com

In most homes, women tackle the cleaning and the laundry. We have our favorite mops and soaps, and  somewhere between the scrubbing and folding, we long for a self-cleaning house. But compared to the housekeeping grind of the 1800’s, today’s philosophy and methods are simpler. Take a gander at some of the humorous logic from back then, courtesy of  …And You Think You’ve Got It Bad. I’d wager you wouldn’t wish for a self-cleaning house again, but I’d be lying.

Cleaning Tips:

While painting, keep the room well ventilated and eat acid fruits. Any woman with a mechanical turn of mind can paint.

To rid your home of moths, take common lamp-oil and wash the floor all over. It smells “loud” but will be gone in about two days. So will the moths.

Bellows, courtesy of objectlessons.org

To clean a papered wall, cut a large loaf of two-day old bread into eight pieces. Blow dust off wall with a bellows, rub a piece of bread down the wall in half yard strokes. Begin at the top of the room until upper part is cleaned then go around room repeating process until all has been gone over.

Laundry Tips:

According to …And You Think You’ve Got It Bad, wash day is Monday, and should be completed by 10 a.m. One should prepare the wash water Saturday night. Soft water works best, but if you don’t have soft water you can soften a barrel of well water by pouring a half-peck of boiled hard-wood ashes (and the water used to boil the ashes) into the barrel water. You’ll know enough has been added to produce the desired effect when the water takes on a curdled appearance and soon settles to perfectly clear. If milky in appearance, add more ashes and lye, but not too much as it will affect your hands in an unpleasant manner.

To stiffen linen cuffs and collars, add a small piece of white wax and one teaspoon of brandy to a pint of fine starch.

Victorian Vanity Set courtesy of Pinteret 

Clean a silk dress by first brushing with a velvet brush. Grate 2 potatoes into 1 quart of water. Let stand to settle, then strain it off quite clear. Sponge dress with potato water. (The velvet brush is the long brush at the top of the photo)

After reading these hints, I think I’ll stick to my All laundry soap and Snuggles fabric softener and hire a painter when needed.   

...And You Think You've Got It Bad by Barbara Fairchild Gramm can be purchased at Amazon.com  

Original Cover

Outlaw Bill Tibbetts

Bill in his 20's courtesy of Canyon County Zephyr 

Outlaw Trail wasn’t exactly a trail, but a string of hideouts stretching from Montana through Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas and into Mexico. Robber’s Roost is probably the most well-known of the hideouts, and less famous outlaw Bill Tibbetts knew that part of Utah well.  

James William (Bill) Tibbets was born on March 23, 1898 on the south side of the Utah’s La Sal Mountains. His parents, Bill and Amy, were ranchers, and as luck would have it, Amy went into early labor while Bill was out on the range. Amy’s brother, Ephraim, rode to a neighboring ranch to fetch a female cook to help with the birth, but the woman was gone and wouldn’t return for a few days, thus Ephraim delivered his nephew. 

La Sal Mtns Wikipedia 

Bill Sr. filed for the homestead where Bill Jr. was born in the 1880’s. He picked a prime piece of land and hired Amy Moore from Moab to cook for him. She was 20 years his senior, something that wasn’t uncommon in those day. They fell in love, married and started a family. Bill Sr. was known to help his neighbors, including a woman whose husband repeatedly beat her, but the last time Bill intervened, the woman’s husband killed Bill that night. Amy wanted to keep the ranch, but with two small sons and debts she didn’t know Bill had, she was forced to sell and move back to her family home in Moab, where she remarried. Bill Jr. grew up missing his father and hating his stepfather, who was strict and didn’t’ hesitate to whup Bill for his disobedience.  

During his younger years, Bill earned a reputation of the toughest kid in school. Fighting and intimidation became the norm for him, as well as working his grandparents’ farm. There he became an accomplished horseman and hired on with Moab based Murphy Cattle Company at a young age. Through working on the range for the cattle company, Bill learned how to dig out water holes in the desert and how to make small earth dams to catch runoff water for the cows, the layout of the land and how to live off of it, all of which proved beneficial in his late teens when he and some friends decided to round up horses left behind in the Robbers Roost area. Rumors abounded the outlaws were gone and the teens made money selling the mounts to settlements in Iron County. Later, he enlisted in the Army, returned after the war and partnered with his mother and uncle in the cow business.

Bill tried to run his cattle in the canyon lands. They were open lands for anyone to use, but bigger outfits running their own herds on the open land didn’t welcome Bill, or any other newcomers. Bill spent many years waging war with these outfits and running from the law when framed for crimes and atrocities he didn’t commit. Sometimes, he was successful and out maneuvered the bigger outfits. Other times he lost, and through it all he earned himself a notorious reputation.

Utah's Canyonlands 

Later in life, the law finally caught up to him and he was thrown in the Moab jail alongside his friend Tom on a series of charges, some legit and some not. The two had their say in court and lost, and were sent back to jail where they escaped into the canyon lands of the Colorado River from the help of friends and Bill’s brother. With supplies left at various locations, they drifted along the Colorado to the Green River, but the sheriff and small posse caught up to them. They were able to take cover in Standing Rock Canyon and held off the sheriff in a round of gun fire. Under the cover of darkness, they stole the posse’s supplies and the next day Bill convinced the lawmen that the heat and mosquitos wasn’t worth them staying and trying to arrest him and Tom. For whatever reason, they agreed and left.      

Tibbett's Arch courtesy of Canyon County Zephyr 

Bill and Tom enjoyed a few days as free men before the posse returned. Low on supplies and food, forced to eat grasshoppers, Bill and Tom were able to lead the posse on a merry chase through desert and canyon land, with Bill knowing every crook and crevice. They made it to Elaterite Basin and found the supplies uncle Ephraim was known to keep hidden. Since the lawmen didn’t know this particular area of Robbers Roost, Bill and Tom were able to escape to a cave, where they spent the winter. (It’s this cave that hikers accidentally happened upon years later and found Tibbett’s carved name.)

Bill & Jewel courtesy of Canyon County Zephyr

Bill eventually left Utah and married Jewel Agens. They moved to Santa Fe, along with Tom, and both mend found work with the New Mexico State Police breaking horses. No one with the police department suspected they were fugitives. Eventually the Statue of Limitations attached to their names expired, and Bill and Jewel moved back to Moab with their sons. Tom opted to stay in New Mexico. So much in love, Bill and Jewel bought the Horsethief Ranch in 1959, which was special to Bill because he and a friend had been the first to discover a spring on the property back in 1924. Sadly, Bill and Jewel were killed by a drunk driver south of Moab in 1969.

I’ve only scratched the surface of Bill Tibbett’s life and the canyonlands of Moab and Robbers Roost. To learn more, read Last Of The Robbers Roost Outlaws by Tom McCourt. Bill’s was a fascinating life and something everyone who adores the old west should know.

Mr. McCourt’s book is available at Amazon.

www.amazon.com/dp/0937407151

Bill's name in the cave courtesy of C.C. Zephyr

Guest Author Nina Romano

Good Morning! Please welcome guest author, Nina Romano!

The Girl Who Loved Cayo Bradley by Nina Romano

When Darby McPhee falls in love with Cayo Bradley, a wild cowboy from a nearby ranch, her world is ripped apart. Caught in a lifeless existence of caring for her father and brothers since her mother’s death, Darby does little else but work. But a death-bed promise to her mother to get her education now stands in the way of her heart’s desire to belong to the rough-and-tumble Cayo Bradley.

Darby is Cayo’s redemption from a horrific act in his past that torments him. After being captured as a young boy by the Jicarilla Apache, he now tries to settle back into white society—but how can he? If he loses Darby, he loses everything.

Darby is determined to keep her promise to her mother, but will Cayo wait for her? In this stunning tale of love and loss, Darby comes to understand that no matter what happens, she will always be THE GIRL WHO LOVED CAYO BRADLEY…

Here's a little excerpt:

He knew people saw him as part Apache. Others claimed he was left for dead by bandoleros, and because of his aloof and stealth disposition, and the fact that he was shy and nonconfrontational like the animal, people believed that’s how he came to be named Coyote. Somewhere along the way, Coyote’s nickname became Cayo. He didn’t care what people called him as long as they did, and for sure he knew his name didn’t matter because he’d never fit in anywhere. Once you’ve lived wild and free, it’s near impossible to return wholly capable of fitting into refined society. He knew others like himself, children who had been taken and lived with Kiowa or other tribes, and what he saw in them he knew was the same for him. They were the same outcast breed he was, not a trace of Indian blood, but Indian in the way they thought. He’d never completely forgotten his own language, English, so when he finally decided to go back to living the white folks’ way, he listened to speech, carefully repeated words, and held himself close, like a gambler in a poker game, keeping his cards to his chest. He shouldered these thoughts about himself and that other life he lived before as a yoke on an ox. It weighed on him, but he could do nothing to shirk it.

Nobody in town knew him by any other name. Whatever his component parts were, it

was for certain he was known as a man quick with a Bowie knife, swifter with a whip. That was because nobody had ever seen him shoot a deadly arrow. He wore chaps every day but Saturday when he drove the buckboard. Cayo carried two Colt pistols in his holsters and never rode his horse without a Winchester 30/30 rifle strapped to his saddle. He was a man people respected, a man who kept his mouth shut and eyes peeled, even the eyes they said he had in the back of his head.

A bit about the author in bio form:

Nina Romano earned a B.S. from Ithaca College, an M.A. from Adelphi University and a B.A. and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from FIU. She’s a world traveler and lover of history. She lived in Rome, Italy, for twenty years, and is fluent in Italian and Spanish. She has authored a short story collection, The Other Side of the Gates, and has had five poetry collections and two poetry chapbooks published traditionally by small independents. 

Nina Romano’s historical Wayfarer Trilogy has been published from Turner Publishing. The Secret Language of Women, Book #1, was a Foreword Reviews Book Award Finalist and Gold Medal winner of the Independent Publisher’s 2016 IPPY Book Award. Lemon Blossoms, Book # 2, was a Foreword Reviews Book Award Finalist, and In America, Book #3, was a finalist in Chanticleer Media’s Chatelaine Book Awards. Her latest novel, The Girl Who Loved Cayo Bradley, a Western Historical Romance, has been recently released from Prairie Rose Publications. You can find her on Goodreads, Twitter @ninsthewriter and Facebook.

A note from Nina: I’m most blessed and grateful to have had two wonderful authors that I admire blurb this book. 

Blurbs:

Romano’s story sizzles with the tension of lovers—one struggling to blend Apache ways and white, the other torn between East and West—searching for a way to join two lives going in opposite directions.

— Ruth Hull Chatlien, Blood Moon, Winner of a Reader's Favorite 2018 Gold Medal for Western Fiction and Winner of the 2018 Laramie Award.

 The Girl Who Loved Cayo Bradley, a superbly crafted romantic page-turner, is a deftly spun tale of ill-starred sweethearts in the American West. Darby, a charming farm girl, and Cayo, Apache raised, a secretive man with a disturbing past. Sparks ignite, burning intensely despite cruel circumstances to separate them—an expertly woven story with witty dialogue, fast-paced plot, and stunning, enchanting prose! 

— Michelle Cox, award-winning author of the Henrietta and Inspector Howard series.

Amazon Link: https://amzn.to/2J9NQ6L