Friendly Visiting among the Poor: A Handbook for Charity Workers

by Mary Ellen Richmond

CHAPTER IV

THE HOMEMAKER

The wife brings us to another aspect of the home, though it cannot be too often repeated that all aspects are so inextricably interwoven that they must be considered together. When the wife takes the means provided, the raw material from which a home is to be made, she engages in a very complicated form of manufacture, including in its processes the buying, preparation, and serving of food, the care of the household possessions, the buying, making, and care of clothing, the training of children, and many minor departments. These are only processes, however, and, unless the maker have an ideal picture in her mind of what a home should be, neither some nor all of these processes will make a home.

In dealing with the homemaker, the friendly visitor becomes more directly a teacher, though {65} it is often necessary that she should first be a learner. The agent of a New York charity tells of a friendly visitor who was consulted by the agent about a family applying for relief. They were found to have an income of $20.00 a week. "Well," said the visitor, "that is very little money on which to raise a family." The agent felt that this visitor had not only a great deal to learn, but a great deal to unlearn.

Not every visitor is skilled in buying and preparing food, or in arranging a household budget, and the visitor that is skilful in doing this on one scale of expenditure may be quite ignorant and helpless in dealing with another and much smaller scale. One who is really in earnest, however, in the desire to help another, will never give up because there are difficulties to overcome. The visitor may not know, but as compared with the homemaker in a poor family, has far more time and a greater facility, perhaps, in learning. The visitor's best teachers are friends that have had experience, and the poor themselves. One can learn a great deal from the more frugal and industrious of the very poor, and these are proud to explain {66} their small economies, when our reasons for wishing to learn are made clear to them.

Lacking these teachers, there are books, though books have the disadvantage of never meeting the needs of any one locality. Variations of climate, custom, and the local markets make specific suggestions about buying difficult. For this reason I shall not attempt to go into detail, but suggest that, as our relations with our poor friends should be as natural as possible, when we do not know anything, it is always best to frankly say so, and then think out with them some way of learning. For instance, it would be natural enough for a visitor to say to the homemaker: "We both feel that there is a lot to learn about the best way of buying and preparing food. I have an acquaintance that has made a study of the subject, and, with your permission, I am going to bring her here, to give us both some suggestions."

Scientific dietaries have been prepared with a view to teaching the poor to use nutritious and economical foods. Professor J. J. Atwater, Edward Atkinson, Mrs. Juliet Corson, and Mrs. Mary Hinman Abel are authorities on this {67} subject. The Bureau of Associated Charities, Orange, N. J., publishes a leaflet on foods, prepared by Mrs. S. E. Tenney of Brooklyn. Taking Orange prices, a dietary is given for a family of six (man, wife, and four children), at a cost of $3.31 per week. In urging changes in diet upon poor families, it is first necessary to become well acquainted with the families, and, even then, to introduce any innovations slowly, one thing at a time. A friendly visitor in Baltimore has tried the plan of meeting her friends in market, and pointing out to them the best cuts of meat, the best place to buy vegetables, etc. But her greatest success in introducing new dishes has been through the children. She has been wise enough to secure the coöperation of her cook, and, by inviting the children into her own kitchen on Saturday mornings, has taught them the best way to prepare simple dishes. She finds that scientific dietaries too often ignore the tastes and prejudices of the poor. It is best to begin by teaching them to prepare well the things that they like. If they are devoted to strong tea, for instance, we can teach them first of all that it should not boil on the stove all day.

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When we are dealing with questions of taste, whether in manners, diet, clothing, or household decoration, we cannot afford to take the attitude of the Rev. Mr. Honeythunder, "Come up and be blessed, or I'll knock you down!" We may find a preference for cheap finery very exasperating, but our own example is far more likely to be followed in the long run if we do not insist upon it too much at first. Begin by teaching the homemaker to mend and keep the clothing in good order, and give her some of your own experience as to which materials wear the best.

One of the important items of expenditure is fuel, and the first thing to find out under this head is whether kerosene or any other inflammable fluid is ever used to start the fire. Experienced housekeepers say that it is good economy to have stoves with small gratings and then buy a good grade of pea coal, which, if carefully used, is cheaper and quite as economical as more expensive grades. The poor often prefer expensive, free-burning coals because they are little trouble. A practical engineer says that, in burning pea coal, the fire must be {69} kept clean, not by violent shaking, but by a straight poker used on the bottom of the fire only. Remove clinkers through the top. Add coal in small quantities, and, when not using the fire, give it a good cleaning at the bottom, spread enough coal to make about three inches of fuel in all, put on the draught until kindled, add four inches of fresh coal, allowing the draught to remain on until the gas is burned off, then shut the bottom draughts, take the lids half-way off, and open the top slide, if the stove has one.

In many of the homes into which visitors go, cleanliness seems the greatest lack. Sometimes the mother has lost heart; sometimes she has never known what cleanliness was. Tact is necessary here to avoid hurting the feelings of our poor friends, though some are far more sensitive than others. The Boston woman whose visitor sent soap, scrubbing brushes, mop, and pail, with the message that she was coming on the morrow to use them, took this very broad hint and made the home tidy for the first time in many months, but it is unnecessary to say that all poor people {70} could not be dealt with in this way. One visitor went, when she knew the mother would be absent, and helped the children to clean the house. Another found that, if the family knew she was coming, the home was set in order; so she was careful for a time to come at stated intervals, then tried irregular visits, and was finally rewarded by finding the home presentable at all times.

"Mr. William D. Howells, who during his recent residence in Boston gave much of his valuable time as a visitor for the Associated Charities, was amused one day to be told, on knocking at the door of a house where he had studiously endeavored to inspire a sense of cleanliness, that he could not come in, as the floor had just been washed and he might soil it again." [1]

Housecleaning seasons are not always observed in poor homes. The visitor can call attention to the value of whitewash as a cleaning agent, and if once taught to do it, the children take pleasure in putting it on.

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It is not merely as the adviser about household matters that the visitor can be helpful to the homemaker. Many women in poor neighborhoods lead starved, sordid lives, and long for genuine friendliness and sympathy. A friend who would be helpful to them must exercise the same self-restraint that our own friends exercise with us. The friends who encourage us to exaggerate our troubles and difficulties are not our best friends: theirs is a friendship that tends to weaken our moral fibre. But the sympathy that the poor need and all of us need is the sympathy that makes us feel stronger, the sympathy that is farthest removed from sentimentality. We should be willing to listen patiently to the homemaker's troubles, and should strive to see the world from her point of view, but at the same time we should help her to take a cheerful and courageous tone. One unfailing help, when our poor friends dwell too much upon their own troubles, is to tell them ours. Here, too, indirect suggestion is powerful. The wife, in her attitude toward husband and children, will unconsciously imitate our own attitude {72} toward them. As Miss Jane Addams says, if the visitor kisses the baby and makes much of it, the mother will do the same. A Baltimore visitor has cured one tired woman of scolding her husband in season and out of season by diverting her attention to other things, and by seeking her coöperation in plans for improving the man's habits.

A New York visitor tells of a woman living in a two-room tenement who is regarded as a marvel by her husband's friends because she makes a point of having a specially good meal one night in the week, and it is understood that her husband can bring his friends home to supper on that night without giving her warning. The home is very humble, but she has learned the wisdom of making it a real home for her husband, and one that he can be proud of.

So far, I have ignored the fact that, in the poor home, the woman is often the breadwinner as well as the homemaker. I wish it were possible to ignore the further fact that charitable visitors, finding it difficult to get work for the man or finding him disinclined {73} to take it, will bestir themselves to get work for the woman instead. One of the few rules which it is safe to follow blindly is the rule that we should not encourage any woman to become the breadwinner who has an able-bodied, unemployed man in the house. "Only harm can result," says Mrs. Lowell, "if efforts are made to induce the woman to leave her home daily for work."

Where the breadwinner is disabled, or the woman is a deserted wife or widow, work is, of course, necessary. We must distinguish, however, between the deserted wife and the wife whose husband chronically deserts her, until her condition attracts the charitable help that he returns to share. Widows with children belong to a class with which charity has dealt too harshly in the past. When the woman is incapable of supporting all her children, and this is usually the case, charity has either allowed her family to depend upon insufficient doles and so drift into beggary, or else has put all the children in orphanages. If the mother is a good mother, capable with help of rearing her children to independence and {74} self-support, this latter is not only a cruel but a wasteful method. As charity becomes more discriminating and resourceful, it will be possible to organize pensions for widows of this class, though these pensions will need the careful oversight of a visitor, who should see that the children are taught to bear the family burden as they become older.

There is great diversity of opinion about the value of mothers' meetings for women whose home duties prevent them from attending church on Sunday. If these meetings confined themselves to providing what the church service provides,—a chance for spiritual uplifting and refreshment,—there could be no possible objection to them; but, unfortunately, many mothers' meetings strive to attract and hold members by such small devices as paying them for very bad sewing, or making small gifts, or selling things below cost. These attractions, small as they are, lead many women to neglect their home duties, and it is no unusual thing for one woman to belong to three mothers' meetings of three different denominations, which take her away {75} from home three afternoons in the week. The atmosphere of patronage and "sprinkling charity" that is so common in these meetings, distinctly lowers the self-respect of the women; before very long they learn to write begging notes or send begging messages to "the ladies" in charge, and the place that should be for them a source of spiritual strength becomes merely a source of supplies.

Collateral Readings: "The Lustig's" and "Corinna's Fiametta," Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer in "One Man who was Content and Other Stories." "Practical Sanitary and Economic Cooking" (adapted to persons of moderate and small means), Mrs. Mary Hinman Abel, published by American Public Health Association, Rochester, N.Y. "Foods: Nutritive Value and Cost," by W. O. Atwater in Farmer's Bulletin No. 23 of United States Department of Agriculture. "Dietary Studies in New York City," W. O. Atwater and Charles D. Woods in Bulletin No. 46 of United States Department of Agriculture. The Health Department of New York City will soon publish leaflets prepared by experts, which will contain simple directions about buying and preparing food. "The Le Play Method of Social Observation," "American Journal of Sociology," Vol. II, No. 1. "Treatment of Widows and Dependent Children," Mrs. L. Wolcott in Proceedings of Fifteenth National Conference of Charities, pp. 137 sq. "Girls in a Factory Valley," Mrs. Lillie B. Chace Wyman in "Atlantic," Vol. LXXVIII, pp. 391 sq. and 506 sq.

[1] Mrs. Roger Wolcott in Proceedings of International Congress of Charities at Chicago, Volume on "Organization of Charities," p. 110.

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