posted on March 7, 2007 09:42:43 PM
Sheesh. Why did the title get cut off before I could write "tidy"?
Hi, all. This week my husband and I have begun the task of deciphering tough handwriting in a relative's 1880 diary. This was a woman whose family, named Folsom, founded a town, Tekamah, in Nebraska and had a good amount of money. In January 1880 she talks about beginning a tidy, working on a tidy, and then working on it more, calling it a black tidy. My hunch is that a tidy was something you put on furniture to keep it clean, like a doily or antimacassar, but do you have other ideas? I tried googling it but there are about 3 billion references to tidy, as you can imagine.
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People who want to share their religious views with you almost
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[ edited by roadsmith on Mar 7, 2007 09:43 PM ]
posted on March 7, 2007 10:36:58 PM
Thanks, Fluff. Have never heard the term before. Would guess it is referring to the couch/chair doilies rather than the box with small compartments.
posted on March 7, 2007 10:37:30 PM
Thanks, Fluffy. I don't have a dictionary in my software and rarely consult one. This site is good. Appreciate your help!
_____________________
People who want to share their religious views with you almost
never want you to share yours with them.
posted on March 8, 2007 03:14:56 AM
and the word tidy is a whole lot easier to spell than an antimacassar!
[ edited by pmelcher on Mar 8, 2007 03:15 AM ]
posted on March 8, 2007 05:04:54 AM
In my young years - I can remember when the cleanest folks washed their hair once a week - UGH - no wonder they needed doilies to protect the furniture!
posted on March 8, 2007 05:05:07 AM
Indeed. Not sure of the spelling but they were "anti hair oil" which is what the "macassar" refers to. Men wore so much oil on their hair that it made a grease spot on the back of chairs. -----o----o----o----o----o----o----o----o
“The illiterate of the future will be the person ignorant of the use of the camera as well as of the pen.”
Maholy-Nagy, Vision in Motion, 1947
