An unsigned editorial in the Relief Society Magazine, published late in 1917 just as the United States was finally entering World War I, advised the Church’s women on setting their personal and family priorities in the face of constant, high-profile demands in other publications. You can tell what those other publications were urging women to do, based on this side of the debate. What advice do you think is wise? What makes you cringe?
ARE YOU CONSERVING YOURSELF?
The Nation’s Most Valuable Asset
The post valuable piece of property this nation possesses today is You, yourself. The most costly sacrifice which could be made would be the loss of health or life. The most precious gift you can turn over at your country’s call is your vigorous service in your home, first; in the Relief Society, and Temple, next; and then in ways of conservation and what public service you can render, after the demands made upon you by home and Relief society are satisfied. No woman will help the war cause if she neglect her children or her home. No woman will aid the nation by neglecting her regular contributions to the needy in this Society, nor by attending war charity meetings when she has to stay away from Relief Society meetings to do it. And over and above all these – no woman will be justified before God, angels, or men, who crowds herself daily to the breaking point and beyond it, no matter how good her motive, nor how unselfish the labor she may be engaged in. The Father of our spirits is also custodian of our bodies, and He will hold us to strict account if we knowingly and deliberately shorten our days or make invalids of ourselves for others to nurse. We have just so much time, strength, and nerve force; it is our duty to wisely administer those resources.
Do What You Can, and What You Can’t Do, Don’t Do!
“Yes, but,” says one, “I am a leading officer in the relief Society, and Mr. Hoover tells us we must do this, the State Council wants us to do that, and what am I to do?” Bless your soul, the great cities of this nation are crowded with childless women, women of means and ability for everything but real wifehood and real motherhood. Take it from me, the woman who has a home to keep, a husband, and a family of children on her hands, is doing quite all that the heavens and the earth ought to require of her. True, she may possess rare executive ability – she has to if she is a successful home-maker – and would enjoy using it in public office, and her heart may be torn with sympathy and longing to help when she reads the harrowing calls from the press, but, be at peace, Mother, you will do your full duty if you guard and guide your little ones and make home a haven of rest for husband and family. let the army of childless women do the work for the army of hungry soldiers. There’s enough of them. It was said in Washington that a man was not to be exempted who had married three years and was still childless. What a Daniel came to judgment there!
Fool Advice!
The floods of advice that are loosed upon our helpless heads, by writers who are paid to say things but whose experience is limited to ten-foot flat-bedroom, would make a farmer’s cat laugh. The farmers are harangued, belabored and appealed to, to save the nation in this hour of stress. As a matter of cold facts, the farmer’s boys and hired men are drafted into the army, his wife and daughters are working twenty hours a day to can vegetables, fruit, or to dry it, while they are trotted to meetings and exhibits and demonstrations till their minds and bodies are in the same state of collapse which hovers over the over-worked farmer’s head. No one need worry. High prices make us all economize. Meanwhile, the flat-dwellers in the city – non-producers every one of them, howl hysterically for the farmer to save the nation. Oh, that Mr. Hoover would send the space-writers to can the beans, and the clerks to hoe the corn!
Extravagant Economy.
Another amusing phase of this serious conservation question is the reams of recipes just out by popular magazines to ‘save bread” and other things. A late popular magazine gives a page of stale-bread recipes which call for eggs at 55 doz., molasses at 75c qt., sugar at 12c lb., milk at 15c qt., cream at 60c qt., and jelly at 40c a glass, butter at 60c lb., with which to use up a cup or more of stale bread crumbs. Nice economical advice that! While nuts, cracked pecans, at $1.00 lb, in various ways are suggested to take the place of 15c worth of hamburger steak. This is the day of the faddist and theorist. Still another piece of senseless advice to us out here in Utah is to have meatless days. Why, we have meatless months! Then they talk of breadless days! Gracious, don’t they know that rice and potatoes, as well as corn meal, are twice as expensive when it comes to satisfying hungry men and children! How can you get people to buy rice when they grow flour twice as cheaply? The magazines give pages of economy menus that make plain livers gasp because of their gross extravagance. When one observes the wicked waste of cafeterias, hotels, and eating-houses, one wonders why Hoover does not tackle the real source of waste. Hotels throw out and burn more than would feed the people in all the homes in the city. It is to laugh!
Our Duty to God, to Home, to the Relief Society, to our Country and to Ourselves.
What shall we do about all these matters, mothers and grandmothers? Try to have every one eat all that is taken on the plate. Be care to use every possible bit of food material. Don’t burn bread or any foods in cooking them – this is the worst economical sin in the dietician’s decalogue. Do a little more patching. Make the old clothes last a little longer. Teach the children true economy. Don’t serve too much variety at any one meal. where you have to buy milk, make gruel for children, to cut down expense. But don’t rob yourself nor your family of plenty of good, nourishing food. People who work hard need to eat well. Comfort and cheer your husbands in this difficult period. Be quiet and calm in your feelings, and do a little temple or genealogical work each week. Attend faithfully to your prayers, pay your tithing and keep the Word of Wisdom. When you can get out to assist in all this war work without overtaxing yourself or neglecting your home, do so. But above all things, cultivate poise, balance, peace and calmness. This is our highest duty to God, to our loved ones, to our country and to ourselves.
I think what makes me cringe the most is the author’s statement that “farmers are harangued, belabored and appealed to”, and then she/he proceeds to harangue the readers and belabour the point too.
Being a non-producing city dweller, I don’t think I’m allowed to say anything.
Well, although a non-producing city dweller, I can pitch in — because I have means and ability for everything but real wifehood and real motherhood.
Hmm, no one likes to be patronized, even those who like to patronize others, so that is pretty obnoxious right there.
This editorial does make me think of a couple of family stories, however.
My Father in law was rejected for the draft two weeks after the Pearl Harbor attack due to a terrible heart murmur. (The poor man spent 82 of his 90 years on death’s door. After a while he just didn’t let it bother him.) But there was the question of whether that meant he should count toward the allotment of sons left at home to help run the farm, which was obviously necessary. He took correspondence courses to improve his farming which made him eligible for a big competition held by Ford Ferguson in which he won a tractor that probably cost as much as the family farm. He was then called on a mission. The only thing that allowed his family to do without his labor for that three years was the tractor. So Ross never even got to use it until it was worn out from keeping his family (and possibly several other families) afloat. I will add that his health caused enough problems that his assignment was changed from Chicago to California, but that he significantly outlived most of the healthy members of his age cohort.
We still have internet stories that tell us how we can save thousands of dollars a year by not using stuff I don’t buy anyway. But costs of foodstuffs can be a very regional thing, and the Relief Society Magazine was probably as regional as any of the other publications. The story is told that my frugal widowed grandmother visited her daughter in Pennsylvania. My aunt pulled some cream cheese out of the refrigerator. My grandmother was horrified at the waste of money and spouted off a recipe for homemade cream cheese. My aunt patiently pointed out that the box said, “Philadelphia cream cheese,” which correctly implied that it had been made just down the highway. It was far cheaper to buy that than to buy the ingredients Grandmother proposed. In the same way, rice was probably cheaper than wheat in Louisiana, but not in Utah.
And finally, one of the most important qualities in raising teenagers is the ability to get snarky instead of angry, so Ardis, you clearly have talents going to waste. (I wonder if you could mix them with some butter, milk, walnuts and potatoes, and get more use out of them.)