SACRED HEART STUDENTS CELEBRATE 1867
/The following two entries are contributions of Westley Youmans and Brianna Young were sent to us by Sacred Heart School.
CHILDREN IN 1867
By Brianna at Sacred Heart School
Have you ever wondered what growing up was like in 1867? Well I have and here is what I have found.
Family Home
Children didn't have a lot of time to play. A typical day went like this: wake up and have a bite to eat then off to do chores. If you lived in a village and your mom and dad owned a store you helped out around the store. If there was a lot of work to do, the parents would pull the kids out of school to get the job done.
Old Fashioned Fun
Children played outside when they weren't doing their chores or helping adults. They would play in wooden tubs and pretend they were in a boat. They also loved to play doctor. They played dressup with their mothers clothes. When they were lucky they would get a peppermint stick from the general store, or on a hot summers day they would find a nice river or pond to fish and swim in.
Chores
When a child hit the age of five they are expected to do small sized adult chores such as picking berries and apples. They also collected eggs from the chickens, washed the families clothes,and looked after small animals. They also fetched water and milked the cows. One of the most dangerous jobs as a child were trying to get around the geese in the yard.
Hair/Clothes/Medicine
In 1867 the children did not go to barber shops. Their grandpa or grandma would sit them up on the back porch and cut their hair when needed. When children pass three years of age their clothes were made to look like small adults. Some clothes were made from skins of animals like deer,squirrel, rabbit ,bear and buffalo. The skins of the animal would keep the children warm in the colder months. Most clothes were made with wool or linen or both.
For medicine they would go to the doctor and depending on what was wrong he would make a paste made of different herbs and put them on the areas of the body that he thought were infected. There were not many doctors, so people tried to make their own medicine at home. There were two different kinds of herbal remedies. Simples and Benefits. Simples cured the illness and Benefits were like vitamins.
