As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
I always remember my Grandpa telling me stories of things. People really do not know what it was like in the remote areas of the world, when all seems Walmart instant now in piles of articles to purchase.
When my dad and beloved Uncle were boys, pants were not something which were available where they lived. It was that story my Grandpa told me often enough, in he decided to end the quandary by writing to Chicago in Sears and Roebuck or Montgomery Wards, and told them, that he could not find pants for his sons, and he would appreciate it, if they could send him two pair.
It was not that long and two pairs of pants arrived COD at the post office. I remember the stories as my dad would constantly relate how every night after supper, they would be lined up for inspection and if their pants were wet, they would have to go out and cut a switch to be spanked with, as orders were to not get those pants wet.
Spanking was an affair where the boys could run around in a circle to lessen the blows. I imagine it was like riding herd over a bunch of calves in you just sort of hope they stay in the pen long enough to not run off down the road.
It is in that, which I found a blurb from Libby Custer in 1869 AD in the year of our Lord, which is of note, and is something which is so odd now that, people should be informed of what the world was like in that era.
Quote:
"Sometimes boots or shoes were ordered by mail and sent separately, on account of bulk or postage. Any one anxiously looking for his second shoe in two or three successive mails was told, in a teasing and foreboding way, that the other shoe would never come"
Elizabeth Bacon Custer. Following the Guidon
I remember ordering things as a child and it was pure torture, as it took a week for the mail to go out, and a week return, and then probably 3 days to process the order...........and then when you got the package, you never got what you thought it looked like in the catalogue and it rarely fit.
I remember two Sears pants I ordered on season. Being both the same waste size in order, one was about as small as one's spinal column and the other would have fit big ass Muchelle Obama.
That is why it must have been the worst of things in dealing with ordering shoes, and due to weight, things were packaged separately. Yes I have ordered things like that, but they come within a day. Imagine though 1869 and shoes separted in rail cars, and wagon loads, and you have one shoe arriving after two months to remote America, and all you can do is admire your shoe as you wear it out putting it on to look at for another month as the other shoe appears.
From what Mrs. Custer related, apparently often enough the other shoe never did get delivered.
People do not realize that a Conestoga wagon or army wagon was the weight which teams of horses pulled. The west was littered with furniture dumped off in order to save the starving horses and their sore feet.
One pound does make a difference, even in trains and steamboats, all with limited space for cargo.
From bloody rag covered feet at Valley Forge to Fort Hays Kansas waiting for a yard of cloth or another shoe to arrive, it must have been an ordeal of slowing down of life, and having to plan months or even years in advance if something had to come from London.
It was all something of life and I do share the misery of that era, as Libby Custer would buy things on sale to be greeted by George with "what are you doing with THAT", as in a large bowl, which they found later was more popular in being invited to parties than they were.
Mom used to frown at me with that same phrase and things by Inspiration proved to be right.....then again Mom always would be sent to buy things, but never come home to my chagrin with what I asked for. It being important as things I usually wanted were transformed into school clothes, work clothes or "presents" I had need of, but would be delayed until a birthday or Christmas.
Seeing someone with one shoe while waiting for the other to come, must have been great pleasure in a sadistic way for those around, as they too knew their one shoe time would come, and they would be sitting there trying on that one shining shoe until it was no longer shiny as the other would finally arrive.
I wonder how most had to be flat as pancakes packed under a ton of coal, or smell of mold as they got soaked on the way out.........or in the hold with a herd of horses.
Yes I once ordered a bread maker off of Ebay from Georgia............it arrived with the distinct aroma of skunk.
agtG
