Those Private Things

Sanitary Napkins

Have you ever wondered what girls used for sanitary napkins before the stores sold them. And perhaps even after the stores began to sell them, many girls could not afford them, or buy them in rural areas. It was always a serious and very embarassing topic. Not one discussed with many people. Even your mother. If you were not lucky enough to have an older sister, the event could spring upon you and catch you unawares. It was not considered a pleasant episode, and yet it wasn't pampered enough to allow for time off from chores or school.

When you finally discovered what had happened to your body was acceptable and everyone else had dealt with this before you, you were amazed it had ever escaped your notice. Small clothes were torn or cut, and inside these were layed bits of small rags or cloths, and it was neatly folded into thirds, sort of like we do our legal envelopes today, and pinned with small safty pins to our undergarments. The outer square was often soaked in a small bucket of soapy water and washed and reused the next month in much the same way that cloth diapers were handled. It was up to the maker how absorbant, how large or how small it needed to be. It was never discussed, at least in my family, and everyone tended privately to handling this task for themselves.

It was rumored that the Indian girls had used the fluff from inside cottontails to line their napkins with. But I never would ask one, and so I cannot say for certain. It seemed like a good idea to me at the time, but I never tried it personally.

The other important product, toilet tissue, was also not available. Did the Sears catalog ever fall into use for this purpose? Yes, I am afraid to say it did. And before Sears, when paper was scarce, other means more rough were used, such as the leaves off corn cobs, even corn cobs themselves.

Washing up in the morning consisted, if you were lucky, of a small basin in your room, with a pitcher of water. You didn't use a lot of water, and you didn't waste the soap, too much lather meant more water. Many families washed up in the kitchen. Usually a teakettle was boiling on the stove and you could slip in a little hot water to the cold for a nice wash up.

Men had long leather straps they honed their razors on to sharpen them, and a small warpy mirror for reflection to use near some good light. The razors were called straight edge, a folding affair that opened out, like a pocket knife does. Men would steam their face with a hot cloth, and take a small round brush and a little water. The soap was held in a cup and the would circle the brush into the soap until a lather was formed. This lather was transferred to the face and the razor more or less scraped off the whiskers. Girls didn't shave. The hair that grew, just grew.

Haircuts were given by the mother. Jokes were made about the bowls being set on the heads of boys, and the hair that hung below the bowl was trimmed. But that was the way it was often done. For girls too. If the girls mothers were more patient, braids were the other option. If you wanted to look like Shirley Temple, you had to roll your hair into little rag strips which you tied in little knots before you went to bed. These only worked well if your hair was inclined to curl. Different fashions came and went. Sometimes hair was rolled over little bags of cut hair, or cotton and your own hair pulled over it and hairpinned to hold it in place.

Hair was washed about once a week, usually when you took your bath. As you became more interested in trying to be more attractive, girls would rinse their hair with rainwater from barrels collected outside. The well water was hard, and the rainwater was soft, allowing the soap to lather more, and rinse off better. Hopefully leaving your hair softer and shinier. Vinegar too was used to rinse your hair. Unfortunately it had a pungent odor. Different ideas passed along from girl to girl and were the fad of the time. Tea, henna to give your hair reddish highlights. We all tried it once.

If you were a girl you always carried a hankerchief. These were small cotton squares, often cut from flour sacks, and embroidered carefully with your finest stitches. You loved having lace on your petticoat, and hoped you could have two petticoats to make your skirt stand out fully. In our family, if you wanted lace, you had to make it. Crocheting was the first lace you learned to make. When you caught on how to do it, you were crocheting lace on everything, your pillowcases, your petticoats, your nightgowns, and your undershirts. At first your crocheting was with heavier thread, but as you got better at it, you would get finer and thinner threads until your lace could become a light spidery edge. Threads were not very expensive, and a ball of thread could go a long way in this pursuit. We made our own purses, usually draw string affairs, and often to match our dresses. We also liked to make smaller bags, to contain flower petals which we hoped would smell nice in our clothes.

Tooth brushing was usually a rag dipped in baking soda and applied with a finger. We didn't really know about deodorant. Aprons were important to keep our clothes clean as long as possible. Aprons were worn all the time as we did our chores. Even our dad worn an apron when he butchered and when he cooked. We thought all dads wore them.

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