Keeping Up With Change

Imagine living through the late 19^th century and trying to keep up with changing technology! Now, we think it’s a challenge to have our smart phone out of date when the latest model comes out, but

how challenging would it have been to adjust to the actual technology of telephone service for the first time. And electricity! Some people actually preferred sticking with their candles and oil lamps. That is the situation encountered by the characters in my most recent book, Torn in Toronto.

Some things were probably easy to adopt, such as plumbing.

The City of Toronto had a public water system in place as early as 1872, but many homes in the city were not connected to it. Some residents still used well water or shared an outdoor city water faucet with neighbours. Backyard privies were still commonplace, and when they leaked or overflowed, they contaminated water in nearby wells. Some houses had no toilet facilities at all and residents simply threw the contents of their chamber pots into street gutters or their yard. (Ew!)

 The first two medical officers of health, Dr. William Canniff and Dr. Charles Sheard, understood that many diseases can be transmitted by bacteria-contaminated water. They had a strong influence on the development of a clean water supply and wastewater disposal system for Toronto. Both doctors wanted wells and privies eliminated, and all buildings connected to new city water mains and sewers.

By 1900, most of this work was completed, improving living conditions for many people.

This was a fantastic development. Except so much of the downtown area was already built! Imagine trying to hook up this new system to an established house/neighborhood?

What about electricity?

Toronto emerged from the shadows thanks to the pioneering efforts of its first electricity company and its leading light, J. J. Wright.

Electricity was rare in the late 1870s, but it wasn't a total novelty in Toronto - it had been employed years earlier for sending telegraphs and powering telephone lines. Without a generator or a central supply network, the messaging companies, including the Toronto Telephone Despatch Co., the producers of the city's first phone book, relied on simple batteries.

A few years later, in 1881, John Joseph Wright built the first Canadian-made generator in a spare room at his father-in-law's box factory. Wright installed his generator near King and Yonge and sold the piercing light of the early bulbs to Eaton's department store and a handful of other local businesses keen to appear technologically advanced. In doing so, Wright became the first person to generate and sell electricity commercially in Toronto.

Providing light to the city became a competitive business as various companies vied for contracts to light the streets. As electricity became more common in residences, there also became available household “High-tech” products for the ‘families that kept no servants,’ as the company advertised. Things such as electric irons, toasters, waffle irons, coffee urns, cooking ranges, and vacuum cleaners.

Read more about how this type of thing affected people in my latest book, Torn in Toronto.

Could love be the greatest adventure of all?

Caitlyn Doherty wanted more adventure than her proper life in upper class Toronto allowed. It took a struggle against her parents’ restrictive views for her to be able to accept a position as telephone operator. She wanted to experience more than just finding a rich husband to marry.

Connor Dalton was too busy overcoming his childhood of poverty by becoming a fabulously wealthy businessman to even consider starting a family. But he feels so drawn to his telephone operator, it puts him in a very awkward position.

When Caitlyn’s mother pushes her toward Connor’s business rival, Connor and Caitlyn must both decide what they value most.

If you like sweet, swoony love stories set in the adventurous, late 19^th century, then you’ll enjoy every minute of reading Torn in Toronto.

Get it on Amazon - click here.

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How Quickly Times Changed!!

I’m currently writing my first “modern” book set in 1881. It’s such a thrilling time period! Until now, my most “modern” time period was the 1850s. It’s shocking how much technology changed in those twenty to thirty years! What a thrill it would have been to live then. But trying to keep up would have been a challenge and makes for interesting character development for some. A great time period for a historical writer <grin>

For example, in my current manuscript, my heroine is answering the newly invented telephone for the hero’s industrial company. His company is involved in running the wires on the streets for the newly developed electricity. And heroine’s mother hates all this modernizing and didn’t want the wires coming to her house. Thankfully, her husband insisted that for the future property value of their house, they had to at least have the wires run while the company was working on their street. My heroine tries to reason with her mother by asking how she would like to be without the indoor plumbing that they now take for granted but had only been run through their city in the last thirty or so years.

These are things that we take for granted nowadays, but it’s fascinating to think about how some

might have resisted these “newfangled gadgets”!

Even transportation! When I was writing my Proxy Brides books, I had to keep researching just how far West the train would have gotten in the year I wanted. Connecting the East and West coasts by train travel changed everything! And in the twenty-five years between my eras, train travel times shrunk exponentially. When they first connected the coasts, it took two weeks or more to make the trip which was still extremely fast compared to travelling by ox pulled wagons, but by the 1880s it only takes a few days!

Fortunes were gained and lost even more quickly with the advancement of technology. Those who could adapt, thrived. Those who could not, lost out. This is a thrilling time period for historical authors. I personally read and write for the escapism of it. Because of that, all my books have an extreme. Usually extreme wealth – the hero is a duke or an earl or a wealthy land owner or struck it rich with the gold rush. I think the 1880s will allow for many extremes as so many were learning and discovering new and improved things.

If you want to stay abreast of when this particular book releases, please sign up for my newsletter or join my Facebook group.

In the meantime, please enjoy one of my Proxy Brides books, A Bride for Ransom:

They find themselves married...but can they be a family?

Ransom is just looking for a mother for his orphaned niece. The fact that she’s from Boston is a bonus. Their arrangement allows him to get out of town.

Hannah needs a husband. Her new name will protect her siblings. The fact that he lives in the back of beyond gives them a place to hide. She hadn’t counted on him being so appealing.

But what happens when they realize how very permanent their proxy marriage truly is?

Available from Amazon, included in your KU subscription.

Life in the Old West—Cooking in the Victorian Kitchen

Life in the Old West - Cooking in the Victorian Kitchen

When writing My Heart Will Find Yours I learned a lot about nineteenth-century kitchens.

Very few homes had an ice box, the kind where a block of ice was delivered to sit in an insulated reservoir in the top of the wooden structure. They were invented for home use in the 1840s, but it wasn't until the 1870s that the U.S. had ice plants that produced artificial ice. In the model seen here, the block would go in the unopened door to the left. As the ice melted the cold water flowed down the sides and kept the contents inside cool. Note the pan on the floor. Of course, in hot weather, the ice didn't last more than a couple of days. Owners had a sign with 25 lbs, 50 lbs, 75 lbs, and 100 lbs on each side. You'd prop the side up with the amount you needed out front so when the iceman came by he'd know what size block to bring in for you. This picture can be found in an online article titled Early Days of Refrigeration at www.lclark.edu/

I found an advertisement for a model almost identical to this one. No date was given but the price was $16.98.

My mother-in-law said that even in the early thirties they kept their perishables in a spring house, a small shed built over a spring. Food was covered with dish towels or cheese cloth to keep out flies and other pests, and the flowing water kept the room cool. Some homes had a larder which was a room on the coolest side of the house or in the cellar. None of these solutions would make modern homemakers happy, but folks back then didn't know any difference and the system worked for them.

No kitchen was complete without a cupboard or Hoosier. Here kitchen utensils were stored. Many had a flour bin (see above right in cabinet), a built-in sifter, a granite or tin top for rolling pie crusts and biscuit dough, and drawers for storage. Note the meat grinder attached to the left and the butter churn on the floor to the right with a wash board behind. Hopefully the homemaker had a sink with a hand pump with room to the side to stack clean dishes to dry. A shelf below would hold pails and a dish pan.

This picture was taken at the East Texas Oil Museum in Kilgore, Texas, and dates somewhere around the 1920s or 1930s. The design in these cupboards didn't change much over time so earlier models looked much like this one. Today cupboards or Hoosiers have become popular decorative additions to modern kitchens, as have old ice boxes. I have one though it's not a genuine Hoosier but a generic type of which there were a lot. It's a nice decorative piece.

Last, but not least, in importance to the homemaker was the wood cook stove. Before the cast iron kitchen stove was invented, women cooked over hearths with ovens built into the wall, if they were well-off, or outside in a fire pit. Both methods were hard on the back due to bending over to stir food in pots suspended from iron hooks. Cast iron pot bellied stoves, used mainly for heat, could be used for some cooking, but lucky was the woman who had a genuine kitchen cook stove like the one pictured here.  

This is a restored model pictured at http://www.bryantstove.com/ Many models such as this one had a copper lined reservoir on the side to keep water warm for beverages, dishwater, or bathing. The smart homemaker never let it go dry. In my reading I noticed some even had a kick plate to open the oven door when hands were full. Some of these models were designed to use either wood or coal oil. Restored wood stoves are popular and being added to homes of individuals who like antiques and love to cook. They aren't for the person who wants to pop something in the oven and go about their business as the product must be watched carefully to make sure oven temperature is maintained. Also, they're quite expensive, 
between two and three thousand dollars.

Managing a house hold during this era wasn't for the weak. Just lifting those iron cooking vessels took a strength many modern women don't possess. But, I guess carrying buckets of milk from the barn, doing the wash in the yard using a scrub board, and their other daily chores built muscles. And don't you just love the old bath tub?

My time travel heroines face multiple challenges when learning to live and take care of a home in the nineteenth century. Though it’s never easy, their love for their hero gives them the perseverance to adjust to a past way of life.

A Law of Her Own, A Marshall of Her Own, and A Love of His Own released today from The Wild Rose Press are all set in the nineteenth century town of Prairie, Texas. In this last story, the individual to travel back in time is the hero and though he doesn’t have to adjust to cooking in a Victorian kitchen, he does have to adjust to many other aspects of life in the past.

Thanks for reading,

Linda

Linda LaRoque
Writing Romance with a Twist in Time
A Marshal of Her Own, Feb. 2012 Book of the Month at Long and Short Reviews
www.lindalaroque.com
http://www.lindalaroqueauthor.blogspot.com

Mourning Customs in the Victorian Era (The Nineteenth Century)

In my current WIP, set in 1890's Ireland, the heroine's mother dies and she's faced with the strict mourning customs of Victorian society in the United Kingdom. Not familiar with all the nuances, I researched the subject and accumulated a wealth of knowledge. Interestingly, very little of the data will be used in my novel, but perhaps I can use it down the line.

We think of people in the Victorian Era as prudish and repressed, but they had an almost fanatical obsession with death. Queen Victoria's mourning practices are a prime example of that obsession. She mourned for forty years—dressed in black everyday, kept their home as it was the day he died, and the servants continued Prince Albert's routine—from hot water for shaving to scouring his chamber pot. And a bust of the prince or painting appeared in almost every photographic portrait of the royal family.

This picture of the Albert's five daughters was taken by William Bambridge, the Royal Collection RC IN 2900549.

Today, most deaths occur in the hospital, not in the home, so we are removed from the dying process. Mourners would gather around the dying person's bed hoping to hear a last word. These words and their presence would signify the persons transition from this world to the next.

"Because of high mortality rates in Victorian England, she said, death and mourning became a way of life for survivors...'Mourning,' said Christ, 'created a powerful sense of being bound to the loyalty of the past.'"

Berkeleyan Home Search Archive, D. Lyn Hunter, Public Affairs. 4/5/1000.

During the mourning period, women wore heavy, black, concealing clothing and black veils of crepe—called "widows weeds". The only jewelry a widow might wear would be mourning jewelry made of black jet, cameos, or a locket designed to hold a lock of hair. Clothing for each stage of mourning was dictated—"full mourning", "half mourning". In the later stage, clothing in gray or lavender could be introduced.

Photo: Detief Thomas - de.Wikipedia.

Men wore mourning suits of black frock coats with matching trousers and waistcoats. Only men in uniform could wear black armbands. Also, it was appropriate for servants to wear them.

Widows were required to remain in mourning for one full year up to four years and could not enter society for twelve months. Changing her costume earlier would be considered disrespectful and if the woman were young and attractive, she'd be considered promiscuous.

Men were in mourning for one to two and a half years, for a sibling, it was six months, and for a child, as long as the parent felt the need. In the 19th century, mourning could be very expensive. Mourners needed an entire set of new clothes and it wasn't proper to keep mourning clothes in the closet. It was common for those who couldn't afford new clothes to take clothing to be dyed black or dyed it themselves.

en.wipipedia.org/wiki/Mourning.

The American Civil War coincided with the death of Prince Albert.

"Here are some interesting facts about dead and mourning.

*The deceased was usually dressed and laid out in the home where they lived. Sometimes embalming took place in the home in the days before funeral homes became the norm.

*All mirrors in the house had to be covered. Should a mirror fall on its own and break, that meant someone in the family would soon die.

*If there was a clock in the room where a person diet, it must be stopped or someone in the family would die.

*The body had to be carried out of the house feet first or it could look into the home, inviting others to follow it in death.

*Mourning clothes were among the first made available on a mass market scale.

*Queen Victoria mourned her husband from the time of his death in 1861 until her own death in 1901.

*The custom of sitting with the dead (commonly called a wake) was likely started to keep rodents away from the body. The body of the deceased must not be left unattended from the time of death until burial."

en.wipipedia.org/wiki/Mourning
Museum of Mourning Customs

en.wipipedia.org/wiki/Mourning

"...In this time, a veil was considered a necessity as it protected her, as well as those who saw her in public. It was believed the spirit of the dead would hover close to those it had loved in life. Should someone look directly int the face of a mourning woman, the spirit could attach itself to that person. It also disguised the tear stained face of the bereaved.

The material was also to have a sheen to it. It was believed this sheen, along with the black color, would make it difficult for the spirit of the dead to see the mourner..."

When a widows period of mourning was over, she'd send out invitations to her neighbors.

During the Civil War, it wasn't uncommon for a young war widow to remarry. With farms to run and having children, many remarried within a few months.

Widowers weren't as strictly ruled by society, especially if they had young children to care for.

At this time, behavior was carefully watched. The widow was expected to scream and cry. If the sister-in-law or neighbor did the same, rumors flew regarding their behavior.

examiner.com
Life/Religion & Spirituality/General Religion, April 15, 2012.

Times during the wild west, many died in duels, cowboys and Indians fighting for control of territory, and bar fights led to the need for many funerals.

During these days, coffins were handmade, usually by a furniture store owner, many of who served as funeral directors. Friends and family gathered around to exchange gossip and tell stories about the deceased. The coffin usually rested on top of a couple of saw horses. The minister gave the funeral service, and then the pallbearers loaded the coffin on a farm wagon. Mourners followed the wagon a short distance to the cemetery where the preacher gave his final prayers. Mourners would "take on"loudly and if the family didn't their love for the deceased was questioned.

Boot Hill cemeteries were called so because many people were killed wearing their boots, such as in a gun battle.

The Clanton Gang aka The Cowboys
A large sign read
MURDERED IN THE STREETS OF TOMBSTONE
Google Images

Google Images

A common custom upon the death of a Calvary officer, a riderless horse, with boots placed backward in the stirrups, would take place in the funeral procession. This tradition still takes place today in professions and, areas where riding a horse is a way of life.

Riderless Horse Memorial Service
Fort Worth, Texas
Google Images

This information is a mere summary of the customs and practices surrounding death and mourning in the nineteenth century.

Oh, about my work in progress, the title is A Touch of Irish. It's a western historical that begins in Ireland and is set in the arid area of 1890s Fort Stockton, Texas. I've run into several obstacles, but the words are finally clicking along.

Thank you for stopping by Sweethearts of the West today and Happy Reading and Writing!

Linda
http://www.lindalaroqueauthor.blogspot.com
www.lindalaroque.com