Monday, March 04, 2019

Rural Life in 1898


I've started the four-unit course to become a licensed lay worship leader (not a minister, just a more official version of what I've done for six years) so I spent the weekend at a retreat centre. Our Sunday morning worship took place in two churches, including an old rural church that less than ten people attend in the winter time.
It would have been packed a hundred years ago.
This framed poster, donated in 1995, hangs in the entryway. It's from 1898, and while the storm date is interesting -- "If Wednesday proves stormy, come first fine night" -- it's the time of the supper that really caught my eye: 8 to 10 pm.
On December 29th.
Not 8 to 10 pm in the summer time, when it was still light, and the men had been working outside, but 8 to 10 pm in the dead of winter. So I suppose that illustrates a long-lost fact of country life a hundred years ago: most people had cattle to be milked so the community/church supper took place after those chores were done and the men cleaned up.
Oh, and today? That oyster supper would be 12 dollars.



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