1851
March 31st Monday This morning after doing my chores about
house, cut out a shirt of rather coarse unbleached
cloth for Mr Ames, am going to put a linen
bosom into it. Also cut a coarse shirt for
Oliver, have been mending some, but have not
sewed any on the shirts. Called this afternoon
on Mr Holmes & at Bridgets to see the dress
maker, Worked awhile on my scrap book. Orinthia
& I spent the evening at Olivers, Jane at G. Bartletts P.M.
After her morning chores on this last day of March, Evelina cut out more shirt parts. Any reader who has been following this blog on a daily basis has seen Evelina’s prodigious production of shirts for her husband and three sons. This particular project is soon to end. After one or two more mentions, Evelina will leave behind the cuffs, bosoms, and coarse and fine cloth of men’s shirtmaking and move into dressmaking for herself and her daughter, Susan. And when fair weather truly arrives, she will head for her flower garden. She will never completely stop sewing – there was always mending to be done – but she will relax her grip on needle and thread.
Today being Monday, Jane McHanna was busy with the weekly laundry, washing the family linens and clothes and hanging them out to dry. In the evening – after preparing tea for the family, no doubt – Jane left to go to a Mr. Bartlett’s. The call was probably a social one, but we don’t know whom she visited. Because so many of the servants in the village had recently immigrated from Ireland, they tended to know one another and often visited each other when they had time off. Meanwhile, Evelina and the young boarder, Orinthia Foss, headed next door to visit Sarah Lothrop Ames. It was a sociable evening for all the women in the Ames household.
evelinaames 